Writers, go read this interview with David Shields about his book Reality Hunger: A Manifesto and let me know what you think. If you prefer, watch his interview with Stephen Colbert.
Has the novel died on you?
Writers, go read this interview with David Shields about his book Reality Hunger: A Manifesto and let me know what you think. If you prefer, watch his interview with Stephen Colbert.
Has the novel died on you?
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 
I almost lost it several times, laughing during the Colbert interview. Shields was so earnest during the whole thing, I got the impression he’d never seen the show. And quite possibly been set up intentionally by a publicist with a wicked sense of humor.
But first I read the Rumpus interview, and a later essay there which referred to it. I found it very difficult to believe that anyone is taking him seriously.
My novel has felt to me as if it were dying on me, yes. But not the novel.
The fact that David Shields can’t write a novel that compares to The Corrections doesn’t mean that the novel as a literary form is dead. It means only that Jonathan Franzen is a better novelist than most other people including Shields, which is really not news.
This is just as silly as Jennifer Weiner, who writes perfectly vacuous bubble gummy “chick lit” and is well paid for it, whining incessantly about the fact that she’s not reviewed by the Times or invited to be on Oprah.
Write serious novels or don’t. Either can be a fine way to live one’s life. But if you choose not to write serious novels, or if you can’t write serious novels, don’t act like a complete idiot and argue that the novel is dead or the Times should start writing serious reviews of vacuous garbage. For heaven’s sake!