The Novel in Crisis

In our day the word “crisis” no longer has a clear meaning, but one may speak, I think, of a crisis of literature, at least in its long-dominant form, the novel. As always in arts and letters, France is significant in this respect. Of all Western nations the French are the most “bourgeois,” with ingrained, one could say institutionalized habits—even when it comes to reading. Renowned critics, prestigious juries, old and respectable publishing houses, great literary prizes surround the reading public, prescribing taste and deciding fine points.

Yet there is a crisis in French letters. Browsing in the bookstores of the Boul’ Mich, among the dusty volumes of old dealers around the Sorbonne or the Rue Jacob, or along the Seine at the bouquinistes, the contrast is evident between the richness of past decades and the thin production of the present. This past spring and summer simply no important novel has appeared, although the components of the machine—editors, authors, book clubs, prizes—occupy their usual posts, and are, in fact, more active than ever, using all the devices of modern publicity.

TM

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Thomas Molnar

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In our day the word “crisis” no longer has a clear meaning, but one may speak, I think, of a crisis of literature, at least in its long-dominant form, the novel. As always in arts and letters, France is significant in this respect. Of all Western nations the French are the most “bourgeois,” with ingrained, one could say institutionalized habits—even when it comes to reading. Renowned critics, prestigious juries, old and respectable publishing houses, great literary prizes surround the reading public, prescribing taste and deciding fine points.

Yet there is a crisis in French letters. Browsing in the bookstores of the Boul’ Mich, among the dusty volumes of old dealers around the Sorbonne or the Rue Jacob, or along the Seine at the bouquinistes, the contrast is evident between the richness of past decades and the thin production of the present. This past spring and summer simply no important novel has appeared, although the components of the machine—editors, authors, book clubs, prizes—occupy their usual posts, and are, in fact, more active than ever, using all the devices of modern publicity.