Contemporary fiction in context

When you write about contemporary fiction, you want to fit the work under consideration into some kind of tradition. When you do this, it can provide a frame for your comments about the book. Also, it's the way professionals analyze literature.

1. Satire. As you know, this is my way of categorizing these books, but don't feel you have to go along with this. There are a lot of other ways to set the scene for these novels.

2. The Realist novel. Realism in fiction begins with Austen, Dickens, and Melville. Each represents a different take on the "realist" novel, and a different definition of how novels can represent reality. In essence, early 19th century novels like Sense and Sensibility were considered "realist" because they dealt with the middle classes instead of knights errant on their way to their ladies fair. These knights were uncomplicated creatures: noble, certain of their love, consistent. In contrast Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice are prone to mistakes, misunderstandings, and changes of mind. This is why Austen's book represents reality more surely than an escapist novel by, say, Sir Walter Scott. Reality, in this case, means the human experience, including psychological aspects - like having an excess of pride or being blinded by prejudice. We still think of novels as "realist" in this sense: providing tales of education through right and wrong choices.

3. The Naturalist novel: Alongside 19th century realism you had naturalism, represented by writers like Faulkner, Dreiser, or Frank Norris. Naturalists often wrote about lower class characters who were gradually undone by their own inner weakness or corruption. I think the naturalists were influenced by Freud, who saw the id, or the primal and unrestrained part of the self, lurking beneath our respectable exteriors. For Dreiser, the id eventually shows itself and proves to be the undoing of the main character. Many transgressive novels seem to fit this category.

4. Cultural contexts: Is Crash a punk novel? Well, punks were anarchistic, deliberately offensive, tried a do-it-yourself approach rather than carefully crafting their music... This seems to fit Crash to some extent. It might also be called "new wave": the New Wave in music tried to be deliberately experimental, giving their music an oddball quality that was the opposite of the slick, grandiose music of the time.

5. Kung Fu movies and porn: These movies, violent or obscene as they are, are not transgressive, and by now we know why not. But they have something very important in common with transgressive fiction. This kind of fiction is light on story but long on action - violence, sensational events, explicit sex. Just as the plot of a Kung Fu movie is essentially a device to get the story back to another fight scene, these novels are circular. Or, you could say, they're designed like an Italian city, where the streets always lead to the next piazza. They have a circular structure, rather than the "arc" structure of a traditional story. (Old dance movies with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers have this structure too.)

6. Surrealism. Surrealism as a movement in European art actually precedes modernism. The Surrealists had a strong Freudian influence and saw their work, often, as revealing the "id" - the primal part of the mind. Transgressive fiction, which often takes place in a (slightly) unreal world, may be in the surrealist vein.