Over at PJ Media, Bruce Bawer discusses the “big three” postwar American novelists, Vidal, Capote, and Mailer, and the reasons why somehow none of them ever managed to write the Great American Novel:
This fondness for murderers suggests that, for all their differences and their mutual hostility, Mailer, Capote, and Vidal had something in common that separated them from most of the rest of us. Even as all of them adored the limelight, they were drawn to the dark side. If they weren’t, in the final analysis, great, or even particularly good, American novelists, perhaps it was, in large part, not because of a lack of raw talent but because they all felt, to some degree and for various reasons, alienated from ordinary Americans to a degree that made it impossible for any of them to write with sufficient empathy and understanding about their countrymen – except, perhaps, those who had killed in cold blood. To be capable of a perverse sympathy for psychopaths but incapable of contemplating ordinary American life without feeling contempt and condescension (and this last applies less to Capote than to the other two) is not the formula for producing enduring literature.
Have a great weekend!
Well, I never liked anything from those three. So, you do have a shot. For my 2 cents worth, you write better.
Unfortunately, the elite literatechs and academics who bestow the highest literary honors uphold a contempt of common americans (and common sense) as the highest of ideals. Therefore, they search far and wide for others who can express that contempt.
It reminds me of something I’ve noticed among the teenagers in my small town at the back of the north woods. They cannot be cool and happy at the same time. They think they have to be cool to be happy, but in order to be cool they need to be “sportin’ a ‘tude.” How they think they will find happiness by adopting the appearance of angst and discontent is beyond my feeble mind to figure out.
I have a question for you, Lars.
This may sound odd to you but do you know a Patricia Shea?
The name doesn’t ring a bell. Sorry.