Philip Roth has written two dozen novels, yet fiction has lost its appeal for him personally.
In a recent interview he said , "I've stopped reading fiction. I don't read it at all. I read other things: history, biography. I don't have the same interest in fiction that I once did."
When asked why, he said he didn't know, and only offered a smart-aleck response: "I wised up."
Whatever you think of Roth -- and the outrage at his Booker Prize was pretty high here on the Huffington Post a while back -- he raised a point I've been discussing with writer friends for a long time. I don't read nearly as much fiction as I used to, especially contemporary fiction. That's a big switch because I started out as a short story writer before branching into novels and mysteries. Fiction of all kinds was always the center of my reading universe.
And then I became a reviewer. I wrote a column for the Detroit Free Press for about a decade and read or sampled what seemed like thousands of mysteries and thrillers. I also reviewed for half a dozen other newspapers and magazines on an NPR station. Over time, I found my interest in fiction in general waning, and like Roth, became more interested in history and biography where I found better story-telling.
One novelist friend said the same thing about her tastes and explained it this way, "We're middle-aged, we're contemplating the sweep of our own history, our own biographies." Another colleague argued, "When you've read so much fiction, you can see who they're indebted to, who they're echoing, and it's not as much fun as it used to be." A third writer who also teaches writing echoed that response: "Within a few pages, I think, 'I've read this before. It's not new.' "
I think there's a somewhat different reason for me, aside from burn-out. When I set out to be an author, I wanted to read as many other fiction writers as possible to learn what they did, how they saw. The majority of my library from college and graduate school and into my early 30s is American, English, French, Russian, German, South American and Israeli fiction. As a young man, I wanted to experience all those different lives.
But now I've lived my own lives, have traveled extensively, and feel more settled and centered. I haven't "wised up" as Roth says. I just feel the need for a bigger story, and history and biography seem to offer that more than contemporary fiction. I'm grateful that we live in a golden age of gifted biographers and historians like Amanda Foreman, Lynn Olson, Antony Beevor, David McCullough, Joan DeJean, Stacy Schiff, Edmund Morris, Tom Reiss, Peter Ackroyd.
When I do read fiction now, I'm more likely to be taken by historical novels like Barry Unsworth's Land of Marvels and David Benioff's City of Thieves. The stories are more compelling, and that's the genre I've moved into with my latest book Rosedale in Love, set in The Gilded Age.
As for Philip Roth? I admire his work, but I haven't enjoyed one of his novels in 11 years.
Follow Lev Raphael on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LevRaphael
Lately (mostly because I review for several different publications) I read a lot of mystery, YA and women's fiction.
I think I'm very fortunate that I'm only 26 years old. My youth allows me to spend so much time reading so many great works of fiction that were written before I was born while still reading books written recently.
That's the great thing about literature. There has been so much quality fiction written in the past couple of hundred of years that it's almost impossible to have read everything of merit.
Even this year I read "Portnoy's Complaint" for the first time.
I have VERY favorite: Dean Koontz, Maya Angelou, Alistair MacLean, Madeleine L'Engle, Linda Howard, Kenneth Grahame, Madeleine Brent, Jayne Ann Krentz (all her by-names), JD Robb (Nora Roberts's by-name), Warren Murphy, Judith McNaught, Terry Brooks, Georgette Heyer, Barbara Cartland, Thomas Harris, Enid Blyton, Erle Stanley Gardner, JK Rowling...
And favorite, among which are: John Sandford, JT Edson, Elizabeth Peters, Zadie Smith, Anne Hampton, Charlotte Lamb, Anne Perry, Robert Parker, Elmore Leonard...
They've paid their dues, so as long as they're not tired of writing fiction, I'll read anything new by them--and always, anything old. Fiction has a way of renewing your faith in humanity, and in yourself. It gives you a place to go away to, and a better place to come from, that inspires you to do better than you've (already) done. Good wins; evil is dispatched.
The most inspiring non-fiction I've read was Nelson Mandela's autobiography, which I read simultaneously with his biography by an English author. Reading both together gave me a rounded picture of the man, although, his autobiography was more interesting since it told what he was THINKING and FEELING throughout events.
It is an irony that fiction has a way of being truer to life than non-fiction.
I have a different feeling: I obviously read fiction, but I can't read a book that has TOO much fiction. That's why I can't pick up a Harry Potter book, for example- no matter how realistic the characters are, no matter how well Rowling writes, a story about wizards, chosen ones, etc just bores me, I'll never continue reading it- there's way too much fiction for me to read it. And it's not just fantasy or sci-fi or whatever other genre is out there. If everything in the story is made up except the title, it really bothers me (except Catch-22, of course). I honestly can't explain why. I just put it down.
Not a book, but, one of the best video documentaries I've seen is called "The Century Of The Self", also about the role consumerism has had in shaping the entire 20th Century, our politics and our present-day mind-set.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcYBSXgtmKQ
I was not an English major, have nothing to do with the literary world except as a reader/consumer. I just love good books. I find that, for the most part, 'classic' books and authors guarantee me a good ride.
I teach composition and literature so I’ve always got some fiction rattling around in my head. Two summers back I had no summer courses. So, I decided to read A Tale of Two Cities. I found it more plodding than expected. I had planned but did not get to Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot and Steinbeck’s East of Eden. For a course, I re-read 1984 for the third time (first in college in the early 70s and then again, probably in ’84). My reaction this time was interesting: it seemed less abstract and more terrifying.
I’ve read almost all of Roth’s novels (I’m not Jewish—but we share at least this: we were both born in Newark, NJ). In fiction, I’ve always favored male authors, no conscious bias. One notable exception: Margaret Atwood. Her work is awesome.
It’s not easy to do recreational reading during a semester. However, I will have about three weeks off between summer and fall and have Ian McKewan’s Solar in the queue.
The classroom? I have students tell me they hate to read. “So it goes.†(Yeah we’re doing Vonnegut).
Your reaction to 1984 was mine and my spouse's this last time we read it: it's come true.
Must be why genre fiction - romance, mysteries, even the Jane Austen boom - are holding their own. They give the imagination a workout and dont make you feel lousy afterward.
What happened are the facts, but what was experienced and felt was the truth, often different to each person involved in the same event. What touches the heart is the truth, whether it is factual or not.
As long as fiction works to help a reader discover or wrangle with truths it will be viable. And young writers will continue, in their innocent ignorance, to be less reticent to put things down on paper with assurance, even if it is mostly just their conflated generalisations.
Nothing wrong with young writers, we need them to ply their trade and learn the skills, but the viewpoint is less founded upon the truths we seek. And with no offense meant to Mr. Roth, who has provided us with a wealth of fictional truths, there is a time to rest.It can happen to anyone who has worked long and hard, especially those who have been using their own experiences for so long that the tail is wagging the dog.
However, greater fault likely lies in modern fiction's lack of muscle and self-satisfied concentration on small epiphanies, generally among those whose suffering begins to look a bit absurd in contrast to the real problems in the world at large. The resolution of that suffering, or realization of its nature and extent, seem smaller and smaller in a world brought more vividly right up to our noses every day via the internet. Compared to real life, most modern fiction lacks courage and event. Seen one epiphany, seen 'em all.
But what about the huge world outside our relentless self-regard? People are living real lives out there. Where are our Zolas, our Steinbecks exploring them? The vast majority of fiction asks us to settle for another rehash of what we already know.