in every 'new yorker' short story ever...

Oh, you know what else is interesting to me, is that it seems way more common among English writers to try and honestly tackle portraits of modern-day social categories than it is for Americans! Or not even social categories: there's so much English fiction that's willing to go directly at realistic portraits of how specific types of (usually middle or upper-middle class) people actually live. Whereas the top-flight fiction of the U.S. -- or at least the stuff that gets attention -- tends way more often to be about unusual circumstances, elements of fantasy, abstractions from and metaphors for the actual stuff we do. You could say the same thing about the difference between an American crime procedural and a BBC detective show, actually, but I don't know if that means anything.

Ladies and gentlemen, Nabisco.

I haven't read the story but I think that the bits I've seen here are bad

you might like Evelyn Waugh but I don't - I think he was vile

other points re. US / UK sound interesting.

Many Britishes crazy about Fitzgerald for this very reason.

I'm finding that if I have to write a modern problem it's much easier to send it back in time a few decades and work it out like that.

but some of us also like FSF because he was a hopeless romantic who wrote with unabashed gorgeousness

Ha, yeah, Fitzgerald was the other example I had in mind, yeah. I tend to like the "sending it back in time" answer too, Suzy, especially for longer things -- even a small amount of perspective is ridiculously helpful in figuring out what defined a social class, or how it operated. (I also like how novels sometimes have this built in -- spend a few years working on it, a year or two getting it on shelves, and there you go.) But I'll admit to having a soft spot for people trying to do this sort of thing in the moment, usually in magazine stories, and especially since it's part of the PURPOSE of magazines, a kind of in-the-moment disposable "what are we doing right now" approach.

I'm trying to think of who has been good, in my lifetime, at getting into existing social groups and classes, ones I know about firsthand. I can't necessarily think of much.

nice point, Nabisco, about the built-in time lag.

Amis said of Money (1984, set in 1981), something like: 'I thought it would be fun to write a historical novel about something that happened the other day'

and a fair defence of the role of magazine fiction too.

I have a fond memory of the time we walked out of the west side of Central Park, february 2005, early on a cold Saturday evening, and at a subway newststand you remarked how 'New York is a MAGazine culture', or possibly even a magaZINE culture, unlike, you said, Chicago.

this isn't relevant to the debate, I'm just sharing my fond memory of your company.

did you ever read Geoff Dyer, The Colour of Memory: published 1989, set c.1986? it's good on dole-age bohemians in Brixton (a very small set). I saw him once say that the dole had inadvertantly constructed a new generation of Bright Young Things.

he also compared himself, then, to Michael Bracewell, who in a sense is obsessed with this issue - it's his whole schtick in a way. I was going to say "cf ... " - then realized, well, cf all his novels.

I realize this is basically UK 1980s whereas you're interested in US 00s

Miranda July: getting into existing group of sexually obsessed and frustrated pervert losers

nabisco i would say that a 'certain class' of people are overrepresented in popular culture today and i can entirely see why its annoying to open up the nyer and read about the same shit we read about in practically every mainstream music mag or whatever

FSF and waugh - whatever else you think of them - used cultural identification and social classification as grist and fodder for character development, always at a slight distance, a remove, and not for the purpose of self-supporting cleverness or with-it-ness.

both of them wrote with enough detachment (what john gardener called 'camera placement') to allow the characters hoisting on their own frequently-idiotic petards, without endorsing or scorning the cultural associations.

the story above, conversely, uses these tools as self-substantiating, apparently interesting on their own, names-as-currency b.s. stylewise, the story is not abjectly poor, it is just poorly edited.

Yeah but deej part of my point was that if we don't want to hear about that class of people, why do we read a message board that's heavily obsessed with them. (I'd also note that the NYer does not really spend a huge amount of time on that class of people, but I think that's mostly an age demographic thing, and they're already starting to shift their way down toward our age group.)

I don't really see any "self-supporting cleverness" in this just-okay story, but I will certainly agree that it is no Fitzgerald or Waugh.

Robin Carmody: getting into existing group of progressive ruralists for proportional representation

DJ Martian: getting into existing subculture of systems theorists

n, this is supposed to be clever:

I ended up adopting a sort of ironic nerd look, with thick, plastic-framed glasses and a clip-on tie. I wasn’t very satisfied with it. I considered wearing my “own” clothes, on the ground that it would have been the most sincere response—to dress as if there were no dress code—but I couldn’t work out what the most neutral choice would be. How to let everyone know that not only was I myself, I was expressing myself?

actually, I think Nabisco's thought re. "who has been good, in my lifetime, at getting into existing social groups and classes, ones I know about firsthand" - gives me an excuse to ventilate, once more with affect, my long-standing theory & complaint about the movies: they never have people like me in them.

How is that an attempt for the writer to be clever? It's not an attempt to be clever on the level of language, and it's not an attempt to be clever on the level of content -- content-wise, it's actually fairly earnest, setting up an issue of authenticity versus the character's need to be clear about constantly "expressing myself." That's the basic work that fiction is supposed to do, using situations of plot to examine character -- how is that "clever?" Do you mean "clever" on the part of the character?

Look, it is soooooo hard to write about any mode of dress well in the context of fiction, because it has to do all of those things.

To me the story seems like an awkward attempt to give the 2000s the same gauzy, heady perfume of nostalgia that Paris in the 1960s often gets

Brand new, you're retro

the first bit is cute, if overwritten in the way TH suggests. the plot development is like lightweight writers-workshop "idea-driven" sci-fi.

seriously. if i read this in a "dangerous visions" style collection i'd feel hella disappointed.

ehh, I don't have the patience to argue this point with you. If you don't find that story -- or that excerpt -- smugly 'clever' than we will just leave it at that.

Agreed, my problem with the story is the heavy-handedness, which goes along with the awkward tone.

xp

considering the sludge that the NYer can sometimes put between its covers, this story is really not that bad, not too offensive, from what little i have read. the writing--at least the first page or so--does not seem too cute or too clever at all.

"Sunita buzzed up fat Constantine, who was hefting a box of mangoes in his meaty hands."

"Otto was a long-haired German who shot music promos. 'I need information, man,' he said, shrugging. We were sitting in a sushi bar, drinking green tea. 'I don’t care how it gets to me.'"

My main problems with the story are that it seems more about an idea than about characters, that that idea isn't a very interesting or original idea, and that the writing generally isn't very good.

hey look there a pile of shit on the ground - its kinda greenish isnt it - ohh is that some corn i see in there!

Look, it is soooooo hard to write about any mode of dress well in the context of fiction, because it has to do all of those things.

-- suzy, Tuesday, March 11, 2008 2:57 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

"It's hard to do x well" should not be used to defend stories that are supposed to represent the best of contemporary fiction. This is The New Yorker. Glimmer Train is down the hall.

http://www.serenedominic.com/snob1.jpg

http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an24130627-v

Oh god am I glad I don't typically expect the NYer to provide the best of contemporary fiction! The only time I'll really get on them about that is with debut fiction issues; for most of the regular issues it's just popular authors who have name recognition with the demographic, and have a story that needs conversion into a paycheck.

Wait, does that make sense? I get pissed off when they debut of first-expose writers I don't think are particularly good or promising, but can't work up a sweat about established writers dropping in sub-par stories.

A lot of that is based on some fear that if the NYer today were seriously spending its time trying to find and boost the best young writers, it would screw up the world entirely, give them some weird and awful power over the industry, create a what's-new cycle that celebrates writers for two years and then leaves them out to dry as they mature -- just generally create something about like indie bands and blogs, only in a much worse way.

i let my subscription lapse - its just factoids w/a side of shitty fiction

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. ... oh wait

I pretty much never read NYer fiction unless it's an author I already like (Updike, Murakami, etc.).

On one hand, I guess it's silly to expect The New Yorker to mean to fiction what it did fifty years ago when the fiction landscape has completely changed. Also it's probably easy for me to idealize the old New Yorker with a filter through which only the best material has passed. OTOH with declining print space devoted to fiction, I'd think The New Yorker could be more choosy and I've been a little disappointed with their choices -- the writing they choose these days that isn't Doctorow or Munro or Updike too often has a *lifestyle* feel.

I don't know who either Mr Burt Stanton or Mr (?) jhoshea are, but boy, that (3 posts up) just made me laugh out loud.

I'm impressed or pleased, I think, that anyone buys and reads The New Yorker. Good for you!

seriously, i started feeling so much better about myself and my life when i stopped expecting the New Yorker to ever have good fiction.

id read that rag from front to back then find myself telling everyone abt all the fascinating things i learned - srsly that is no way to be.

eh, New Yorker non-fiction at its best can be revelatory, although the lesser stuff tends to just sort of ramble on. I think they've been way overdoing their primary coverage. "Hillary's Latest Comeback" is just not worth anywhere near the wordage they give it.

im just kind of joking abt hating the nyer kind of

although i did let my sub lapse a while ago

damn son i thought we was fam

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, January 22, 2008 12:11 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

minstrel

― Arms, Tuesday, January 22, 2008 12:12 AM Bookmark

This thread kind of makes me glad I don't have the time or energy to get all worked up about stuff like this anymore.

"10) over-developed "ethnic" backstory closely mirroring writer's own"

i swear this is a plot to get me to never read international fiction. cuz i see those stories and my eyes glaze over and i reach for a slim volume of ring lardner.

racist