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

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