A Case for the Larger Canvas
Written byPosted on August 23, 2005
Filed Under Literary Motifs, Reading
Today, the New York Times noted the arrival of Paul Anderson’s debut novel, Hunger’s Brides, commenting upon its 1,360 page length rather than a more important attribute to gauge — namely, how this book rates as literature.
I’ve never understood people who complain about length in art. One encounters this with film critics as they are bombarded with three-hour Oscar epics. But why should length even matter? To me, it smacks of a petty excuse to kvetch or to boast, rather than assess a book’s worth. Besides, there are plenty of 200-pagers I’ve read that drag as dully as a man holding onto his chastity in a motel room.
However, like Scott, I find myself ineluctably drawn to these mammoth affairs. (Case in point: I’ve read every comparative book mentioned with the exception of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy (which Brian managed to tackle for all of us.) I suppose it’s because I really enjoy the pleasure of getting lost within a world, the specifics of characters or a particular vernacular — the kind of submergal that a sustained length (or its cousin, a sustained density) is likely to offer. I couldn’t imagine, for example, William T. Vollmann’s The Royal Family being shorter. The Royal Family’s considerable length almost forces the reader to come to terms with the unpleasant underworld depicted. Likewise, Richard Powers’ The Time of Our Singing, at around 640 pages, is the kind of family saga with historical context that a shorter book couldn’t possibly suggest.
Some have argued that this so-called “prodigious fiction” is an inevitable byproduct of the Age of Information (perhaps in collusion with the word processor). But if the world has indeed become more complicated and our knowledge of the world does indeed double every fourteen months, does it not make sense to remain flexible and supportive of these larger canvases?
[UPDATE: Mark weighs in, but I think he's confusing the argument. It's not a question of heft being tantamount to significance, but the issue involves whether the story itself works. To reiterate my argument, I think it's a bit superstitious to refuse a book because of length.]
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Or send materials to:
315 Flatbush Avenue, #231
Brooklyn, NY 11217
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In the article, the editor is quoted as saying –
“What was missing was something that I knew he already knew was missing,” Ms. Collins explained – the leap into what, from her childhood or whenever, haunted Sor Juana and eventually forced her into her vow of silence. “I told him, ‘You can’t not go there.’ And that’s how it got longer.”
I wonder why we have to know what led to this vow? Can nothing be left unwritten? Apparently not…
Very sensible post. The comments thread at Mark’s has got way too heated for me to join in there! I love, love, love long novels–I read “The Time of Our Singing” in about 2 sittings over 24 hours, it is a fantastically good read, just as “David Copperfield” or “Bleak House” can almost be read in one sitting if you have the time and space for it. I am a big fan of “A Suitable Boy,” too, though it’s regularly slammed by the poco lit crit folks for reasons I don’t quite understand. And you know, a lot of the best new novels that are also bestsellers are very long, which suggests that many novel-readers enjoy length in itself (the long novel is like, say, a season of The Sopranos in its satisfactions): think of Neal Stephenson, Susanna Clarke, Elizabeth Kostova (all of whom I admire).