Monday, September 08, 2008

Novel writing all washed up

First Things - Revisiting the Novel

The post above, from the very readable First Things blog, is a complaint by someone about how he has lost interest in novels, and is finding it hard to get back into them. (He's doing that by reading Jane Austen, though, which certainly wouldn't be the approach I would try.) My weekend thoughts on To Kill a Mockingbird has also inspired me to get around to posting on this topic.

I too have developed something of a problem with finding engaging fiction in the last few years. I used to read a lot of science fiction up to about the end of the 1980's when, despite the apparent good news of the end of the Cold War in the real world, it seemed that science fiction went pretty deeply pessimistic and ugly. Old optimistic authors I used to like (Niven and Pournelle, for example) stopped producing really good work. Arthur C Clarke's prose style (never a strong point of his books anyway) became ever worse, and as for Heinlien's last rambling novels of the 1980's, the less said the better.

I still get a hankering to read science fiction from time to time, and not being aware of any current American authors to my taste, in the last couple of years I have tried a few British science fiction writers who seem to be well reviewed. Peter Hamilton can be good in parts, and I quite like his future technology ideas, but I feel he often badly needs more editing. Ken McLeod's underlying socialist politics is just too obvious. "Blindsight" by Peter Watts was another go at the "first contact"sub-genre that I felt pretty much went no where. (For some bizarre reason, he thought it a good idea to have a main character who is literally a vampire, which the novel treats as a real human sub-species.)

I am presently reading the first novel by Charles Stross (The Atrocity Archives), and while it is passable so far, it immediately struck me as being like a novel length treatment of ideas found in Heinlein's novella "Magic Inc". This is, I suppose, the fundamental problem for new science fiction: all the major themes were done by great novels within the first 50 or so years of the genre. It surely is a challenge to re-visit the sub-genres in a way that is fresh and worthwhile.

The thing I find common in these authors is the lack of readily likeable characters. Perhaps Peter Hamilton comes closest in this regard, but as I say, I think he has other faults.

Away from science fiction, I find the themes of most recent novels don't appeal. Probably due to my interest in religion generally, examinations of characters' lives from a purely secular point of view just seem somewhat lacking in significance to me. (This is a major fault in Australian film too: religion as something important to the characters is rarely present, or if it is, it is only ever portrayed in a negative light.) That there would be consideration of the "bigger picture" could be expected of the famous Catholic authors of the 20th century, but as First Things commented in June, those days seem long gone. I tried Shirley Hazzard recently, who seemed to be reviewed as if she had many of the qualities of older, mid 20th century fiction, but (as I have posted before) I actually found her style woeful, despite the high praise she generally receives.

As for the famous Catholic writers, by the 1990's I had read all of Waugh. However, I have only recently just read my first Graham Greene novel. (The Bomb Party, a short, less well regarded work.) It was pretty good, and I liked his style. I think I will be trying more. But it is kind of depressing that I have to be dipping back 60 years to find fiction that appeals.

So the point of this ramble is that it has occurred to me that, just as nearly everyone in their 40's starts thinking that popular music has peaked and is in decline, it seems to me that almost no good fiction has been written since around 1990.

Pity really.

5 comments:

gerard said...

I take the same view as to the poor quality of recent literary efforts. But there is some silver among the dross. I'd point to The Secret History by Donna Tartt and from a Catholic author, Father Elijah by Michael O'Brien.

If you like Science Fiction, I can't recommend Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card highly enough- though perhaps you've already read it; I believe it was published in the early 90s.

Anonymous said...

In recent science fiction, you should try John C. Wright's Orphans of Chaos trilogy or The Golden Age trilogy.

Steve said...

Thank you for the suggestions. However, I did read Ender's Game in the last couple of years, being aware that it was quite highly regarded, and found it a tedious bore! I couldn't for the life of me see why it was so popular. Maybe my brain has moved into some mode that has a lot of trouble with science fiction now...

In other fiction, I did read the first novel by Lian Hearn in her Tales of the Otori series (Across the Nightingale Floor), which is set in medieval Japan but has elements of paranormal powers in it too. I was really enjoying her prose style, and having been to Japan often, felt it was very authentic. Then the plot had a major incident that I found too gruesome and jarring, and I was put off trying the rest of the series.

If anyone who is reading has continued through the series, perhaps you can let me know if my fears are well founded or not!

Anonymous said...

Mark Helprin's Soldier of the Great War (1991) is a masterful piece of fiction.

Michael Prescott said...

I recommend Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire, a stirring recreation of the Battle of Thermopylae that leaves the overrated movie The 300 in the dust.

Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth is another fine historical novel - a sweeping medieval saga.

As my agent likes to say, there are 150,000 titles published every year, so if you think there's nothing good coming out, it's possible you've overlooked something!