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Literary Update

The “Indie” Book Scene: Today’s Literary Avant-Garde

(Let’s just get this out of the way: This post is really long because it’s about reading and why/how I might be able to convince you to read some new stuff. Beginning now.)

So in music we’ve got all sorts of cool things going on with people doing things most musicians never even dreamed of: Different genres have been combined in unexpected ways (most obviously in mash-ups and that kind of stuff); bands like Animal Collective have taken Techno (a musical form originally intended for spikey-haired-and-way-too-skinny-Europeans with baggy pants and an ecstasy habit) and have fused it with traditional American pop music (e.g., The Beach Boys); bands like The Books have used sampling technology to make music out of non-musical noise.

Today’s changes in music are traceable to one (definitely oversimplified) general statement—something like: ‘There’s a lot of musical “stuff” out there, so let’s see what tools we can use to combine that “stuff” into something new and exciting.’ So music is now like the combinatoric/permutation problems you did in high school math. Today’s musicians are taking the scraps of yesterday’s music and are using technology and talent to make those scraps into something new for today. This music is often really fun to listen to. It’s the kind of stuff that you can both dance to AND think about, which is pretty special.

We’ve all probably learned at some point about general artistic “movements” (Romanticism, Surrealism, bla, bla, bla). The implication of the term “artistic movements” is that all art—from music to painting to literature—tends to move together in a loosely collaborative effort. I think you’d all agree that the most readily available art right now is music, and musicians seem to have definitely tapped into something that looks a hell of a lot like a new “movement.”

WHAT ABOUT BOOKS?

If this is true, then is literature being left in the dust of this “movement” of taking the leftover “stuff” of art and creating something new? Can they make us “dance” to stuff we used to dismiss as garbage? Is it true that books aren’t really that “cool” or “caught up” with the audience that matters, us? Well, no. It turns out authors are doing the same things as musicians, with one big difference: It’s almost impossible to find out anything about these new authors.

Literary types seem more afraid of technology than the average grandmother (and, arguably, less capable of using it). So, new authors do not have the same platforms for discovery or recognition that musicians can access. There is no “Pitchfork” equivalent for contemporary authors, no MySpace. The only publications announcing new works by contemporary authors are shitty publications talking about shitty authors whose shitty literary agent paid enough to endorse a shitty book. (See, for instance, The New York Times Book Review. From what I can tell, these people think that books should seem dangerously similar to the sentimental tear-jerker junk you see on, like, Lifetime. They try to cover up for it by reviewing some good stuff, but shoot themselves in the foot with that goddamn Bestseller List. Don’t even talk to me about the New Yorker, which is about as edgy and daring as the academics who don’t have the guts to challenge the intellects or behavior of anyone other than their students or their “colleagues.”)

HERE’S MY POINT:

Art is wrapped up in a new “movement.” It’s a movement that makes us dance and think. Call it Indie if you’d like to, but if you don’t want to sound like you spend too much time on the internet, call it our generation’s avant-garde. There are authors worth reading right now, who are doing things that are arguably as exciting and new and fun and (sometimes) as weird as the contemporary music scene. Their books may not be as easy to find as an MP3, but they can be as rewarding as all of our new music is.

For instance, George Saunders wrote a book called The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, which he describes as “a children’s book about genocide.” (Unexpected genre combo? Yes. More specifically, he has taken Vonnegut’s satirical tone and applied it to our generation’s needs.) David Foster Wallace is dead, but he will have a posthumously published book titled The Pale King which talks about boredom’s ability to broaden our consciousness. (Kind of like how The Books—a band—takes boring old noises and shows that when treated with the right finesse, these boring sounds are fascinating.) Dave Eggers wrote a novel based on Where the Wild Things Are, called simply The Wild Things. The list goes on.

The most blaringly obvious convergence of the literary and musical avant-garde occurred in 2007 when Sufjan Stevens co-wrote the introduction to The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Authors and musicians coming together in a new movement. Nice. These authors don’t want to put you to sleep, and they definitely don’t want to disorient you with difficulty. Like today’s best music, their work is complex and technically impressive. More importantly, though, their work can also make you want to get out of your seat and dance. To wake up to the world around us and dance with it, so to speak.

So pay attention, because these authors are tapped into our generation’s likes/dislikes in the same way that all your favorite “avant-garde” musicians are. And if you give them time, they’ll make you feel the same weird “wow” feeling you can get while listening to Animal Collective melt your face off in Prospect Park. One good source of these writers is www.mcsweeneys.net, an independent publishing company (“INDIE!”). They aren’t easy to find, the literary avant-garde, but seek and ye might find.

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