AN ANALYSIS

(engraving by Willy Stower)

THE MOST TELLING aspect of today’s literary scene is even the most loyal servants to the status quo system are barely making it. Having to edit, and struggle to promote, their generic Substacks while paying outrageous rents in the Imperial City of New York.

Yet they refuse to leave the ship’s bridge! Rigidly adhering to their obsolete “high modern” standards though the ship of Literature lists at an ever sharper angle, waiting to slide beneath the waves, into the depths.

(image c/o matskodotcom)

“Oh Captain My Captain,” they recite. But who is the captain? Has he already left?

Is it establishment attack dog Gerald Howard, who recently proclaimed in the New York Times that literary fiction is not dead? Or has snarky Gerry already hopped into a lifeboat, wearing a dress?

Some remaining crew still believe they can make it in academia care of doctoral certificates and question-nothing mindsets. Yet Humanities positions dwindle, staffs shrink, lofty Ivy-covered towers themselves begin to sink. Who’ll be added to the growing casualty list? Do we add now the Ryan Ruby Fifty– those “golden age” critics who by following the rules were supposed to rescue the art? Will any escape?

What course to follow for other writers?

The smart ones are already in lifeboats labelled “New Ideas” and “New Styles,” rowing through raging waters toward smaller but safer ships. NOT top-heavy unwieldy overloaded vessels, but of a kind able to maneuver toward more stable-but-enticing shores: the new literary world ahead.

-K.W.