Wow. There's a lot of interesting ideas here to think about.
The first thing I was wondering though: When do you think modern fiction begins? Some 19th century writers seem quite modern to me. I'm wondering if you mean the last fifty years say... or maybe you have a broader or shorter timeline for modern fiction.
For me, I think one of the big distinctions between "classic" and what I think of as "modern" is that classic writers were generally stronger on the sentence level. I do a lot more underlining when I read Dostoevsky than I do when I read Tommy Orange for example. (I know these are super random choices.) Classic writers are more likely to illuminate with pure language. I rarely find a linguistic fisson in contemporary stories. "Modern" writers are more likely to impress me with atmosphere, milieu or a breezy style. In many cases modern writers are much better with dialog. I don't think there are a lot of examples in classic literature with dialog being the main driver of a story. I can't think of any anyway. There are a lot of modern novels where dialog is paramount. It occurs to me that maybe that's one way to categorize modern fiction; modern fiction might be fiction written since the advent of movies and TV where dialog (and personality) are so important. I think you're right about spiritual detachment in the sense that modern writers usually don't take a position on religion, but I do think a lot of modern writers are suggesting the existence of a spiritual power that's sort of floating behind the story. In other words, it's just less explicit; an invisible deus ex machina. The thing you say about the lack of "willingness to try something new" is more about modern publishing than it is about modern writers in my opinion. Thanks for writing this interesting essay. I'm looking forward to number 2!
The question of where modern fiction begins is hard to answer. And the more I think about it, the more I realize there are 2 distinct categories here: modern *style* versus modern *content*.
I'm a product of my generation, so movies and TV have strongly shaped my experience of story. I think you're spot on with the assertion that dialog has become more important due to visual mediums. I've written a screenplay before and it felt strange to only use dialog; no description, no action (except the notes for the director). I missed having those tools, which was eye-opening for realizing how different books are compared to movies. But I love watching movies, and I prefer books that are descriptive and visual. All of that to say: I like modern style. It's what I know.
Modern content is more the problem. That's where we get into issues of spiritual detachment and thin storytelling. This is subjective, of course, but I disagree with your argument that modern stories still have a sense of a spiritual power. The term for this nameless power is Fate (unless it actually has an in-world name and explanation), and fate doesn't feature in modern stories nearly as much. It seems like *people* are always the source of conflict. Compare The Lord of the Rings, where the main antagonist is a disembodied eye which manipulates the world using magic and temptation, to Game of Thrones, where the main antagonist is always a person (usually some political rival). That's a microcosm of what I think we've seen happening across modern fiction.
If I had to name a point in time when this switched, I would say somewhere in the late 20th century. I talked about how globalization and secularization are a large part of why the shift happened (more on that in a future essay, as well), and those have both accelerated in the last 40 years.
I think that the modern world has largely abandoned spiritual conflict as a driver of story. Sauron in The Lord of the Rings is the embodiment and externalization of temptation. The whole book is a treatise on temptation, with each of the characters being tempted in various ways by various things, some succumbing to that temptation, and other not.
Stories today seem almost always to have an external antagonist. It is always the Grendel without, not the Grendel within.
This is the hallmark of an age and a literature that is political rather than spiritual. In a political literature, the protagonist is always pure and the antagonist is always corrupt. In spiritual literature, both are corrupt, but the essential conflict is not with the antagonist but with the protagonist's own corruption. Overcoming ones corruption is the real battle and the triumph over the antagonist come naturally an inevitably as a result of that triumph.
The result of this is that it is almost impossible to sympathize with the hero of a political novel unless you agree with their politics. This then shapes both what is published and what is read.
I think when I write a scene, I tend to visualize it as if it were part of a movie. I kind of bet we all visualize things that way nowadays. Writers of 150 years ago probably visualized a scene more organically. Maybe with less interest in the visual and more emphasis on other sensations; mood, smell, temperature, and cues from nature generally.
Pride and Prejudice is dialogue driven (and such dialogue!). A great deal of Dickens is dialogue driven as well, though there is much else besides. Hemmingway, Stienbeck, Greene, and even James Joyce. And certainly P.G. Wodehouse. So no, I don't think that holds.
You know, I should read Pride and Prejudice! It came up a couple of weeks ago when I told someone that rom coms are a modern invention. He said Pride and Predjudice is a rom com. I agree that there is some really good dialog in a lot of "classic" novels. (By the way, I'm thinking 19th Century and older when I say, "classic.") But are there any where you open the book and see so much white space on the page? Dialog creates white space. Elmore Leonard comes to mind (Hemmingway, Steinbeck, etc. too). Dialog driven writing moves fast, is less dense and feels "modern." Just like a movie.
As a side note: I just re-read Pride and Prejudice this year and was utterly delighted. There’s a reason it’s eternal. I also feel that Elizabeth Bennet is one of the great heroines of literature - she’s smart, funny, and purposeful without being crass or mean.
Indeed, you should read Pride and Prejudice. Everyone should. It is the novel.
And yes, the dividing line between classic and modern is tricky and really depends on what characteristics you regard as particularly modern. The novel, after all, changes all the time. Which particular change is the fatal one (or fruitful one, depending on your point of view). I have something of an answer to that in my planned response, and it puts the dividing point considerably later.
Wow. There's a lot of interesting ideas here to think about.
The first thing I was wondering though: When do you think modern fiction begins? Some 19th century writers seem quite modern to me. I'm wondering if you mean the last fifty years say... or maybe you have a broader or shorter timeline for modern fiction.
For me, I think one of the big distinctions between "classic" and what I think of as "modern" is that classic writers were generally stronger on the sentence level. I do a lot more underlining when I read Dostoevsky than I do when I read Tommy Orange for example. (I know these are super random choices.) Classic writers are more likely to illuminate with pure language. I rarely find a linguistic fisson in contemporary stories. "Modern" writers are more likely to impress me with atmosphere, milieu or a breezy style. In many cases modern writers are much better with dialog. I don't think there are a lot of examples in classic literature with dialog being the main driver of a story. I can't think of any anyway. There are a lot of modern novels where dialog is paramount. It occurs to me that maybe that's one way to categorize modern fiction; modern fiction might be fiction written since the advent of movies and TV where dialog (and personality) are so important. I think you're right about spiritual detachment in the sense that modern writers usually don't take a position on religion, but I do think a lot of modern writers are suggesting the existence of a spiritual power that's sort of floating behind the story. In other words, it's just less explicit; an invisible deus ex machina. The thing you say about the lack of "willingness to try something new" is more about modern publishing than it is about modern writers in my opinion. Thanks for writing this interesting essay. I'm looking forward to number 2!
The question of where modern fiction begins is hard to answer. And the more I think about it, the more I realize there are 2 distinct categories here: modern *style* versus modern *content*.
I'm a product of my generation, so movies and TV have strongly shaped my experience of story. I think you're spot on with the assertion that dialog has become more important due to visual mediums. I've written a screenplay before and it felt strange to only use dialog; no description, no action (except the notes for the director). I missed having those tools, which was eye-opening for realizing how different books are compared to movies. But I love watching movies, and I prefer books that are descriptive and visual. All of that to say: I like modern style. It's what I know.
Modern content is more the problem. That's where we get into issues of spiritual detachment and thin storytelling. This is subjective, of course, but I disagree with your argument that modern stories still have a sense of a spiritual power. The term for this nameless power is Fate (unless it actually has an in-world name and explanation), and fate doesn't feature in modern stories nearly as much. It seems like *people* are always the source of conflict. Compare The Lord of the Rings, where the main antagonist is a disembodied eye which manipulates the world using magic and temptation, to Game of Thrones, where the main antagonist is always a person (usually some political rival). That's a microcosm of what I think we've seen happening across modern fiction.
If I had to name a point in time when this switched, I would say somewhere in the late 20th century. I talked about how globalization and secularization are a large part of why the shift happened (more on that in a future essay, as well), and those have both accelerated in the last 40 years.
I think that the modern world has largely abandoned spiritual conflict as a driver of story. Sauron in The Lord of the Rings is the embodiment and externalization of temptation. The whole book is a treatise on temptation, with each of the characters being tempted in various ways by various things, some succumbing to that temptation, and other not.
Stories today seem almost always to have an external antagonist. It is always the Grendel without, not the Grendel within.
This is the hallmark of an age and a literature that is political rather than spiritual. In a political literature, the protagonist is always pure and the antagonist is always corrupt. In spiritual literature, both are corrupt, but the essential conflict is not with the antagonist but with the protagonist's own corruption. Overcoming ones corruption is the real battle and the triumph over the antagonist come naturally an inevitably as a result of that triumph.
The result of this is that it is almost impossible to sympathize with the hero of a political novel unless you agree with their politics. This then shapes both what is published and what is read.
I think when I write a scene, I tend to visualize it as if it were part of a movie. I kind of bet we all visualize things that way nowadays. Writers of 150 years ago probably visualized a scene more organically. Maybe with less interest in the visual and more emphasis on other sensations; mood, smell, temperature, and cues from nature generally.
Pride and Prejudice is dialogue driven (and such dialogue!). A great deal of Dickens is dialogue driven as well, though there is much else besides. Hemmingway, Stienbeck, Greene, and even James Joyce. And certainly P.G. Wodehouse. So no, I don't think that holds.
You know, I should read Pride and Prejudice! It came up a couple of weeks ago when I told someone that rom coms are a modern invention. He said Pride and Predjudice is a rom com. I agree that there is some really good dialog in a lot of "classic" novels. (By the way, I'm thinking 19th Century and older when I say, "classic.") But are there any where you open the book and see so much white space on the page? Dialog creates white space. Elmore Leonard comes to mind (Hemmingway, Steinbeck, etc. too). Dialog driven writing moves fast, is less dense and feels "modern." Just like a movie.
As a side note: I just re-read Pride and Prejudice this year and was utterly delighted. There’s a reason it’s eternal. I also feel that Elizabeth Bennet is one of the great heroines of literature - she’s smart, funny, and purposeful without being crass or mean.
Indeed, you should read Pride and Prejudice. Everyone should. It is the novel.
And yes, the dividing line between classic and modern is tricky and really depends on what characteristics you regard as particularly modern. The novel, after all, changes all the time. Which particular change is the fatal one (or fruitful one, depending on your point of view). I have something of an answer to that in my planned response, and it puts the dividing point considerably later.