What are you reading in 2025?

[prabe]

I don't know. I'm not too worried about classification as far as the literary fiction vs popular fiction split. It seems useless at the end of the day and gets more than tiresome, and I don't worry about it much in my reading selections aside from sometimes going back to read authors that I've "missed" somewhere along the line in my education. But I do want novels that think about things and talk about ideas -- one of the big advantages of the long form is to have the space to wander and digress. My biggest concern with novelists is authenticity. If I feel like a writer's not putting me on, that they're not trying to wear profundity or whatever as a skinsuit, that they're not too invested in themselves as a public construct, I'm all the way in and will read them with joy regardless of the mode they're operating in. I think this is why I tend to prefer Pynchon to a lot of his literary contemporaries -- I think his authenticity as a writer is unassailable, largely because he's opted out of the public end of the fiction-industrial complex. (This is not meant to crap on other writers, as much as praise Pynchon. And I'll note that his solution is not possible for many other writers, and some writers, like King, can handle being a public figure and still maintain a large degree of authenticity.)

There's also a lot of room, even in a novel that very much prioritizes telling a hell of a story, for ... non-story thoughts to percolate in. King of Ashes, for instance, has a ton of stuff going on besides the story, and the story doesn't suffer one iota.

 

[overgeeked]

I don't know. I'm not too worried about classification as far as the literary fiction vs popular fiction split. It seems useless at the end of the day and gets more than tiresome, and I don't worry about it much in my reading selections aside from sometimes going back to read authors that I've "missed" somewhere along the line in my education. But I do want novels that think about things and talk about ideas -- one of the big advantages of the long form is to have the space to wander and digress.

My biggest concern with novelists is authenticity. If I feel like a writer's not putting me on, that they're not trying to wear profundity or whatever as a skinsuit, that they're not too invested in themselves as a public construct, I'm all the way in and will read them with joy regardless of the mode they're operating in. I think this is why I tend to prefer Pynchon to a lot of his literary contemporaries -- I think his authenticity as a writer is unassailable, largely because he's opted out of the public end of the fiction-industrial complex. (This is not meant to crap on other writers, as much as praise Pynchon. And I'll note that his solution is not possible for many other writers, and some writers, like King, can handle being a public figure and still maintain a large degree of authenticity.)

Edit: paragraphs are our friends.

Eh. To each their own. Genre and other modes of classification are quite useful distinctions to me as it at least roughly outlines what to expect in a piece. Fiction vs non-fiction. Murder mystery vs romance. Fantasy vs historical. Sci-fi vs western. Sometimes I’m in the mood for one but not another. This also helps me know if I’m predisposed to liking a book or not. I know with 99% certainty that if a book is billed as “literature” I won’t like it. That’s quite useful. It also helps you find a given book on the shelf.

 

[overgeeked]

There's also a lot of room, even in a novel that very much prioritizes telling a hell of a story, for ... non-story thoughts to percolate in. King of Ashes, for instance, has a ton of stuff going on besides the story, and the story doesn't suffer one iota.

Yeah. Stories with a ripping plot can use emotional beats between story beats to give the characters depth and let the story breathe. Stories that focus only on character without the plot? No thanks. It’s not emotion or thinking I object to, it’s lack of interesting or engaging plot. Which describes the overwhelmingly vast majority of so-called literature.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Eh. To each their own. Genre and other modes of classification are quite useful distinctions to me as it at least roughly outlines what to expect in a piece. Fiction vs non-fiction. Murder mystery vs romance. Fantasy vs historical. Sci-fi vs western. Sometimes I’m in the mood for one but not another. This also helps me know if I’m predisposed to liking a book or not. I know with 99% certainty that if a book is billed as “literature” I won’t like it. That’s quite useful. It also helps you find a given book on the shelf.

I'm not arguing against genre classification. I think there's a tendency to go too deep into taxonomies, but I think there's a lot of utility at the higher levels for the same reasons you're proposing here.

And I'm also not arguing for books without plot -- I enjoy plot and can have a low threshold for works that are solely character studies. I think my least favorite form of fiction is the New Yorker short story, which drives me absolutely bonkers.

I am wary of splits between literary and genre fiction because I think they can be loaded and artificial, driven by commercial needs or cultural concerns -- Cormac McCarthy and Gene Wolfe both wrote considerable amounts of genre fiction; I think their works are clearly literary, yet Wolfe gets shelved in Sci-Fi/Fantasy at B&N, while McCarthy gets shelved with Fiction/Literature. It's a bit unreasonable.

Edit: added last sentence.

 

[overgeeked]

And I'm also not arguing for books without plot

I’m arguing against books without plots. They typically have the label “real literature” attached by snobs. And can generally be found in the general literature shelves in bookstores. Beyond that, I got nothing.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I’m arguing against books without plots. They typically have the label “real literature” attached by snobs. And can generally be found in the general literature shelves in bookstores. Beyond that, I got nothing.

Right, I caught all that. I'm just saying they're mostly not for me either. If I wanted something long, often impenetrable or confounding, designed for someone else's preferences, and lacking in plot, I have everyday life.

 

[prabe]

Right, I caught all that. I'm just saying they're mostly not for me either. If I wanted something long, often impenetrable or confounding, designed for someone else's preferences, and lacking in plot, I have everyday life.

Life is the crummiest book I've ever read, there isn't a hook, just a lot of cheap shots, pictures that shock, and characters an amateur would never dream up.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Life is the crummiest book I've ever read, there isn't a hook, just a lot of cheap shots, pictures that shock, and characters an amateur would never dream up.

Suggestive subplots that are never paid off, inexplicable passages in foreign languages the reader does not read, feverishly bad diagrams and charts dropped into the text without explanation. It could win the Booker Prize!

 

[prabe]

Suggestive subplots that are never paid off, inexplicable passages in foreign languages the reader does not read, feverishly bad diagrams and charts dropped into the text without explanation. It could win the Booker Prize!

Combine it with a fake persona, a fake name, and a fake voice, and wait for the call from the Nobel Committee.

 

[overgeeked]

Right, I caught all that. I'm just saying they're mostly not for me either. If I wanted something long, often impenetrable or confounding, designed for someone else's preferences, and lacking in plot, I have everyday life.

Exactly. High-minded literature sucks because it’s largely plotless and boring like large stretches of real life. The stuff that makes for a good life makes for a terrible book. And vice versa. Except for the naughty bits. Those are always fun.