A New Path for Literary Fiction

We need a revolution, not just in politics, but in literature. It’s long been apparent that most fiction writers are stumbling blind down one of two dead-end streets—either trying to rewrite the nineteenth century novel, or else writing so-called ‘experimental’ fiction, usually based on postmodernist principles, often cleverly enough, but for me most of them are unreadable, because they’re little more than cerebral and linguistic games. Obviously I’m generalizing, and naturally there are exceptions. Still, I stand by my thesis: most current fiction, especially in America, and especially if we consider the literary stars, is neither engaging nor significant, and I want to consider why that is and what can be done about it.