Loved this, Dustin. So interesting. Wonder about your use of realism, though: I think you have a particular idea of realism in mind, yet that terms feels more capacious to me than your suggestion. (Balzac is different than, say, Richard Ford.) And the images you list are so concrete--more metonymy than metaphor, Jakobson would say--exactly the form realism has been so associated with.
Thanks, Dorian! I think you, or any other reader, could (and should!) pick my realism schtick apart. I like realism of a certain kind. (I'm tempted to be a jerk and say "the good kind.") My anti-realism stance for this substack is in part a performance -- it gives me a useful antagonist to set against the weird little books I like to write about -- but it's also a way for me to call out what I dislike about overhyped contemporary realism. So much of it reads as almost completely perfunctory to me. I can't comprehend what else people are reading if they find these novels/stories to be as compelling as they seem to.
I guess what I'm saying is that my anti-realist posture is primarily useful for expressing bitterness over certain popular (and commercial) forms of "literary fiction." But the realism of Gallant, Balzac, James, Wharton, Chekhov, et al? Sign me up.
Anyway, thanks for reading and taking the time to respond here.
Loved this, Dustin. So interesting. Wonder about your use of realism, though: I think you have a particular idea of realism in mind, yet that terms feels more capacious to me than your suggestion. (Balzac is different than, say, Richard Ford.) And the images you list are so concrete--more metonymy than metaphor, Jakobson would say--exactly the form realism has been so associated with.
Thanks, Dorian! I think you, or any other reader, could (and should!) pick my realism schtick apart. I like realism of a certain kind. (I'm tempted to be a jerk and say "the good kind.") My anti-realism stance for this substack is in part a performance -- it gives me a useful antagonist to set against the weird little books I like to write about -- but it's also a way for me to call out what I dislike about overhyped contemporary realism. So much of it reads as almost completely perfunctory to me. I can't comprehend what else people are reading if they find these novels/stories to be as compelling as they seem to.
I guess what I'm saying is that my anti-realist posture is primarily useful for expressing bitterness over certain popular (and commercial) forms of "literary fiction." But the realism of Gallant, Balzac, James, Wharton, Chekhov, et al? Sign me up.
Anyway, thanks for reading and taking the time to respond here.
Well-framed.