What's a Novel For?

DH: The literate media has recently brought the criticism of Richard Poirier to my attention. I picked up a copy of his The Renewal of Literature on Amazon. I had to settle for a used copy. The book is not currently in print.

I just started it but I didn’t want to wait to discuss this issue. What’s a novel for? Why would you want to read or write one? It boils down to this. When one of us wrote All About Lulu did he do it because he wanted to becomea better person or help others to improve themselves? Like: “Thank goodness I read Lulu, it really helped me ace that job interview! Or: “I used to be a terrible person but now that I’ve read Lulu, I help blind people to cross the street and am kind to animals!”

Okay…it’s a crock. I’d like to say, apparently with Poirier as far as I can tell, that literature is about the growth and renewal of language, about the need to make everything new, to make new discoveries or re-establish old ones. Let’s go exploring!

But our schools, libraries, booksellers, parents…the society says: read and write and get a good job, Or read and be entertained and stay out of trouble. Writing is a nice hobby. Reading keeps you occupied. Or read and become a better person.

I admit that I can’t shake the idea that our morality, our spiritual identities are lexical. That they depend on the written word. So I can see the argument that reading Lulu or any other good book will make me a better person…even though I’m an art for art’s sake sort of guy. “That Dennis! Look at him reading or trying to write! Always improving himself!”

That’s my question for you guys. Why did you want to write a novel…or why would you want to read one? Jonathan…you go last, sir.

JR: I started writing novels because I have something to say and this was the way I thought I could say it. I grew up in an incredibly creative environment. I wasn’t allowed to watch much television as a child, only one hour a day. So I found the radio station that was the simulcast for CBS, and listened to every show that was on the television. Every night I listened to sitcoms like Kate & Allie, or Cagney & Lacey, or made for television movies. In the ninth grade I completely plagiarized Salem’s Lot, in a short story of my own, basically changing the vampires into heroes, thank God my teacher hadn’t read the book, I got an A. For as long as I can remember writing novels seems like the best place for me to pour my thoughts. I’m transfixed by a good novel, its hero doesn’t have to be sympathetic, and the ending doesn’t have to be happy, and it certainly doesn’t need to be told in chronological order, but I have to connect in some way. Which is exactly why I want to write a novel.

Novels are for people to read and enjoy, it won’t make you better person. You can work in a soup kitchen for that.

Why did Jonathan write All About Lulu? He wanted to tell a story, he wanted to tell it in a medium that could be shared with others. Which makes me wonder, do novels reflect society or writers insecurities about friends and family and work? Should we take what’s being published in the literary end of the book business as gospel? Are those writers somehow telling the rest of the country a story that has come from a particular experience that somehow got translated into a novel? The writers I read are saying something that I like, is it entertaining? Sure. Which begs the question, not what are novels for, but who the fuck is reading them…literary or commercial?

JC: Um… all of the above. Really, who says a novel has to be just one thing, or one thing for everybody? Hell, lots of people write because because they have something to say, or think they do. And lots of people write as a form of therapy – a good place to put down their thoughts, ideas. Some have this crazy OCD thing going on – I have to write! Some people think it’s an easy way to make a buck. Ha! The novels we write are either thinly-veiled mirrors of our lives (wait till you see my novel about a blogger named CJ!) or stories that range widely from our experiences. Some are philosophical, and some are personal, some are political. Some of the best are a hundred different surprising things.

And readers want more than a hundred different things. We all know this. Some want escapism, a good yarn, a roll in the hay; others want something more complex – enlightenment, complexity, epiphany. And I won’t presume to know what the hell some people want, but a lot of them find it in a lot of different books. And it’s not the same from every book. It’s a loser’s game to try and figure out what the reader wants unless you are a marketeer and not a writer. If you’re looking for trends, in most cases the trend will be past by the time you write and sell the book. So don’t start your vampire novel now. Or your newest Dan Brown ripoff. Just write the book you want to write. If it’s good enough, find your audience. If it’s not, there’s always your mom.

And as far as writing a book making you a better person… well, it probably won’t make you worse. Unless you refuse to blurb.

JE: Not long ago I got an e-mail from an early reader of Lulu, who had been driving west on the 10 through San Berdoo valley, past the dinosaurs of Cabazon, when she was all of a sudden inundated with memories. She recalled an epic night in her adolescence that she’d spent getting drunk in Cabazon with some friends, and climbing around on the dinosaurs. She remembered the crickets and the great gaping silence of the valley, and certain desolation. She couldn’t for the life of her remember what had brought her out there, though, or who she was with, or what all the drama was about, but she remembered that the night had changed her life somehow, like maybe she’d had her heart broken. She remembered the wash of starlight and the smell of sage, and that somebody had a bass guitar, and that they were drinking spiced rum, and she remembered that one person was drunker than everybody else, and she remembered feeling sad for that person. But who? And whose car had they driven? And what were they doing out there, anyway, it didn’t make sense? Who did she know that played the bass guitar? It was driving her bonkers. Then it hit her that none of it happened to her at all, that one of her friends had told her about it really vividly. But who told her? Who all was there? It was really starting to bug her. Finally, it hit her that she was remembering a scene from All About Lulu, and the people were Will and Lulu and Troy. A year-and-a-half after she had read Lulu, the scene was still a palpable thing living inside of her, folding over on her own experience, making her remember in a very real way what never happened. This is how stories change people. And this is why I read them, and this is why I write them. As a reader, I get to live inside the story, I get to experience the story, sensually, tactilely. As a writer, I get to live inside my reader, haunt my reader with memories outside the realm of their experience, and in some small way become a part of them. This is why I never forget the reader, because hopefully, I’ll be with them for a long time.