Rachel Donadio’s Essay on the Fiction, Non-fiction Divide
Linked to an NYT interview with VS Naipaul is an article by Rachel Donadio that explores the ascendancy of non-fiction and the presumptive decline of fiction, citing Atlantic Monthly’s decision to limit fiction to one issue as well as Naipaul’s concerns about the limitations of the novel. Naipaul announced last year that the novel was dead, and, it appears, remains so. Add to the scrapheap poetry and short stories, also dead. Non-fiction aka truth, is very much alive, although confusing non-fiction with the truth is a dangerous game. Donadio is on safer ground when she quotes a publisher who relishes the predictability of non-fiction. The South Beach Diet will be read by more people than The News from Paraguay, last year’s National Book Award winner. That’s because we’re fat and the news from Paraguay is never good.
Damn it, Rachel, I had to look up the word opacity to realize that I’m just as fed up with it as the next guy. Now that I know you meant impenetrable nonsense posing as literature, I have to concede your point. Still, non-fiction? Memoirs? Political books? Dewy eyed politico gazing from book cover into a glorious future neatly frames everything despicable in modern life. “It’s safe to say that no novels have engaged the post 9-11 world in any meaningful way.” Hell, they all do. The post 9-11 world is the world we live in, and all the Hunt for Osama tomes from experts are travelogues.
Magazines live in a different world than books. That Atlantic Monthly is squeezing out fiction probably means their circulation is down. It could be an opacity problem. Maybe they should publish a diet book.