Who is this person? (photo c/o Daily Press)

LOOK AT THE LIST of winners of the Fiction category of the National Book Awards, and the first five names you see– for 1950 to 1954– are all big ones, who wrote blockbuster books which grabbed public attention irrespective of awards: Nelson Algren, William Faulkner, James Jones, Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow. Then, as you study the list, you realize something happened. A slow diminution in both status and renown. Either the list is reflective of the diminishing place of literature in the culture, or the National Book Foundation has been rewarding the wrong books. Or a combination of both.

Which raises the question: Why hold these awards? Why do these awards exist?

Like all such awards– see the Oscars– the purpose is or should be one of PR. To gain attention for the book industry, for authors, and for the art of literature. After all, it’s quite the swanky event, held every year at ultra-expensive restaurant Cipriani Wall Street located at the center of Big-Money Manhattan, which still leads the world– last time I checked– in number of billionaires. Is the lavish production worth it, when no one outside immediate relatives knows who the winners and their books are, either before or after the event?

(photo of Cipriani Wall Street c/o publishing perspectives)

Which is not a knock against this year’s Fiction winner, Justin Torres, or his experimental novel, Blackouts. The editors of New Pop Lit and Fast Pop Lit consider themselves experimental writers (experimental pop). We well know the struggle to have our efforts recognized in any shape or form. We might even accept (or might not, depending upon how broke we are that week) such an award ourselves, if it ever came around; which would most likely be after a nuclear holocaust. We know though the realities of the book business– and of literature itself, which is at as low a standing as it’s been since the invention of the novel in the early 1700’s. Amid the overwhelming noise of the rest of the culture, from sports to TV to movies to video and music downloads, the literary art raises scarcely a whisper. In effect, it’s a hand raised tentatively at the back of the room, with a weak voice stating, “We’re still here.”

Not good enough, in any respect.

But what do you think?

-KW