When it came out a couple of weeks ago, I managed to miss this gem from the Guardian’s “Associate Editor, Culture”, Claire Armitstead.
Literary fiction is in crisis. A new chapter of funding authors must begin
Unlike the performing arts, publishing has always been a largely commercial sector that has had to square its own circles. This is reflected in the fact that it gets only 7% of the funding cake handed out by the Arts Council, compared with 23% to theatre and 11% to dance.
Most of that money has gone to support publishers who produce poetry and literature in translation, which have never been able to pay their way. So there will be blood on the carpet if existing resources are shifted to support literary novelists.
There will be those who argue that this just shows that literary fiction is a hangover from the past, and the poor dears should knuckle down and resign themselves to writing what people actually want to read. But few would dare to make the same argument about experimental theatre or dance.
A number of the comments may have helped Ms Armitstead revise upwards her estimate of the audacity of readers outside the literary elite. A sentence or two later she makes one of the most pathetic cases for subsidy I have ever seen:
Moreover, research from the New School for Social Research in New York last year suggested that literary fiction has a measurable social value, increasing empathy levels in readers where more popular forms of genre fiction do not.
It seems unkind to the readers of literary fiction to say that they in particular are in such dire need of an injection of empathy as to justify a targeted intervention. But her profession has obliged Ms Armitstead to live at close quarters with this reclusive and marginal tribe for many years and no doubt she knows their character better than I do.
More recently, the author and occasional Guardian columnist Tim Lott shot back, which is how I came to see the earlier piece. He writes,
Why should we subsidise writers who have lost the plot?
This would not be uncommon. Worrying about plot and story has long been unfashionable on the literary scene. Style and voice are what gathers plaudits. Martin Amis wrote: “If the prose isn’t there, then you’re reduced to what are merely secondary interests, like story [and] plot.” Edna O’Brien suggested plot was for “silly boys”, which might explain why men in particular are reluctant to buy literary novels.
It might also explain why, when I went to teach postgraduate students at the University of East Anglia – the foremost writing course in the country – about the fundamentals of plot, I was astonished to discover that these superbly talented young writers knew nothing whatsoever about it after years of studying the form.
Mr Lott is within the subsidy-bubble himself, hence his surprise that those studying creative writing at university were unaware of such vulgar skills as making a plot. But at least he’s in the bubble looking out.
Are you not mis-using ‘pathetic‘ as a synonym for ‘risible‘, ‘ludicrous‘, ‘hopeless‘ etc., rather than ‘a sad display eliciting sympathy’?
A number of the comments may have helped Ms Armitstead revise upwards her estimate of the audacity of readers outside the literary elite.
That line is going to make me smile all day.
Mr Ed, the sight of that poor soul convincing herself that that particular argument will win converts to her cause is a sad display that elicits my sympathy.
She’ll be cheered by the news that I will soon be publishing my first novel, then. Doubly so if she’s unconcerned whether it’s something she wants to read: this one takes aim and fires at modern-day feminism. I look forward to her favorable reviews!
Recent award wining Hugo authors, and most of gamergate, hardest hit.
Natalie,
You are so thoughtful, such an example of charity to us all. I fear that reading the output might harden the heart.
“I was astonished to discover that these superbly talented young writers knew nothing whatsoever about it after years of studying the form.”
If, after TEN YEARS of expensive and allegedly professional tutelage, these young writers were such buffoons, what is one to make of the almost totally tax-payer-funded “arts industry”?
Is this the “Arts End” of civilisation?
“But few would dare to make the same argument about experimental theatre or dance.”
I would.
>>”But few would dare to make the same argument about experimental theatre or dance.”
>
>I would.
I’m weeping with pain and anger over this response. #rackedwithsobs
And here I was thinking Balph Eubank was a fictional character.
“Moreover, research from the New School for Social Research in New York last year suggested that literary fiction has a measurable social value, increasing empathy levels in readers where more popular forms of genre fiction do not.”
Er, yes, and “consider the source,” anyone? I presume that Ms/Mx/Whatever Armitstead would not hesitate to be suspicious of conveniently self-serving results of climate change research that was funded by Big Oil, so why not apply the same standards here?
Zerren, the PC term for a ‘fictional character’ is ‘subjective personality’. We don’t want to upset all those ‘nonreal’ people, do we?
The rest of you can form a queue behind Laird and me. Bring tar, feathers and suitable refreshment.
IIRC, the New School for Social Research is a far-left institution whose purpose is promote Marxist ideas.
“IIRC, the New School for Social Research is a far-left institution whose purpose is promote Marxist ideas.”
Aren’t they all?
The “Arts Council” was the creation of J.M. Keynes in the 1940s – the arts were actually in a better state (and more open to ordinary people – the supposed justification of government support for the arts is to make them “accessible”) BEFORE the government intervention.
It is too much to hope that the absurd “Department of Culture, Media and Sport” (or whatever it is called today) will be got rid of – not by a government of closet “Remainers” (yes the issues are linked – government support for the arts is an establishment belief, just like support for the European Union), but eventually it will go – the United Kingdom can not just carry on wild deficit spending (oddly called “austerity”) for ever, and this department is obvious example of one that should be abolished.
As for the “Guardian” – that supporter of “Stalin” (it covered up the murder of tens of millions of human beings) and tyranny generally. If good fortune is with us 2018 will see the end of the “Guardian”.
Surely Exhibit A for the case that the UK is turning into East Germany?
Isn’t the name a giveaway?
It should be Alisa – but actually if one points out that the New School of Social Research is Marxist one is denounced as “paranoid”, “McCarthyite” and a “witch hunter”. In spite of the Founders of the “New School” being Marxists – and it spreading the Marxist LIES of “oppression” and “exploitation” in relation to various “victim groups”
The Marxists whose doctrines dominate the education system and the media (of Britain, the United States and much else of the Western World) have managed to make it the established position that they DO NOT EXIST.
“Satan’s oldest, and most effective, trick is to convince people that he does exist”.
Can I be a counter-example? Having a high boredom threshold, I have sometime scanned the kind of literature that the New School for Social Research like. It has never increased my sympathy for them. However those who would make all literature like it do strike me as a bit pathetic – in all of Natalie’s senses.
Can I get a prize for inventing a new and needed word? Karmaphobe. Someone who so fears that something could, or just might, have negative consequences (Karma) that he or she ends up doing nothing, and encourages others to do the same.
“Zerren, the PC term for a ‘fictional character’ is ‘subjective personality’. We don’t want to upset all those ‘nonreal’ people, do we?”
I stand corrected. If PETA can bring the ‘monkey selfie’ legal case on behalf of a non-human without being laughed out of court, I’d prefer not to risk being hit with a legal case on behalf of someone who is non-existent. Oh no, sorry, not ‘non-existent’ (that’s OldSpeak), I mean of course “differently extant.”
Presently we have Courts of Law and Courts of Equity.
We’re going to need to establish Courts of Fantasy.
The jurisdictional problems will be intriguing.
Plots are hard. Plots take serious, rare talent.
“Literary Fiction”, a meaningless term is just about moderately talented members of the elites making a living based on networks that promote them.
That’s what’s happening. These mediocrities who are pals with Jocasta at a publisher, who is pals with Amanda at the BBC and can get them on the radio over everyone else (basically, a form of rent seeking) are losing their power to things like the Kindle Store and crowdsourced reviews.
I read Wolf Hall, an award winning book, and it’s just a big pile of nothing. It spends something like 500 pages reprinting some history of Thomas Cromwell and filling in some gaps. I didn’t come away from it entertained or enlightened.
I read Wolf Hall, an award winning book, and it’s just a big pile of nothing. It spends something like 500 pages reprinting some history of Thomas Cromwell and filling in some gaps. I didn’t come away from it entertained or enlightened.
This sort of torture can be avoided by adopting the 30 year rule. Don’t read a work of fiction till it’s at least 30 years old. If it’s still thought to be worth reading thirty years on, then it might actually be worth reading. There are plenty of good books, which you haven’t read, which are more than thirty years old.
The same rule applies for movies.
Not a bad rule, Lee, but certainly not foolproof. Joyce’s “Ulysses” is still required reading and considered “high art”. And I quite enjoy (the late) David Foster Wallace’s works, and that’s far less than 30 years.
The state, i.e. people with guns and cages, rob the common man, and then funds “art” with the proceeds.
‘Must be some strange meaning of the word ’empathy’ that I haven’t been previously aware of.