Neither of these novels means I’m thinking about them as literature or as resistance or even in terms of style, but they do mean I don’t take “the discourse” seriously.
Looking forward to "The Future Was Color," Patrick. I'm in the early middle of James Kirchick's "Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington," which means I'm reading about the Red and Lavender Scares of the early fifties, so your novel will fall on informed eyes.
I'm not on the same "quasi-public literary space" as you so it does confound me that categorization is such a hotly contested issue. Maybe for publishers and marketers and well, come to think of it, maybe for authors as well who want to get their books on the shelves. I write short stories and "publish" on WordPress, so I haven't found a need to worry about how my stories will be marketed, and thus just write.
Style, on the other hand, is on ongoing and critical concern for me during the writing process. One of the delights of writing fiction is to give the narrator or your characters voices (and styles) different from your own, style being maybe how the voice views the world, what they choose to express about it, and how. I likely fail at this more than I succeed, but think often of the success Daniel Kehlmann had with this in his novel "Ruhm" where each segment of the novel is written in a different voice and style.
Speaking of which, the book was marketed as "Ruhm: ein Roman in neun Geschichten." Kehlmann talked since about discussions he had with his publisher, who knew the pitfalls in marketing something as a short story collection and thus insisted on the work being a "novel," but one, perhaps at Kehlmann's insistence, that had nine stories!
At any rate, I always enjoy reading your posts, Patrick, and I thank you for them. I always know they will shake me out of any lethargy I've fallen into and make me start thinking again.
Looking forward to "The Future Was Color," Patrick. I'm in the early middle of James Kirchick's "Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington," which means I'm reading about the Red and Lavender Scares of the early fifties, so your novel will fall on informed eyes.
I'm not on the same "quasi-public literary space" as you so it does confound me that categorization is such a hotly contested issue. Maybe for publishers and marketers and well, come to think of it, maybe for authors as well who want to get their books on the shelves. I write short stories and "publish" on WordPress, so I haven't found a need to worry about how my stories will be marketed, and thus just write.
Style, on the other hand, is on ongoing and critical concern for me during the writing process. One of the delights of writing fiction is to give the narrator or your characters voices (and styles) different from your own, style being maybe how the voice views the world, what they choose to express about it, and how. I likely fail at this more than I succeed, but think often of the success Daniel Kehlmann had with this in his novel "Ruhm" where each segment of the novel is written in a different voice and style.
Speaking of which, the book was marketed as "Ruhm: ein Roman in neun Geschichten." Kehlmann talked since about discussions he had with his publisher, who knew the pitfalls in marketing something as a short story collection and thus insisted on the work being a "novel," but one, perhaps at Kehlmann's insistence, that had nine stories!
At any rate, I always enjoy reading your posts, Patrick, and I thank you for them. I always know they will shake me out of any lethargy I've fallen into and make me start thinking again.