Ezra Pound wanted to be done with Romanticism, and drew his most profound influences from writers long before and right after, always ones who were not "Romantic" in the aesthetic sense the early-to-mid 19th Century used the term. This makes your comment about Ross being the closest thing to Ezra Pound that romanticism has deeply confusing because I think you simply mean "a cheerleader for literature who influenced it into a new movement" and it doesn't say that as written.
Good catch. I was intending the reference to Ezra Pound to be considered in relation to his own movement (modernism), not romanticism. Perhaps I should not be waiting until after 11 pm to give these posts a final edit.
Good review. It's great that there is this sort of burgeoning literary substack ecosystem, but I'm not convinced yet that it is any sort of defined movement. You say this as well, so I think we're in agreement. What I find interesting is that there seems to be such a strong desire among those involved to articulate what is going on with some sort of grand theory like "New Romanticism" or what ARX-Han calls "new wave literature." I'm not persuaded either of these things exist in any meaningful sense. Barkan's book, which sounds good, reminds me of Jonathan Franzen or Zadie Smith in its commitment to literary realism (based on what I've read about it). Gasda's "The Sleepers" brought to mind Sally Rooney in its depiction of millennial malaise. I can't speak to Kumin's or Pistelli's books, but I don't think it would be so strange to find the former two at your local bookstore, on display, and promoted by a big publisher. I'm reminded of Sam Kriss' recent article in The Point where he showed that so called "alt-lit" was pretty much indistinguishable from regular literary fiction. None of this is to dismiss what is going on, but to say that it's worth trying to describe what's happening precisely rather than with what, to me, sometimes feel like vague marketing slogans. Is mainstream literary fiction really so terrible? Is "substack fiction" really so subversive? The danger here is that on substack, we end up reproducing the very things that people so consistently criticize as features of mainstream publishing: the promotion of a few books, selected as "the right books" that the literary establishment rallies around to promote breathlessly while squashing all dissent. A healthy ecosystem has a place for negative criticism as well (see Lorentzen's "Like This or Die" in Harper's). Anyway, I sincerely hope these books go on to find success, and part of that is having a serious critical environment built up around them. This is all still in its infancy, and there are certainly signs of this happening, but just a few thoughts as things move forward.
If anything, I think what ARX-Han calls “the new wave” has more unifying qualities than what it is currently called “new romanticism.” There’s a lot more in common with say, Nutcrankrr and The Raft (which you absolutely would not find printed by a major publisher), than I would imagine between Major Arcana and Glass Century. Now John Pistelli /is/ the most romantically influenced of this crowd, naming Hawthorne the author he feels most kin to, and I can see it from the various passages I’ve read of MA. But yes, I agree it remains to be seen if any of this results in a meaningful *literary* movement, instead of just a more generic “movement.” I hope to revisit this “movement” much later after everything has been released and the dust settles.
And you’re right that Substack could be in danger of becoming the same circle jerk as the larger literary establishment, but someone could very easily post a negative review on here about any of these novels and there is no one to stop them.
All good points. I haven’t read the two novels you mention so can’t comment there. And I acknowledge the difficulty in identifying something as it’s happening. But, I do feel a bit vindicated with Matthew Specktor’s article today in TMR about Jarrett Kobek, who based on his description is a guy who shouldn’t get published according to some people on here, but who was actually published by Penguin. Of course, when the book flopped he moved on, but still, anyone can go read his books. And there was a recent article in The Republic of Letters about Geoff Dyer. One good result of this ongoing conversation is it’s allowed people to go, well, actually there’s this guy, and then this other guy, and oh this guy too, who are writing about what apparently isn’t being written about. I’ll add Stuart Ross to the mix.
The other thing I’ve been thinking is that this dissonance may be the result of viewing things from the viewpoint of a reader as compared to a working novelist, because as a reader, I feel like there is a lot of good stuff being published, but that may be a result of having access to literature in translation. For example, I find it hard to imagine anyone surpassing some of the stuff in Houellebecq’s “Serotonin” in terms of unacceptable ideas. But he gets published in English because he’s so successful in France, which has a different literary culture. Then there’s the whole question of quality, but mostly I’m just looking for people to be more precise in identifying these sorts of trends—not an easy task, of course.
Well you’re mentioning people who have been around for a while. I don’t know when the “current era” of publishing started, but I was assuming 2014ish. And if you bring literature in translation into it, the whole conversation changes. There’s no shortage of good translated work. I think most of this Substack discourse is just about the Anglo world, and more specifically, the big 5. I would love it if someone made a Substack reviewing new Fitzcarraldo editions (though the latest one from Vincenzo Latronico looks bad).
Ezra Pound wanted to be done with Romanticism, and drew his most profound influences from writers long before and right after, always ones who were not "Romantic" in the aesthetic sense the early-to-mid 19th Century used the term. This makes your comment about Ross being the closest thing to Ezra Pound that romanticism has deeply confusing because I think you simply mean "a cheerleader for literature who influenced it into a new movement" and it doesn't say that as written.
Good catch. I was intending the reference to Ezra Pound to be considered in relation to his own movement (modernism), not romanticism. Perhaps I should not be waiting until after 11 pm to give these posts a final edit.
Good review. It's great that there is this sort of burgeoning literary substack ecosystem, but I'm not convinced yet that it is any sort of defined movement. You say this as well, so I think we're in agreement. What I find interesting is that there seems to be such a strong desire among those involved to articulate what is going on with some sort of grand theory like "New Romanticism" or what ARX-Han calls "new wave literature." I'm not persuaded either of these things exist in any meaningful sense. Barkan's book, which sounds good, reminds me of Jonathan Franzen or Zadie Smith in its commitment to literary realism (based on what I've read about it). Gasda's "The Sleepers" brought to mind Sally Rooney in its depiction of millennial malaise. I can't speak to Kumin's or Pistelli's books, but I don't think it would be so strange to find the former two at your local bookstore, on display, and promoted by a big publisher. I'm reminded of Sam Kriss' recent article in The Point where he showed that so called "alt-lit" was pretty much indistinguishable from regular literary fiction. None of this is to dismiss what is going on, but to say that it's worth trying to describe what's happening precisely rather than with what, to me, sometimes feel like vague marketing slogans. Is mainstream literary fiction really so terrible? Is "substack fiction" really so subversive? The danger here is that on substack, we end up reproducing the very things that people so consistently criticize as features of mainstream publishing: the promotion of a few books, selected as "the right books" that the literary establishment rallies around to promote breathlessly while squashing all dissent. A healthy ecosystem has a place for negative criticism as well (see Lorentzen's "Like This or Die" in Harper's). Anyway, I sincerely hope these books go on to find success, and part of that is having a serious critical environment built up around them. This is all still in its infancy, and there are certainly signs of this happening, but just a few thoughts as things move forward.
If anything, I think what ARX-Han calls “the new wave” has more unifying qualities than what it is currently called “new romanticism.” There’s a lot more in common with say, Nutcrankrr and The Raft (which you absolutely would not find printed by a major publisher), than I would imagine between Major Arcana and Glass Century. Now John Pistelli /is/ the most romantically influenced of this crowd, naming Hawthorne the author he feels most kin to, and I can see it from the various passages I’ve read of MA. But yes, I agree it remains to be seen if any of this results in a meaningful *literary* movement, instead of just a more generic “movement.” I hope to revisit this “movement” much later after everything has been released and the dust settles.
And you’re right that Substack could be in danger of becoming the same circle jerk as the larger literary establishment, but someone could very easily post a negative review on here about any of these novels and there is no one to stop them.
All good points. I haven’t read the two novels you mention so can’t comment there. And I acknowledge the difficulty in identifying something as it’s happening. But, I do feel a bit vindicated with Matthew Specktor’s article today in TMR about Jarrett Kobek, who based on his description is a guy who shouldn’t get published according to some people on here, but who was actually published by Penguin. Of course, when the book flopped he moved on, but still, anyone can go read his books. And there was a recent article in The Republic of Letters about Geoff Dyer. One good result of this ongoing conversation is it’s allowed people to go, well, actually there’s this guy, and then this other guy, and oh this guy too, who are writing about what apparently isn’t being written about. I’ll add Stuart Ross to the mix.
The other thing I’ve been thinking is that this dissonance may be the result of viewing things from the viewpoint of a reader as compared to a working novelist, because as a reader, I feel like there is a lot of good stuff being published, but that may be a result of having access to literature in translation. For example, I find it hard to imagine anyone surpassing some of the stuff in Houellebecq’s “Serotonin” in terms of unacceptable ideas. But he gets published in English because he’s so successful in France, which has a different literary culture. Then there’s the whole question of quality, but mostly I’m just looking for people to be more precise in identifying these sorts of trends—not an easy task, of course.
Well you’re mentioning people who have been around for a while. I don’t know when the “current era” of publishing started, but I was assuming 2014ish. And if you bring literature in translation into it, the whole conversation changes. There’s no shortage of good translated work. I think most of this Substack discourse is just about the Anglo world, and more specifically, the big 5. I would love it if someone made a Substack reviewing new Fitzcarraldo editions (though the latest one from Vincenzo Latronico looks bad).
A review of Latronico’s new novel? There may be something in the works! Keep an eye out for it.