Failed fragments
by Steve
1Mainstream literary fiction is falling to pieces.
So, I read an interesting piece on the rise of the fragmented novel. It is worth reading, but my understanding of it (which might not be right), is that novels are in a process of moving away from the linear to the fragmentary, and that those fragments aren’t just random pieces, but can be read as a whole, one informing another, the sum of the parts revealing the bigger picture.
I’ve been reading several novels at once. It is not necessarily a completely satisfying experience and is sometimes a confusing one. I think it leads to me trailing off from reading certain books. It might be a symptom of my lack of attention span, or my hunger to move on to the next thing. It might be a reflection of the books I’m reading. The most compelling books I can’t put down, I find more time to read. The books that fail to grab me that way are far more forgiving, they don’t seem to mind me putting them down and picking up something else.
I listen to a lot of podcasts, watch my fair share of TV, etc. Sometimes I multitask. Nothing exceptional there. Sometimes I get mixed up, misremember where I saw or heard something. Programmes blur. Sometimes I realise I’ve paid attention to nothing. Sometimes I feel like I can take on a lot of different information at once, and then draw upon it. It can feel invigorating, it is not always exhausting.
One book I’m reading tells its tale in a traditional, linear way. It is starting to frustrate me, as I can see what it is doing. It spends several chapters setting up particular events, or in cultivating the reader to feel sympathetic towards one character rather than another. The book feels clumsy for its linearity. Yet everywhere I see acclaim for this book. The fragmentary novel isn’t king yet.
Another book I’m reading is very fragmentary, each chapter is in a different time period, a different setting, often with different characters. While it is a far more satisfying read I feel a little uneasy about how the reader is expected to piece everything together.
I don’t see why fragments have to fit neatly together. Is there really that much difference between a standard narrative and a fragmentary one that by the end assumes a coherent whole? We experience life in fragments, but those fragments don’t always make sense. We are flooded with information, but that information does not always provide a traditional narrative. How might hindsight or perspective should a book have?
The Fragmentary-Novel-That-Eventually-Makes-Sense feels more like a detective novel, or a puzzle to solve, than a reflection or comment on modern life. I’d prefer the loose ends stayed that way. I like ambiguity. I want to be challenged in a more meaningful way than in attempting to solve some sort of simplified metaphysical whodunnit.
I think I prefer experimentation over a neat trick.
But maybe I like fragments as they are easier to consume. They are bite-sized. I get a feel for a book without reading the whole thing. I can flit from book to book and it probably doesn’t matter. Maybe I’m lazy.
Maybe I want some sort of truth, some sort of believability. Yet a lot of realist, traditional literature doesn’t seem to capture how we live. I guess it is a case of hunting out the good stuff. But not the stuff that is so difficult that it stops being meaningful too.
Essentially I don’t know what I want.
I imagine I’d write a novel in fragments too. Far more manageable. A good coping mechanism for my lack of attention span/focus. I like lots of things. Would want to write about lots of things in lots of ways.
We’re all more than a linear tale. We’re all more than a fragmented whole. We can’t be solved, or fixed. I have trouble suspending disbelief when a narrative tries to do that. Sometimes a format that distances itself, or is less naturalistic, is somehow more believable. It gives me room to think, to manoeuver.
This post wasn’t as fragmentary as I’d planned. If you plan it, it is not the sort of fragments I’d like. Or maybe they actually need more planning, more craft. Or maybe chance is a handy tool. I don’t think I can explain myself. I’m not sure how to conciliate clarity and confusion. I’m not sure conciliate is the right word. But I liked the alteration.
Perhaps I should have written a straight post. Perhaps I didn’t want to put the work in. Have I just built a rationale for an easier kind of writing? Does it even matter?
I’m sure I’ll think of something to add, to illuminate, when I hit ‘publish’. That would be apt, and probably no bad thing.
Images from Fylkesarkivet i Sogn og Fjordane, George Eastman House, Library of Congress and US National Archives, all via Flickr.
Maybe I’m a contrarian, or maybe I’ve seen the fragmentary thing done a few too many times, but I’m getting a little tired of the approach. But It works best for me when the author is dealing with fractured memories or wants to give the story a hallucinatory epic feel. And the books at the sidebar of the article you posted to are great, the ones I’ve read anyway.
So I don’t have anything against the fragmentary approach when it works well, but it already feels overused. I totally agree with you that more fragmentary work feels a little more mysterious, but once you’ve read enough of it and start to see its internal architecture and patterns, many of the books start tor read like a very twee genre.
I just finished George Packer’s newest narrative nonfiction book about the US’s latest woes. He went for this approach, jumping characters and time. It packed an emotional punch, but ultimately it didn’t work: his book was a rallying cry for a return to 19th Century populism, which would have been better served with a straighter telling.
The style–in many of the newer books I’ve seen it in, anyway–also reeks of a kind of precociousness I’d like to see authors getting away from: if overly sanitized “important” novels are my biggest gripe with MFA programs, the second-most obnoxious part is fussy one-upmanship. When this fragmentary approach works, it’s transcendent, but when it doesn’t it reads like something you might see in your average issue of McSweeney’s.
I agree with the author that the novel is “falling apart,” both in terms of structure and in its cultural relevance. But it’s been that way for centuries. I’m not sure if the “tear it down to build it back up” approach is ever anything other than a creative dead end. Much like the crop of postmodernism was in the 90s; eventually, holding a mirror up to a mirror up to a mirror up to etc gets old.
Two proposed cures: an author publishes a novel that takes this format to its logical extreme–a series of disjointed sentences or even fragments of sentences. Or some author comes along and makes something so overbearingly bad that authors have no choice but to move on (sort of the present-day equivalent of Dave Eggers’ “Heartbreaking Work.”)
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Apologies for the late response, and thanks for the thoughtful comment.
I think twee and fussy are the key words here – no matter what the style when it appears too convoluted I start to lose interest. No matter how a novel is structured I like there to be a little magic. Corny, I know, but I’d rather not see the workings, unless that is the aim of the author.
I like both your cures – and I’m sure there is a book out there that could do both at once!
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It’s funny, but I actually had one of those half-awake, fugue dreams about this post. The best couple of movies I’ve seen in a while, Tree of Life and Upstream Color, would both probably qualify as “fractured.” I’m not sure if I appreciate them more than “fractured” books because the fractured strategies the directors used are just less stale than the ones in literature, or maybe it just works better on screen for some reason.
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I think you can get away with more fragmentation on screen, as it is easier for the creator to free-associate images and sound, and we as an audience can assimilate them and make sense of them quicker than we can with text. Perhaps.
I guess the point I’m labouring towards is a fairly old one – that modern life isn’t really linear in any sense, and so presenting it in a purely linear fashion doesn’t quite ring true. A fragmentary approach is potentially more ‘realist’ than a more traditional story-telling form.
But maybe I’m getting too hung up on format, as content feels just as important. I’m not sure many artists have got to grips with the internet and its role in our lives, plus how to have the internet as a subject without the book/movie/etc seeming out-of-date or tired or gimmicky by the time it comes out.
And apologies for muscling in to your dreams.
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