Wow. Big weekend for the folks at the Guardian. I say this because most of them live in Hackney and many of them take the time out of their busy schedules to support the local bookshop and peruse our humble shelves when they could be shopping in Whole Foods. And for that we are very grateful.
Jokes aside, there’s something we need to talk about that I reckon will have a bigger effect on our trade than the constant discussions concerning ipads and ebooks. There were three articles in the Guardian (and Observer) this weekend that seemed to indicate a need for change in what we understand (or are told) to be the ‘literary establishment.’
The Trident.
First of all there was Dalya Alberge’s article detailing the work and opinions of one Gabriel Josispovici. (read it here) The title is ‘Feted British authors are limited arrogant and self-satsified, say leading academic.‘ The article that contains lots of great quotes can be boiled down to Josispovici’s opinion that, their writing is ‘hollow’ and demonstrates ‘a lack of vision,’ and that said authors behave like ‘prep school boys showing off.’
Secondly, because there’s no point to an editorial policy based solely on cynicism, the Guardian offers alternatives to the aforementioned triptych of verbose mediocrity. The umbrella idea behind these articles seems to be the return of Experimental Fiction. William Skidelsky’s piece (read it here) has a picture of BS Johnson holding aloft his loose paged, boxed-book The Unfortunates, a book that is out of print and next to impossible to stock. I’m not sure if William Skidelsky knows this but he is inadvertently using the unattainable to promote writing that many might find to register as being pretentious. A hard sell at the best of times. If you can’t get a handle on the (pictured) lineage why would you feel included in the ambitious writing of the present? There’s no identifiable aspiration there, you’re merely excluding people and they end up resenting you for it. If I were to lobby an opinion from the point-of-view of an independent bookseller, i’d say that this is not a article that will translate from a Guardian headline to (indie) bookshop sales. If that’s the case then who do you suppose will take up the promotion of experimental writing? Waterstones and Amazon won’t be able to help much other than discounting. Experimental writing is something that needs a human face attached. As a reader and a bookseller, I wish experimental writing would sell, but honestly speaking, going up against people’s established reading habits – not a chance. Articles about Tom McCarthy and Lydia Davis make the whole thing a little more human. (read them here and here) and these books will sell, but we’re not talking about two titles, we’re talking about the culture of British literary establishment and the seeming end for those who have dominated it for so long.
Thirdly, and the last prong in the trident, Alex Clark discovers a New Wave of Literary Events (here) featuring authors like Lee Rourke (local to Hackney) and Ned Beauman (Bethnal Green). This was a very valid article because (for me at least) it showed how this kind of performative visibility ( I know, cringe) helps get a novelists’ first three titles moving. It’s also great for the bookshops (although lit events are a very hard sell – 15 people turned up to see Booker Shortlisted Adam Foulds, but all of them bought the book).
What I worry about though is that if we lose the very idea of big name, big reputation authors will people stop reading ambitious and literary work? Will a shop like Pages exist only to sell Richard and Judy recommendations and the latest Steig Larrson (or the seasonal equivalent). Sitting at the till point looking at the shelves and knowing what shifts and what doesn’t, it is difficult to see what people would turn to once they realise that Amis, Rushdie and McEwan are selling snake oil on paper. So are there any other alternatives? A quick look online reveals one or two great literature sites. HTML giant in particular seem to have got the balance of formality and fun just right and they offer something you genuinely would want to return to. Unfortunately some sort of distance exists between the online community and that of the bookshop. Why? Not a clue. There’s a sincerity but it’s faceless (to our customers at least) and completely detached from what we do on a day-to-day basis. I’d also have to say that there are little reminders here and there that this group of authors use blog posts, comment boxes in a similar way to how Amis and Rushdie have lorded over the literary cheese and wine circuit for all these years but it’s nothing when compared to all the good they do and the commitment they seem to have to their site. However, it has gotta be said that reading HTML GIANT is not useful for an indie bookseller. Like cousins kissing, it may happen, but it tastes funny and is frankly wrong. It’s usually at this point that the whole thing becomes a web only phenomenon, and little bit irrelevant with regards to a bookshop in Hackney getting people to buy and read more books. In this case, Steig Larsson inevitably becomes a means to an end.
In any case, that particular group of authors seems tailor-made for a relationship with the independent sellers in London. It hasn’t happened yet for whatever reason and so we’re left with the haloed and archangel-like figures of David Mitchell, Zadie Smith, Sarah Walters and Iain Sinclair (to name four of maybe eight) to offer that substance to people whose bullshit-geigercounters will start freaking out at the mention of Rushdie, Amis or McEwan. Without these few writers our recommendations would disappear amongst a stock of European and American writing – which is fine – but when we talk about the loss of the British literary establishment we’re talking about something with a continent’s worth of history and quality that probably won’t be replaced by anything else, it will just cease to exist.
Anyway, i’m going to go away and have a think about this. I didn’t set out to write a piece defending the role of such overrated authors but I feel like (inadvertently) that’s exactly what i’ve done.
Drop me some thoughts below.
David.
