Children of a Doris Lessing, Part Two: The literary landscape
Last week the London Times reported on recent Nobel Prize winner for fiction Doris Lessing’s first post-award appearance, which took place recently in Britain. In Lessing’s Nobel acceptance speech she decried our current digital world, claiming that it has given us a “fragmented” culture. She then went on to speak about how writers in the past had discovered books and literature, and that kids today know nothing other than their computers. Well, Lessing used her most recent speech to talk about the plight of young authors in a media-saturated age, saying she “feels sorry” for modern writers who have to heavily promote their work in various media:
Now what happens is that if you are a girl who’s good-looking and has written even a passable book you can be earning enormous sums of money very quickly and are then sent on a promotional tour.
I’ve met girls who’ve said that this was the worst thing that could have happened to them. There are people who can’t write a second book because they are always on the telephone or having to do some TV thing.
But it’s not just what writers have to do (i.e. promotion), but it’s also what writers have become:
The writer has become more and more a personality. Literary festivals (for example) are enormously enjoyable but when you go into one it’s got nothing to do with your writing.
Of course, this attitude is nothing new; in the seventies Graham Greene didn’t approve of Anthony Burgess turning to TV discuss his work, and Charles Bukowski later (and rather poetically) said that going on a talk show was “like eating your own vomit.” But of course, in today’s online world, there’s more than just talk shows. In fact, many promotional outlets are now controlled by the authors themselves, and so rather than work within (or even have to rely on) the confines of the mainstream media, writers can now be in control of their own promotion.
Lessing, however doesn’t see it this way. Instead of viewing the glass as half full she doesn’t like the drink itself, succinctly summing up the current literary landscape by stating that “What’s happening is very bad for some types of new writers.” Which is of course true. However, the reverse is also true; what’s happening is very good for some types of new writers (and very bad for some types of old ones). But then again, that’s what makes it a landscape, and not a still life.
Photo above by Matthew Gold.
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It occurs to me that oral storytellers had skills very few writers have today: prodigious memories, acting skills, and so on. But then, the our best contemporary literary writing is far superior to the ancient classics, at least as they have come down to us in written form. IMHO. LOL.
Possibly it is just empty; the internet also allows terrible authors with unfounded egos and no sense of shame to hype their books endlessly, appear to be everywhere, and make good money (thereby winning the support of companies who care about money, and not cultural value) – all this while perfectly good authors who are too modest or shy to pimp themselves out get ignored because they don’t earn a Lexus for the boss.
This is no ‘depends on how you look at it’ issue. Reality doesn’t give a damn if you’re an optimist or not. Let’s be reasonalbe when we talk about the pro’s and con’s of the internet as it relates to our cultural value system.
I only publish my fiction online, and intend to keep doing so, but I find the promotional work involved very onerous. Though there are no sales involved, and I’m particularly grateful to escape conventional book tours and signings, readers don’t just stumble miraculously onto your site. And of course there is still the stigma of self-publishing to overcome. The writers who have a ‘personality’ to flog have it much easier; I don’t, and would rather concentrate full-time on my writing in any case.