James Tata reconsiders that particular strata known as the mid-career (b. 1960 or thereabouts) Great American Novelist. It is, of course, most regrettable that Age should matter, but with so many GANs dropping off of late (Vonnegut, Mailer, et al.), one wonders who will be taught in tomorrow’s classrooms. The current crop identified by Mr. Tata do in part fall into a certain rubric of, as he suggests, “nothing more than comic book characters and escapist fantasy,” which suggests a new concern for the next hopeful pantheon. But this “hopeful” qualifier presumes that these writers care about being listed in syllabi, much less proscribing their concerns for what is Important Literature by writing Serious Novels. So I put forth the question to the peanut gallery: Who, born between the years of 1960 and 1970, has a shot at being tomorrow’s Great American Novelist? Is the list that Tata offers the True List? Or is it too early to tell? Has literature become something too specialized to make such a judgment call? (I respond “yes” to the last rhetorical question, but I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing.)
Author / Edward Champion
Ideas vs. The Need to Be Right
You Only TiVo Once
Kassia Kroszer has a solid overview of the basic issues behind the WGA strike, pointing out how “promotional” material is being used to screw writers out of revenue and makes a concerted effort to see the scenario from the producers’ perspective. The upshot is that with production costs dramatically curtailed as the home video standard switched from VHS to DVD, it becomes less reasonable for writers and artists to be screwed out of monies that, quite frankly, could not have been generated were it not for their labor.
If, like me, you are something of a giddy nihilist about the great entertainment empire come crumbling down in a mere week, you might likewise be interested in this reporting. Apparently, the refusal of movie stars to cross picket lines has had intriguing results for the junket interviews. They will not chat about their latest movie on Good Morning America because this means a television writer researching and scribing the questions — putting the words in a telegenic beauty’s mouth.
What remains interesting is just how the television-watching public will respond to all these reruns. Will they see more movies? Will they read more books? Is television so fixated upon endless new content that the public will resist anything that resembles seeing the same thing twice?
Spooky Advertisements
John Leonard on The Spooky Art: “Still the book feels like one of those late-night cable commercials for Roy Orbison’s Greatest Hits, or Conway Twitty’s: act now, call this toll-free number, and we will also send you, at no extra charge, a cool tool to sharpen your knives, whiten your teeth, and screw your neighbors.”