Ben Marcus, writing in the New Statesman, proposes the idea that the new fascination with apocalyptic fiction is partially in response to a need to raise the stakes of American drama after 9/11. Apocalyptic fiction is a playground realist writers can now traipse through because such fears and expectations are no longer considered mere fantasy. Marcus writes: “Nothing of the 9/11 attacks even remotely suggested an apocalypse but they certainly helped expose the troubling fiction of our immortality. Which might mean that fictions of our end times are now, through bad luck or comeuppance, however you wish to view it, among the truest and most realistic stories that we can tell.”

To begin with a small, but important, clarification: I do not intend here to suggest how or what novelists should write about. Novelists are under no obligation to anyone for how or what they write. I am interested only in examining further Marcus’ observation of the historical and psychological conditions in America post 9/11 that some novelists and readers might be responding to. I agree with Marcus when he says “If this is a new development, it is worth considering why the end of the world is poised to join the suburbs and bad marriages as a distinctly American literary fascination.”

A question that comes up for me is to what degree end times fiction is a reconciliation with the present (coming to terms with what American life is now), and to what degree it foretells our larger attitudes about the future. If we’re willing to consider the notion that some psychological need is being fulfilled – at least tapped – through literary means, I think it’s interesting to look at the difference between this new end times phenomenon and Cold War paranoia. In the Cold War, dropping the atom bomb always remained a threat. After the Cold War was over, school children huddling beneath their desks and families cowering underground in bomb shelters seemed like an overreaction. We most definitely understood the terms of the engagement during the Cold War – we knew the nature of the conflict and could identify the enemy. Even if the Commie was infiltrating your neighborhood, there was still a very clear sense of that Commie’s motivation. Then think of Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury (not all American writers but surely read widely by Americans) warning us of what society might become if we’re not careful. Those writers were responding to the changes and possibilities that were apparent in their time, all focused on the implications of larger societal structures and all very much imbedded with a sense of democratic responsibility.

In the decade leading up to 9/11 major events were the very swift Gulf War, Rodney King and the LA Riots, Bill Clinton spilling on a dress. America was not living in fear – uncertain or otherwise – at the time. The 1990s top seller lists were riddled with Steven King, Michael Crichton, and Tom Clancy. Regardless of where ‘serious’ lies on their list of priorities, King, Crichton and Clancy were all writing to thrill. This new insurgence of serious, literary writers tackling end times is likely due to the observation that we are more willing to take such things more seriously. Now, the subjects of thrillers are not solely relegated to fantasy. What is new is our sense of the reality of such fears. For the most part, the general public had no real or accurate conception of who was responsible for 9/11 or why America was attacked. The nature of this new threat remains slippery, intricate, complicated – elusively grand. We now fear everything. It’s also partly our fault, but there’s a sense that it’s too late to fix it. The new end times fiction isn’t about precaution, it’s the aftermath. These tales are post-culture, post-society.

If we don’t have a clear sense of ‘the enemy,’ we also don’t have a very clear sense of ourselves. To be American now seems to mean to be privileged, ignorant, shitty. Self-interested to a harmful degree, at every level of interaction. The freedom we hold dear to be the freedom to make and spend money. America contains much more than that but American identity is now so often talked about in such imprecise ways by people trying to sell something that it’s hard for someone not trying to sell something to join the conversation. Or at least be heard among all the noise. Marcus points out that the American suburban drama can now seem indulgent, irresponsible – how smug and lucky we are to pout over our incredibly safe, decadent, awesome lives: “To call the novel irrelevant because it couldn’t top 9/11 – that seemed strange, a botched diagnosis. But it did not prevent a shame from settling over writers who favoured domestic literary subject matter that could very well be deemed minor.” No serious, deep consideration of any subject should be considered minor, but there is now a compulsion to raise the stakes. I think it’s quite valuable to consider the new end times fiction as being a response to that. The levels of perceived and potential devastation have been turned up a notch or two.

I think it should also be noted that much of the current end times fiction is still largely domestic: in Marcus’ The Flame Alphabet and McCarthy’s The Road the protagonists are both fathers whose concerns are still centered on family. Family is, after all, what we have left (hopefully) once every other structure has collapsed. And American fiction does have a quite excellent tradition of rugged individualists. The drama of the end times is no doubt reassuring in that most end times stories are to a great extent survival stories. Even if everyone dies at the end they do so heroically – they have proven great spirit, valor, and humanity in their fight and thereby given meaning to their existence. These stories are in some way telling us that we can indeed persevere – even after it’s all gone to shit – and do so with something like integrity. Or, if not integrity, we will at least learn something valuable about ourselves.

I have no doubt that apocalypse fiction, in addition to vampires and werewolves, will be around for quite a long time, but I also sense end times fiction will lose its newly celebrated appeal. Literary fiction isn’t often that popular – and I think the perceived ‘anomaly’ of serious fiction taking on genre characteristics actually helped literary fiction writers get more attention – and the American imagination, for writers and readers both, demands reinvention quite often. My question then is: what comes next? Will novelists continue to feel the need for high drama? Can we stop quibbling over the distinctions between high and low subject matter? What will now be the course of American fiction?

image: www.ep.tc

Is there a point where the editor edits too much that it ceases to be the work of its author?

The answer to that question may make a good plot for a literary-themed crime novel.

Though crime novels are coming under fire now that crime itself is on its way out in the big bad city.

Good thing you can still turn to the movies to see some good examples of breaking and entering.

But just be careful since you don't want to end up with a lousy obituary.

Maybe you could hire Ben Marcus, whose literary star is on fire right now.

At the very least, you'll never be as ill-remembered as Lana del Ray is right now.

Photo credit: Mask for 'Day of the Dead' (dia de los muertos) in Mexico Photo: Getty images

In a recent Harper’s interview, Ben Marcus (whose new book, The Flame Alphabet , is due out in January) mentions an idea that I’ve recently become obsessed with. The idea is that every writer has one essential story (also known as the "object") to tell—one fixation that must be explored again and again, revised and retold endlessly but never resolved.

For Marcus, the story is this: “A man is in a hole where bad things are happening to him.”

He explains that he has “to work to mask this basic fact,” work that I assume consists of the changes Marcus mentions earlier to style, tone, story or storylessness. I love this idea. If I could, without embarrassment, I would ask Marcus when he knew this story was the one. And yes, I would ask it with the same high-pitched giddiness a school girl asks about true love.

I’m familiar with the notion that all writers have their particular ticks—distinguishing characteristics that are separate from their particular style or voice. For me, it's hands. Hands show up all over the place in my fiction, touching things as a way of knowing, as reassurance. Why? Because hands are trustworthy, obviously. But the idea that they're part of my one story? Rather than feeling limited, I find the idea absolutely exhilarating. I’m not sure if I can entirely explain why, it feels both reassuring and stimulating. And I don't care at all if this idea is actually true or not; I’m still throwing myself in.

I understand that finding your story/object is a lot like asking the question, What’s wrong with you? Hours of psychoanalysis might actually be helpful in this pursuit. But could it be dangerous to know your story? As much as I’m fascinated by the idea, I’m also a little superstitious about answering the question. To miraculously behold my object? Then I’ll know what to do! Fuck. It’s almost like playing the field before getting married. I obviously date the same person again and again, but if I found the one I’d have to acknowledge this limitation in myself.

A part of me wants to know so I can just attack and attack and attack, but another part of me wants to keep my obsession to my subconscious, at least for a little while longer.

Photo: excursuses.wordpress.com

The White Review''s current issue has a stunning example of High Intellectual Preposterousness. Lars Iyer has written a manifesto calling for an acknowledgment of the end of literature:

The only subject left to write about is the epilogue of Literature: the story of the people who pursue Literature, scratching on their knees for the traces of its passing. This is no mere meta-gamesmanship or solipsism; this is looking things in the face ... It’s time for literature to acknowledge its own demise rather than playing puppet with the corpse.

Is he serious? This is silliness, this is absurd. From the style of the manifesto itself, it’s hard to judge whether he’s being satirical or sarcastic, or if he’s really asserting what he believes to be true. Manifestos are full of pomp and grandeur, drenched in language that is bombastic, declamatory. Iyer’s is no exception. So I hunted the internet in search of his true intention and found that no, he was not joking. In a  3AM Magazine interview, he elaborates:

It is not simply that the relationship between literature and community has collapsed, nor even that literature is no longer in contact with politics. For me, the meaning of literature itself—the very possibility of literature—has collapsed. Literature, like left-wing politics, seems impossible ... I can only say that it seems to me that literature has, in some fundamental way, run its course.

What does this mean, "literature has run its course"? Is that why Iyer's book, Spurious, is so interchangeable with his blog, Spurious? To me, this is like saying sex has been slain by pornography, that eating is over because of fast food. People will always fuck and eat. Fucking and eating aren’t destroyed by depravities and deformations in their use. Yes, there is history and influence and philosophy and modern practice and all the rest. But there is still choice and there is still necessity.

Literature does not die, there is no end in it, it is something we do.

Rather than spend more time in inquiry and exasperation over this high intellectual dreariness, I’d like to simply present some evidence to the contrary. For intelligent discourse concerning the interaction of literature and culture, primarily in terms of how some of the more powerful influences and gatekeepers of culture present literature, I suggest an interesting piece by Roxane Gay up at the Rumpus. To see the existence of a literary magazine partially initiated because “we are tired of hearing that literary fiction is doomed,” check out Electric Literature.  And to hear from a true professional about his interactions with the great beast of literature, I highly recommend this interview with Ben Marcus from Harper’s.

A quick glance at any one of these demonstrates that literature has not run its course, and, for a great number of people, does not seem impossible.

Photo: living.oneindia.in

Did you know octopi are some of the smartest sea creatures?

Perhaps they could even master a correct granny knot.

Though I doubt even they would know how to adapt Faulker for television.

Well, if a Faulkner sitcom fails, there's always a poetic sonogram instead.

Since Beckett's written for the screen before, he could probably be of assistance.

Meanwhile, could this be the last of the Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library?

Maybe they just need a few secret doors to keep things interesting.

It would make for a good bomb shelter for all those failed book bloggers.

Who would have plenty to occupy themselves with, what with all these fancy e-books coming out.

But how do they stack up to the best art and design books of 2011?

Denis Johnson, on the other hand, prefers poetry, particularly Donald Justice.

On a similar note, Ben Marcus talks about "trying to love and fondle" the writing process.

Let's hope Benjamin Kunkel has the same luck with his new play.

Image: Brandon Cole