Writers, the collective

Is it possible that waning interest in literary fiction is the result of the army of Borg writers driven by a single collective thought, producing clones of the same book?

"Here come the writers: hundreds of them, liberated from their garrets and suddenly overrunning the country, going from invisible to omnipresent...

The answer is that they come from creative-writing programs, which have emerged in the new century as the indispensable nurseries of literary fiction in North America. Half of all published authors in Canada have studied creative writing, according to a 2010 survey, and enrolment in postsecondary creative-writing courses is booming even as interest in traditional literary studies declines. ...

One now-traditional criticism of such processes is that they produce homogenous results, often identified as “workshop stories” or “Iowa novels” by skeptics. Most teachers deny it, naturally, pointing out that creative-writing courses have broadened access to the art and are in part responsible for the new diversity of Canadian literature. But the taint remains.

Fictions that carry it tend to be “highly competent but dull,” according to Hollingshead. “The rule is the telling detail,” he says, “so you get all this surface information, but to no effect. You have a kind of aesthetic sheen on the prose but you’re not getting enough ideas and you’re not getting enough dramatic energy.” He is confident in the prospect of literary renewal, but doubts such a thing will emerge from the creative-writing academy."

More: http://m.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/writers-graduating-by-the-bushel-but-can-they-find-readers/article4625110/?service=mobile



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Writers driving a wedge into society

"In 2004, philosopher and literary critic Kojin Karatani declared, in his essay "The End of Modern Literature," that Japanese literature had lost its privileged position within national consciousness while embracing minor subcultures ... thus becoming a mere commodity. As a consequence, literature had lost its power to affect social or political change."

However a writer "Tomoyuki Hoshino indirectly expressed his disagreement with Kiratani's bleak vision. According to him, "we cannot expect literature to directly effect change in a clearly observable form. At best, it is a tiny wedge the writer can drive through the social and cultural status quo. Still, it is exactly literature's ability to allow readers and writers to inhabit minor (...) worlds that allows literature to affect society as a whole, one story, one reader at a time. ...

In the end, by refusing to passively accept conventional truths regarding sexual, cultural and national identity, and inciting in both his characters and readers this revolutionary desire to change, Hoshino's work becomes more political than any open social criticism or ideologically charged novel."

More: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fb20121021a1.html



Presidents are chosen, but not elected. The Black Vault. www.SPYWRITER.com

The Shop

"The CIA is not in the habit of discussing its clandestine operations, but the agency’s purpose is clear enough. As then-chief James Woolsey said in a 1994 speech to former intelligence operatives: “What we really exist for is stealing secrets.” [...]

That is why by 1955, and probably earlier, the CIA created a special unit to perform what the agency calls “surreptitious entries.” This unit was so secret that few people inside CIA headquarters knew it existed; it wasn’t even listed in the CIA's classified telephone book. Officially it was named the Special Operations Division, but the handful of agency officers selected for it called it the Shop.

[...] in the 1980s and early ’90s, the Shop occupied a nondescript one-story building just south of a shopping mall in the Washington suburb of Springfield, Virginia. The building was part of a government complex surrounded by a chain-link fence; the pebbled glass in the windows let in light but allowed no view in or out. The men and women of the Shop made up a team of specialists: lock pickers, safecrackers, photographers, electronics wizards and code experts. One team member was a master at disabling alarm systems, another at flaps and seals. Their mission, put simply, was to travel the world and break into other countries’ embassies to steal codes"

More: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-CIA-Burglar-Who-Went-Rogue-169800816.html?c=y&page=2

Jack King's new novel: The Black Vault

Why we read

"Literature has always been a catalyst through which humans can find humor, adventure, or an escape from their everyday. However, I would argue that entertainment is not the most important role of literature, either. These two functions can be found in other forms of media as well. Literature holds no advantage over film or art in this case, except perhaps to contain a greater amount of information in one place.

What, then, is the purpose in reading? What advantage does it give us, if not to entertain, educate, or explore? What abilities does the act of reading print words in a paper novel grant us above any other medium?

Reading gives us a window into another’s mind, in a way that cannot be duplicated in another medium. Whether it is greater than other mediums, such as art or film, is perhaps a matter of opinion. However, it’s clear that literature offers an experience of empathy matchless in its sincerity."

More: http://www.theracquet.net/mobile/features/why-read-1.2930145



Presidents are chosen, but not elected. The Black Vault. www.SPYWRITER.com

The rise of the academic novel

"The academic novel is usually considered a quaint genre, depicting the insular world of academe and directed toward a coterie audience. But it has become a major genre in contemporary American fiction and glimpses an important dimension of American life.

...there are simply an overwhelming number of academic novels. Drawing data from the standard bibliography, there were 70 published between 1990 and 2000, and 238 from 1950 to 2000. That doesn’t include mysteries, of which there are about 500 in the same period. It also specifies novels that center on faculty or staff rather than students (the latter I would distinguish as “the campus novel,” since they usually turn on student life on campus)."

The rise of the academic novel:







More: http://blog.oup.com/2012/10/rise-of-academic-novel-genre-american-literary-history/



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Distrusting Literary Prizes

"why are prizes so mistrusted these days? There are many possible answers, but two make, out of this many, more sense.

Prizes have become banal. There is a prize, an award, for almost every thing. And every writer that wants to sell enough books to make a living out of it, must, at least, have been laureled once or twice. The excess of awards makes them less valuable, thus also taking value from the awardee, person and book. ...

Still, awards play an immensely important part in today’s literary panorama. They tell people what to read. ... They might teach what, but not why.

In addition, creative writing courses seem to be contributing to this overall lack of literary sensibility. By slowly replacing literature graduations – that focus, essentially, on reading – creative writing courses are manufacturing more writers than readers, and therefore unbalancing the scale dangerously. This leads to the necessity of more awards to inform people of what to read. And publishers, of course, say thank you very much. By trying to perpetrate one artistic form, creative writing courses are slowly slaughtering it."

More; http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/our-voices/battle-of-ideas/forget-the-booker-the-prize-every-author-really-wants-is-academic-validation-8213065.html



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Read aloud to better understand literature of the past

"When we read a text, we hear a voice talking to us. Yet the voice changes over time.

When we read a novel written today, we hear a voice
 that speaks pretty much the same language we speak, and that addresses people and things in a way we are used to. But much happens as a text ages – a certain type of alienation emerges. The reader may still hear a voice, but will not understand it fully and therefore risks missing important aspects...

... people often read texts aloud until the late 1700s, even when they were alone. So the recommendation to read older literature aloud in order to understand it better is given for good reason.

We who are more accustomed to silent reading are not as sensitive to the tone of voice as people were in the past. We simply cannot hear the voice very well. But the voice of a text is always important, just think of all the smileys we have started using to add clarity to texts"

More: http://m.phys.org/news/2012-10-voices-older-literature-differently-today.html



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