Yes, it's a masterpiece. But will anyone read it?
In defense of books people actually want to read.
When I was in middle school, I read books to escape my bullies. During lunch I’d sneak away to the school library and wind the minutes down with my nose in a book.
I once read a novel about a society of rabbits that broke free from their tyrannical leader to establish a more equitable society. It was basically a fun story about rabbits.
Sitting in a high school English class years later, I was astonished to discover that my rabbit book was actually “literature.” Watership Down uses allegory to explore different forms of leadership and political governance such as fascism, democracy, and socialism.1
I still think about that book, now more than 20 years later. I love this book for two reasons: First, it was so masterfully written even a 12-year-old enjoyed it. Second, the book’s hidden complexity made adolescent-me think deeply about politics and governance in a way that wasn’t boring—and long before I grasped what those things were.
That’s the kind of writer I want to be—the kind that tricks a reader into thinking deeply about themselves and their world.
I love science fiction because good authors use the genre to make us reflect deeply on our existence without shoving their ideas down our throats. Instead, they feed us their views in delicious spoonfuls of drama and suspense.
I don’t agree with Ayn Rand’s philosophy, but I learned a lot about her particular brand of laissez faire capitalism by reading all three of her massive books: The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and Anthem. I enjoyed myself the entire time—she’s a good storyteller. What a clever way to influence people.
Unfortunately, many writers can’t or don’t try to earn that influence by writing a good story. In the last two decades since middle school, I’ve encountered more and more books where the author just pounds me over the head with their particular take on human morality and society—like with stream-of-consciousness tomes that lack any tension. The whole point of a story is to make complex ideas like philosophy and ethics palatable, not a bore.
One of my favorite Sarah Fay posts ever is a biting take-down of snooty English Literature academia, which is influenced heavily by modernism. These lines are just so damn good:
Modernists created the split between what we call literary and popular writing. “Literary” means essentially writing that’s praised by critics, writing that’s awarded fellowships and prizes, writing that appears in syllabi in colleges and high schools the country over. And then there’s “popular,” meaning books people actually want to read.
The modernists “experimented”…they rejected the conventions that, well, made books fun. No more engaging plots, they dispensed with that. No more punctuation to make meaning clear. Bring on the sprawling sentences and/or fragments. Bring on the elaborate backstories and mind-numbing interiority of characters that go on for pages and pages and pages.2
That’s why I’ll never read Ulysses, and I don’t care. If I asked anyone to sit down and parse 816 pages of the innermost thoughts of two random dudes living in post-modern Ireland—I’m pretty sure most people would say: hard pass.
As a writer, yes, my job includes studying good writing for inspiration and instruction. But that’s not the average reader’s job. In 35 years of living, I’ve never met a single person who read literary journals who didn’t also want to be a writer. Writers get so immersed in “literary” circles that they start valuing things that make their writing inaccessible, and frankly, boring.
The stakes matter here. When writers prioritize impressing other writers over engaging readers, everyone loses. We lose readers to other media. We lose opportunities to influence thinking. We lose the chance to sneak complex ideas into receptive minds, the way Watership Down did for me.
Here’s what I think: Maybe the most impressive feat isn’t writing something experimental and complex—it’s writing something complex that people actually want to read. The magical middle exists. There are stories that keep us turning pages while leaving lasting impressions.
Those are the kinds of books that deserve to be on lists, awarded prizes, and lauded by the powers that be. Not because they’re particularly hard to read, but because they achieve the hardest feat of all: making complexity accessible, making wisdom enjoyable, making “literature” live.
Question for you: What’s your Watership Down book—a book that was fun to read but still makes you think?
Productive artists are selfish and arrogant.
When I was in high school, I secretly thought kids who wanted to be artists when they grew up were selfish bastards. How could a person be so enamored with their point of view that they thought slapping paint on a canvas would be valuable to society?
Richard Adams claims he just intended to write a book about rabbits. Yeah, right.
Great essay and I agree with everything you say. For me, it was Animal Farm and then 1984. Great stories, but also a powerful indictment of communism/authoritarianism.
Nothing irritates me more than going to a literary reading where people were taught to drone because inflection might spoil the text. Or to an MFA class where absolutely no one understands how a basic scene even works.
The funny thing about Ulysses is it seems to be written to troll these very academic types. Meanwhile the best academic writing is also immanently readable — that doesn't necessarily mean simple (as Pinker argues), but clear (as Hart argues).