Emotions are a reaction to closely held values. I don't write novels but I do write scripts and study film. What you're describing sounds to me like what I see from the left. The left is now fully nihilist. That is, the left rejects all facts which clash with their ideology and all human values, honesty, competence, integrity, excellence, beauty, justice etc. as such. (If you doubt my assertion, just spend some time watching contemporary films from leftie film makers.) So true emotion will not appear in the work of writers to the degree that they hold leftist ideology. (There are certainly serious problems with the right but at least they embrace values.)
What you call "the left" is not the left at all. There is very little of the old left in the world. The left that championed love, connection, community, compassion all as guiding forces. I come, intellectually and emotionally from that left which gradually disappeared.
Read works of people like Nikos Kazantzakis' Report to Greco or anything by Orwell or even John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy, or John Steinbeck etc.
When I was young, quite a while ago now, there were those on the left with whom I disagreed on certain political and economic issues but who seemed to me to value America as a free country. Examples include JFK, Adlai Stevenson, Truman and before my time, FDR. In my view, all such people are gone from the left (purged or repelled, they left voluntarily) which, to repeat, is now fully nihilist which in turn in my view led directly to the recent alliance between the left and followers of Islam and the consequent surge in anti Semitism. This alliance is for me the second worst development in American political history exceeded only by slavery which we had to fight a civil war to eliminate. I hope I am proven wrong and 5 or 10 years from now, people will laugh at me for my concerns but I think some really ugly times are coming in America and the cause will be this alliance.
Swimming passage - I would guess authors can't convey normal human emotion because they no longer feel it. Everyone, everywhere, is staring into their phones. We've all heard the horror stories of people filming crimes or accidents instead of you know, HELPING the person in need.
Child/parent passage - Well, there are people who dump their kids in daycare, from a few weeks old, for 50+ hours a week, to bond with and be raised by strangers. So there's that.
I suspect that this is why so many modern novels leave me cold. If the primary characters seem to have no feelings, how can I ?
Now, full disclosure, I don’t care deeply about the characters in every old book. I’m not interested in Sherlock Holmes inner life and emotional state. I am not weeping over the fate of Bertie Wooster. But those are characters in books written with a different purpose. Give me a puzzle, or humor or some reason to care. I don’t expect all three, but I need one.
I suspect the influence of cinema is to blame. It seems much of the contemporary lit I've read reads as if I'm meant to be watching, not experiencing, not feeling. It's a pity because, while a film might be fun to watch, it can't really compete with the written form. It's almost never as good as the book, and when it is it's because the book is lacking the qualities a movie can't capture.
Brave thoughts, especially when addressing the timid generations. I wonder how many of your readers will be able to take this licking and keep on ticking. But there are equally unjustified histrionics in literature that have been lionized by literary zoo-goers. I offer G. G. Marquez, M. Bulgakov and S. Rushdie. In general, I do support your contention regarding emotional timidity; maybe that's why I put down so many books midstream, unaware of what bothered me.
My theory of the case is thus: Our culture excels at calling out the vulnerable, ridiculing the sensitive, and insists on privileging post-ironic expression as the only true form of "emoting." In other words, we are so easily exposed to criticism these days (because everyone is a critic out on social media), it's no longer "safe" to be fully, humanly authentic. Best to hide behind de-scaled emotions. I absolutely lament this and will go for the full-throated risk of expressing "feelings" over the cold post-modern restraint. I certainly aim for this in my own books, including Tent City, which doesn't shy away from strong emotion. Well done, Liza!!
Describing actions are easy. Conveying emotion is difficult. That's why emotional works by the masters are so immortal in any art form. It requires both skill and willingness to share something personal.
Another outstanding essay. And, I admit it: I skipped over most of your examples, because I can't stand to read them. Thank you for subjecting yourself to such garbage, just to prove your point. I'd think that, for very different reasons, these too would at least bring tears to your eyes. Keep fighting!
I don't know if I would say that contemporary fiction has completely abandoned emotion. I think it's more like the reason you (and sometimes I) get weepy at great works. It's because the emotion has been earned through the subtext of the work. Contemporary fiction has no subtext and therefore does not earn the emotion the author thinks it is portraying.
It's quite intentional. This type of passionless writing that you are critiquing could have easily been written by AI with a prompt to write for a person with a grade three reading level and severe ADHD. Who's to say it hasn't been? Maybe we need to start referring to such writing for what it is... market -focussed text, words for digital minds, social conditioning, absolute shite.
We live in a world that conflates emotion with sentimentality. Also, professors teach students to strip their writing bare so it is easier for them to read and grade.
Thank you so much for this! I personally need to remind myself every time I write that *emotions* are what makes characters *human* and I don't need to feel guilty or twitchy because someone guilt spirals or reacts to something with more than a "ho hum, move on". Some of my books got eye rolls from beta readers because my male characters dared to expression emotion beyond "I Am Man, Touch Her And Die" (insert person eye roll here) but I refuse to change that because I don't right robots, I write human beings.
I so perfectly grasp what you are expounding here! However, there are a few contemporary writers who do not in the least shun fully-blown emotions. I very recently read Paul Lynch's novel, "Prophet Song". The protagonists' feelings billow from the words and completely permeate the reader. Great literary work, undoubtedly! My own novels and short stories are composed with this aim, that the minds and feelings of the characters enter and turn the readers' own souls. Pretentious, maybe, but for what other reason should one write fiction?
Just discovered you. I find it hard to read anything that is considered "good" in either fiction or poetry. One bright light lies in detective fiction--my favorite is P.D. James at least if you like language and emotions without sentimentality.
Oh I loved this – it's so true. I have read novels that seem clinical, ironic and detached both in Swedish and in English lately. We see this detachment in visual art as well where everything is supposed to be abstract with no or little realism and no emotion. Spot on. I love Burke. I love Dostojevskij and I adore Wuthering Heights! Best regards from Stockholm.
Emotions are a reaction to closely held values. I don't write novels but I do write scripts and study film. What you're describing sounds to me like what I see from the left. The left is now fully nihilist. That is, the left rejects all facts which clash with their ideology and all human values, honesty, competence, integrity, excellence, beauty, justice etc. as such. (If you doubt my assertion, just spend some time watching contemporary films from leftie film makers.) So true emotion will not appear in the work of writers to the degree that they hold leftist ideology. (There are certainly serious problems with the right but at least they embrace values.)
What you call "the left" is not the left at all. There is very little of the old left in the world. The left that championed love, connection, community, compassion all as guiding forces. I come, intellectually and emotionally from that left which gradually disappeared.
Read works of people like Nikos Kazantzakis' Report to Greco or anything by Orwell or even John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy, or John Steinbeck etc.
When I was young, quite a while ago now, there were those on the left with whom I disagreed on certain political and economic issues but who seemed to me to value America as a free country. Examples include JFK, Adlai Stevenson, Truman and before my time, FDR. In my view, all such people are gone from the left (purged or repelled, they left voluntarily) which, to repeat, is now fully nihilist which in turn in my view led directly to the recent alliance between the left and followers of Islam and the consequent surge in anti Semitism. This alliance is for me the second worst development in American political history exceeded only by slavery which we had to fight a civil war to eliminate. I hope I am proven wrong and 5 or 10 years from now, people will laugh at me for my concerns but I think some really ugly times are coming in America and the cause will be this alliance.
Swimming passage - I would guess authors can't convey normal human emotion because they no longer feel it. Everyone, everywhere, is staring into their phones. We've all heard the horror stories of people filming crimes or accidents instead of you know, HELPING the person in need.
Child/parent passage - Well, there are people who dump their kids in daycare, from a few weeks old, for 50+ hours a week, to bond with and be raised by strangers. So there's that.
I suspect that this is why so many modern novels leave me cold. If the primary characters seem to have no feelings, how can I ?
Now, full disclosure, I don’t care deeply about the characters in every old book. I’m not interested in Sherlock Holmes inner life and emotional state. I am not weeping over the fate of Bertie Wooster. But those are characters in books written with a different purpose. Give me a puzzle, or humor or some reason to care. I don’t expect all three, but I need one.
I suspect the influence of cinema is to blame. It seems much of the contemporary lit I've read reads as if I'm meant to be watching, not experiencing, not feeling. It's a pity because, while a film might be fun to watch, it can't really compete with the written form. It's almost never as good as the book, and when it is it's because the book is lacking the qualities a movie can't capture.
Brave thoughts, especially when addressing the timid generations. I wonder how many of your readers will be able to take this licking and keep on ticking. But there are equally unjustified histrionics in literature that have been lionized by literary zoo-goers. I offer G. G. Marquez, M. Bulgakov and S. Rushdie. In general, I do support your contention regarding emotional timidity; maybe that's why I put down so many books midstream, unaware of what bothered me.
My theory of the case is thus: Our culture excels at calling out the vulnerable, ridiculing the sensitive, and insists on privileging post-ironic expression as the only true form of "emoting." In other words, we are so easily exposed to criticism these days (because everyone is a critic out on social media), it's no longer "safe" to be fully, humanly authentic. Best to hide behind de-scaled emotions. I absolutely lament this and will go for the full-throated risk of expressing "feelings" over the cold post-modern restraint. I certainly aim for this in my own books, including Tent City, which doesn't shy away from strong emotion. Well done, Liza!!
Describing actions are easy. Conveying emotion is difficult. That's why emotional works by the masters are so immortal in any art form. It requires both skill and willingness to share something personal.
Another outstanding essay. And, I admit it: I skipped over most of your examples, because I can't stand to read them. Thank you for subjecting yourself to such garbage, just to prove your point. I'd think that, for very different reasons, these too would at least bring tears to your eyes. Keep fighting!
I don't know if I would say that contemporary fiction has completely abandoned emotion. I think it's more like the reason you (and sometimes I) get weepy at great works. It's because the emotion has been earned through the subtext of the work. Contemporary fiction has no subtext and therefore does not earn the emotion the author thinks it is portraying.
It's quite intentional. This type of passionless writing that you are critiquing could have easily been written by AI with a prompt to write for a person with a grade three reading level and severe ADHD. Who's to say it hasn't been? Maybe we need to start referring to such writing for what it is... market -focussed text, words for digital minds, social conditioning, absolute shite.
We live in a world that conflates emotion with sentimentality. Also, professors teach students to strip their writing bare so it is easier for them to read and grade.
Thank you so much for this! I personally need to remind myself every time I write that *emotions* are what makes characters *human* and I don't need to feel guilty or twitchy because someone guilt spirals or reacts to something with more than a "ho hum, move on". Some of my books got eye rolls from beta readers because my male characters dared to expression emotion beyond "I Am Man, Touch Her And Die" (insert person eye roll here) but I refuse to change that because I don't right robots, I write human beings.
I so perfectly grasp what you are expounding here! However, there are a few contemporary writers who do not in the least shun fully-blown emotions. I very recently read Paul Lynch's novel, "Prophet Song". The protagonists' feelings billow from the words and completely permeate the reader. Great literary work, undoubtedly! My own novels and short stories are composed with this aim, that the minds and feelings of the characters enter and turn the readers' own souls. Pretentious, maybe, but for what other reason should one write fiction?
Unrelated to writing, but related to adagios. Do you like Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings?
Just discovered you. I find it hard to read anything that is considered "good" in either fiction or poetry. One bright light lies in detective fiction--my favorite is P.D. James at least if you like language and emotions without sentimentality.
Oh I loved this – it's so true. I have read novels that seem clinical, ironic and detached both in Swedish and in English lately. We see this detachment in visual art as well where everything is supposed to be abstract with no or little realism and no emotion. Spot on. I love Burke. I love Dostojevskij and I adore Wuthering Heights! Best regards from Stockholm.