I'm Done with Miserable Novels
Reading about serious stuff shouldn't be a chore.
Like most of you, I have an outrageously large and ever expanding list of books to be read. The time allotted to us on this planet, does not allow for that list to be completed; so, at some point there has to be a cull and any novel that wallows in misery will be the first to go.
I’m not claiming that misery and suffering can’t be translated into great work, evidently it can. If Tolstoy had written ‘All happy families are alike’ and halted the sentence there; before embarking on an epic tale of personal fulfilment and domestic bliss, he wouldn’t have had the banger on his hands that was Anna K.
And then there’s Swift, of course, he knew a thing or two about how to take on a miserable topic. Before you write your next polemical novel about some great injustice or other, have a read or re-read of ‘A Modest Proposal.’ You can make a serious point without making your stuff sound like it was left in the back pocket of a Guardian leader writer’s dungarees and left to spin on the eco wash.
A good reporter, armed with the facts and the spirit of George Orwell in his soul, will do a much better job than a novelist with a tragic event; unless you are willing, a la Dickens, to include adventures, plot twists, shameless sentimentality, bleak humour and larger than life characters.
If my remaining reading years were devoted entirely to PG Wodehouse (I’m about half way through his 90 novels) the pleasure would start to wain; there needs to be something gritty in there too. In the most recent Alan Partridge series, the eponymous hero finds himself half-drunk at a reading group suggesting Alastair Mclean’s Ice Station Zebra. Personally, I prefer my adventure historical, but why not? At least it is marked safe from any post-modern flourishes1.
One of my favourite contemporary authors is Paul Murray. He is a very witty and clever writer. From the start, he included death and politics and finance-the serious stuff- in with the humour. ‘The Bee Sting’ started out that way, before taking a much darker turn and it saw him short listed for the Booker. Will he be able to withstand the acclaim lauded upon him by Professor Killjoy McFunsponge, from the hyper-critical dept of de-colonised literature, gender and culture at the University of Cleethorpes? What will his next novel be like? I fear the dark will edge out the light; we have lost him to the gloom.
This is not a call for a ban on doom-lit, far from it. The people who want to cancel, no-platform or maim writers are, no matter how virtuous their cause, unquestionably the bad guys. I might be a reactionary philistine, but I’m not going to be one of the bad guys. Wallow in misery as much as you want,2 just count me out. Now, where’s that Tom Sharpe novel?3
The next time I read a book that wants to deconstruct what it means to be a novelist, seriously, I’m going to glue myself to the entrance of the UEA’s creative writing department’s front door and not let anyone enter or leave until they promise to cease and desist.
Publishers might want to have a think about their decision to drastically reduce the number of books that appeal to a middle-brow, middle-class audience, you know, the sort of people that would actually go to bookshops and buy books.
Tom Sharpe was forced to leave South Africa because he’d upset the Apartheid authorities with his satire: how’s that for being a SJW?
Especially books about the hell of being a white male author...
I’m way less of an avid reader than you are; the limited time slot still available to do the things that please and fulfill me (and brain activity plays an important part in), urge me to make choices, which comes down to what you refer to in your opening. I have too many interests. That does not help.
Your decision to quit reading novels that “wallow in misery” might be an excellent one to make, for you, that is. I like the way you can rant away without ever sounding simplistic, overly disapproving or judgmental. You always slowly build your plea, leaving room for the opinions of others, but in a purposeful way.
In this light I enjoyed your first footnote; after all of your polite argumentation, the cat’s out of the bag: you’re done with it, but expressed with humorous exaggeration.