What an outstanding essay, maybe your best yet, and that is saying a lot. Honest, thoughtful, enlightening and perceptive. Thank you for putting so much time and effort into this.
I agree with your assessment here, but I can't help thinking none of these wonderful writers, were they newly arrived on the scene today, would be traditionally published. It seems there are basically two figs at the end of the modern literary branch: write to the market and, perhaps, be published so you can share your plastic fruit with the world, or choose to write the way you want to, inspired by the greats, and enjoy the sweet fruit of your own obscurity.
👏👏👏 Your best essay in a long time, Liza! This was very enlightening as someone who is far from being an expert on literature or writing like myself. All ten of these authors bring something special to the table one can learn from them. Indeed, if you want to be a good writer going to useless and silly MFA classes that will bore you to death and you won’t learn anything from. What you should do is read the greats of literature and pick out the things that made them great and their work immortal. Contemporary literature is largely awful because it is bland, formulaic, politically correct, generic, and doesn’t allow for anyone to be different. Literature today lacks creativity, originality, innovation, or daring. This is why Beowulf, The Odyssey, The Iliad, Romeo & Juliet, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, The Old Man and the Sea, The Raven, The Bell Jar, War of the Worlds, Dracula, Frankenstein, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Sound and the Fury, Crime and Punishment, Pride and Prejudice, To Kill A Mockingbird, 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Anna Karenina, The Red Badge of Courage, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Monster will still be read a millennia from now and garbage like Yesteryear, Where the Crawdad’s Sing, Normal People, The Hunger Games Series, The Twilight Series, Bad Feminist, Between the World and Me, How to Be An Anti-Racist, White Fragility, and Hood Feminism will be forgotten and discarded into the bargain bin of human history!
A lot has changed over the past couple months since Liza’s account blew up. With her talking to the likes of Peter Boghossian, Eric Metaxas, James Klug, and Andrew Klavan, writing articles for the Daily Wire and attending a Free Press event recently with other creators and influencers. I will be honest that I considered quietly leaving Pens & Poison. I’m a huge fan of Pens & Poison but I wondered if I was even needed anymore given Liza’s great success but I stay because I believe in Liza’s mission. We need people like her now more than ever in the literary world. On another note, I miss when we would get to personally interact in a way with Liza in the comments. It just isn’t the same without her personally reading comments or liking them even though I know what’s really hard to do because there are 100+ on her articles. That’s the thing about Liza’s success it has been both a blessing and a curse in my personal opinion. Is it wonderful to see Liza succeed so much? Of course. But at the same time, you can’t really have the deeper connection to the creator anymore because an avalanche of new people have arrived. In closing, I noticed Liza’s poetry collections aside from Girl Soldier aren’t available on Amazon anymore and are out of print. I hope someday it will become possible to purchase them again.
This is a wonderful essay filled with subheadings that are just le mot juste. But why didn't you learn anything from Charles Dickens? Or were you just being dei with your opus?
Well, literature has actually moved on since 1963. Sometimes for the better sometimes for the worse. Historical antecedents are all well and good and bear reading (even re-reading) but not at the expense of acknowledging the times we live in as well. And, no, Sally Rooney is not the only living author. The authors you write about here are important but your tastes have ossified. And your efforts to attach yourself to their achievements can appear a tiny bit self-aggrandizing. Instead of continuing to list the same writers time and again why don't you share some discoveries among current practitioners. Be positive. Live in the now.
Didn't read T S Elliot, the rest all great. Also: 1/10 that is not anglophone or Russian, it is a pity that the big five don't translate more (or that american readers are not more interested in translated works)
What an outstanding essay, maybe your best yet, and that is saying a lot. Honest, thoughtful, enlightening and perceptive. Thank you for putting so much time and effort into this.
I agree with your assessment here, but I can't help thinking none of these wonderful writers, were they newly arrived on the scene today, would be traditionally published. It seems there are basically two figs at the end of the modern literary branch: write to the market and, perhaps, be published so you can share your plastic fruit with the world, or choose to write the way you want to, inspired by the greats, and enjoy the sweet fruit of your own obscurity.
👏👏👏 Your best essay in a long time, Liza! This was very enlightening as someone who is far from being an expert on literature or writing like myself. All ten of these authors bring something special to the table one can learn from them. Indeed, if you want to be a good writer going to useless and silly MFA classes that will bore you to death and you won’t learn anything from. What you should do is read the greats of literature and pick out the things that made them great and their work immortal. Contemporary literature is largely awful because it is bland, formulaic, politically correct, generic, and doesn’t allow for anyone to be different. Literature today lacks creativity, originality, innovation, or daring. This is why Beowulf, The Odyssey, The Iliad, Romeo & Juliet, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, Moby Dick, The Old Man and the Sea, The Raven, The Bell Jar, War of the Worlds, Dracula, Frankenstein, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, The Sound and the Fury, Crime and Punishment, Pride and Prejudice, To Kill A Mockingbird, 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Anna Karenina, The Red Badge of Courage, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Monster will still be read a millennia from now and garbage like Yesteryear, Where the Crawdad’s Sing, Normal People, The Hunger Games Series, The Twilight Series, Bad Feminist, Between the World and Me, How to Be An Anti-Racist, White Fragility, and Hood Feminism will be forgotten and discarded into the bargain bin of human history!
A lot has changed over the past couple months since Liza’s account blew up. With her talking to the likes of Peter Boghossian, Eric Metaxas, James Klug, and Andrew Klavan, writing articles for the Daily Wire and attending a Free Press event recently with other creators and influencers. I will be honest that I considered quietly leaving Pens & Poison. I’m a huge fan of Pens & Poison but I wondered if I was even needed anymore given Liza’s great success but I stay because I believe in Liza’s mission. We need people like her now more than ever in the literary world. On another note, I miss when we would get to personally interact in a way with Liza in the comments. It just isn’t the same without her personally reading comments or liking them even though I know what’s really hard to do because there are 100+ on her articles. That’s the thing about Liza’s success it has been both a blessing and a curse in my personal opinion. Is it wonderful to see Liza succeed so much? Of course. But at the same time, you can’t really have the deeper connection to the creator anymore because an avalanche of new people have arrived. In closing, I noticed Liza’s poetry collections aside from Girl Soldier aren’t available on Amazon anymore and are out of print. I hope someday it will become possible to purchase them again.
This is a wonderful essay filled with subheadings that are just le mot juste. But why didn't you learn anything from Charles Dickens? Or were you just being dei with your opus?
No Toni Morrison?
Well, yeah, but in writing class you learn which font to use and you learn to double space and indent each paragraph.
Surely that's worth four years and 50K...
Well, literature has actually moved on since 1963. Sometimes for the better sometimes for the worse. Historical antecedents are all well and good and bear reading (even re-reading) but not at the expense of acknowledging the times we live in as well. And, no, Sally Rooney is not the only living author. The authors you write about here are important but your tastes have ossified. And your efforts to attach yourself to their achievements can appear a tiny bit self-aggrandizing. Instead of continuing to list the same writers time and again why don't you share some discoveries among current practitioners. Be positive. Live in the now.
Didn't read T S Elliot, the rest all great. Also: 1/10 that is not anglophone or Russian, it is a pity that the big five don't translate more (or that american readers are not more interested in translated works)
The previous comment is spot on. This is your best post ever.
Absolutely brilliant composition. Thank you!