Friday Column: One Blogger's Biases

I hope that anyone who reads this blog regularly will develop an understanding of what I look for in literature. It seems a reasonable expectation; after all, blogging is a pretty personal medium, and I rarely hold back my thoughts on what I like and don't. We can even put this to a test. Try ordering--from who you think I like the most to what I like the least--the following contemporary authors, and then check your answers against those at the bottom of this column.

Dave Eggers
William T. Vollmann
Michael Cunningham
David Foster Wallace
JM Coetzee
TC Boyle
Nick Hornby

This isn't some idle exercise: I think it's important that readers know a blogger's tastes. Opinions about books comprise much the litblogosphere, and plenty of people decide what to read based, in part, on these opinions. (Maybe not a whole lot of people, but still enough.) So it seems that readers should be aware of a blogger's biases. Just because one blogger is a DFW-freak doesn't mean you will be too. Readers should take things with a grain of salt, and be informed.

Because of all this (and also just because I think it might lead to some interesting discussion), I'm going to devote this column to explaining my own literary biases.

A word before I start. I'm sure that some of my opinions are proably shared by other people. To help distinguish my personal tastes from other people who look for similar things in books, I'm going to try to be as specific as possible. I'm also going to list these in order of relative importance. Here they are.

Ongoing Dialectics. I like to feel that the book I'm reading is a debate, not a lecture. I like to feel that I can't judge what the author's intent is until the last page, and sometimes not even then. If I think the book is becoming too obvious in what it's trying to tell me, then it becomes just a dull demonstration. I get bored. I probably won't finish it. The ideas that animate a book should be like a tightrope walker, now teetering a bit one way, now teetering a bit the other way, always forging forward on an invisible thread. Note that this debate can take many forms--debates over philosophical ideas are the most obvious, but a book could also debate any of the following: different interpretations of a character, different value systems, different interpretations of events, different approaches to constructing a narrative or conducting a life, different styles. Note also--there's no rule that there can only be one dialectic per novel.

Challenging prose. Challening prose is interesting prose. I love feeling that an author has abandoned me to a room full of hostile words. See, for instance, the beautifully complex sentences of James Joyce, Malcolm Lowry, or William Gaddis. I like feeling like I'm constantly under pressure to interpret what the wuthor is telling me. I'm also interested in challenging prose on the level of a story: see, for  instance, the narratives of Kazuo Ishiguro or Manuel Puig--I love how they continually make me feel like I'm just a step away from cresting a hill, after which I can look down upon the story and finally see how it works. (Note also: this moment is inevitable, but it is also inevitably a letdown; I like it when authors delayed it as long as possible.)

Stylistic creativity/skill. I almost put these into two separate categories, but then decided I couldn't separate one from the other. Some authors tinker with form, some perfect forms that have already been invented, but either way I think it requires a good deal of creativity and skill. Regardless of whether they're tinkerers or perfecters, however, I think authors should be showing me something I haven't seen before. Imperfections in style, while unavoidable, should be rare and forgivable. Also under style comes voice, which should be strong, original, and suit the aims of the novel. However, if I feel like a book has nothing to say, or that the prose isn't interesting, then very rarely will I keep reading, despite how much stylistic creativity or skill is present.

Depth of metaphors. I love metaphors with multiple meanings, and I love it when authors can orchestrate their books so that these metaphors interact in interesting ways. I would reference the works of Haruki Murakami here, most notably The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I especially love book-spanning central metaphors that become a pivot point. A caveat: this is not an invitation for limitless complexity. Obviously there's a limit to how much meaning can be loaded into a metaphor before it becomes contrived, not to mention confusing.

The book makes an attempt to embody the workings of some organism. While not a deal-breaker, this is something I look for and am interesting in. Call it a pet interest of mine. Most often, the organism observed is the human mind, but I chose the word "organism" because I didn't want to limit things a book can embody to only the human mind. For instance, Don DeLillo's narratives don't embody the workings of the human mind so much as the systems that societies are organized upon (see also Orwell, David Mitchell, Pynchon). There have also been authors who have attempted to build alien consciousnesses.

Fidelity. Authors are free to tell their stories in whatever world they choose (our own simply being the one most commonly chosen). But once they have decided on their world and the rules that govern it, authors should never break those rules for frivolous reasons. Deus ex machinas suck (unless they're being explicitly used to point out something interesting about how they suck).

Characterization. Although I recognize that authors can use flat characters to good effect, I'm far more interested in well-characterized characters. Simply put, I think people are interesting and I like learning about them. I like seeing the creative ways an author can draw a character and how well the subtle nuances are brought out.

Economy. I don't have terribly strong feelings about sparse prose vs luxurious with prose, but if I have to choose one, I'll easily choose too sparse. Did I mention I love minimalists?

Humor. I think many good authors are playful authors, but I don't think being playful is the same thing as being humorous. Many authors are playful, but few are humorous. I like it when they are. See, for instance, DFW, who makes me laugh out loud.

Big Books. This is somewhat whimsical, so I'm putting it pretty far down the list, but I do have a soft spot for big books. I'll forgive more in an epic simply because I often admire its scale.

 

To add to the fun (or confusion) here are some preferences:

The Intuitionist or John Henry Days? John Henry Days
Mailer, Roth, or Updike? Roth
Fitzgerald or Hemingway? Fitzgerald
White Noise or Underworld? Underworld
Pale Fire or Lolita? Pale Fire
Romanticism, Moderism, or Postmodernism? Modernism, then Postmodernism, then Romanticism

--

Answers to the quiz:

David Foster Wallace
JM Coetzee
William T. Vollmann
TC Boyle
Michael Cunningham
Nick Hornby
Dave Eggers

Comments

[Dan Wickett]

Interesting Scott. I had the top four in the correct order and fell apart a bit with the last three, so I suppose I at least had a vague idea.

I wish I would have thought of something like this just prior to BEA instead of launching the Read the F'ing Blog post upon the world.

Well done.

[Kirby]

Good post, Scott. I think it's an interesting exercise to try and express exactly what aspects we appreciate in art; it clarifies our thinking when we have to wrestle and defend (to ourselves) our own tastes.

One of the reasons I visit your blog as often as I do is because we have very similar tastes. Perhaps I visit TOO often -- I got your quiz right, except I had Coetzee/Vollmann switched!

One question: how come no women writers?

[Blake]

This post is very insightful and I feel encouraged to go through a similar exercise. The bit about challenging prose illustrates quite well why I, for one, continue to read books that aren't necessarily accessible, but still rewarding.

Also, was that an intentional knock against Eggers to put him behind Nick Hornby? Ouch.

[ed]

Pale Fire over Lolita, Scott? Very interesting, as, if I had to choose between the two (a terrible choice), I'd opt for Lolita. My own rank would be:

William T. Vollmann
TC Boyle
David Foster Wallace
JM Coetzee
Nick Hornby
Dave Eggers
Michael Cunningham

[AC]

I think this is my favorite column yet. I share a lot of your biases (and I love the phrase "an attempt to embody the workings of some organism," btw), including the partiality towards longer books. I like the idea that I'll be with a book for a long time. Although personally, I think I'm more biased towards those luxurious sentences myself...

[Eric Rosenfield]

Amen.

[Fermina]

Great post - I printed it out to noodle over my own preferences. As far as "book-spanning central metaphors that become a pivot point," what comes first to mind? And how about challenging prose that is also sparse?

[Lauren Baratz-Logsted]

"Fitzgerald or Hemingway? Fitzgerald" -

Thank God.