The literary men in my life share two qualities generally: they truly delight in the works they read and they read them again and again. In a sense, they come to incarnate the works in their personality, especially by tending toward a particular author--let's say a Chesterton, Tolkien, or Lewis. An especially cherished friend "gifted me" with his love of Aristotle. This is the real social value of literary men (and women): their love is infectious.
Well said Amy. I feel the same way. These things get passed down to us because of the love others had for their work. And you can feel that love in the passion with which they talk about their favorite authors. I don't get any of that from Morris's essay. I get the sense that he makes his students read The Handmaid's Tale because it's "important." That way of looking at things doesn't stick, to my thinking.
it's probably hyperbolic but I recently read someone speculating that we might be entering another kind of 'dark age' for culture. a worrying thought; but dark ages come - and go
It certainly seems that way. The decline of reading and literacy is ominous. But I always hold out hope that things can turn around. They will eventually, as you say, since dark ages come and go.
There’s nothing wrong with teaching Margaret Atwood. If I taught a course on dystopian lit, I’d put The Handmaid’s Tale or Oryx & Crake or both on my reading list.
To judge by this comment and the other you made about “wahmen,” Mr. Alaine, you’re a mere scoffer. In my experience, the people who scoff the most contribute the least.
When I returned a book to the Philadelphia Free Library this morning, roughly three-quarters of the homeless reading at the tables were men. Perhaps Mr. Morris can find some consolation in that. The Literary Man is alive and kicking, and in some case a little on the smelly side.
I know David Morris, so I will defend him. I was on the student committee that assessed his writing and teaching abilities when he was hired at UNLV. He is an excellent writer. It’s not clear in your essay if you’ve read his book, “The Evil Hours” but out of all the candidates he was up against, his writing was profoundly better and he was more personable than the others.
I don’t know him as a professor as I didn’t take his courses, and I haven’t read this article yet. I do agree with you that identity politics should not be the measure for publishing. But we are living in an era in which they are. He is responding to it through that argument with the hopes, perhaps, in reaching the people making publishing decisions. I will need to read the essay but I don’t agree with you that he’s not a good writer.
I haven’t read his book. I’m assessing his writing based on his op-ed, which fails to make a compelling case to those literary men he wants to reach. I find it very uninspiring, in bad faith even, because while he laments the loss of so many male readers, he’s okay with their lack of representation in the industry. I don’t know how you can rationalize this, especially if you believe representation is what fundamentally matters.
Very pleased that this post is making rounds on Substack. Indeed, the younger man who is interested in literature, be that reading or writing, is disappearing if not already extinct. I live in England, and so hear a lot of young people as young as 14 get in the Drill and Rap scene at an extremely young age. These are no doubt very talented, very lyrical young people, but for a specific reason, instead of contributing to literature, where there may be a more safe platform for them to innovate and bring their work to an audience, they risk getting caught in gang wars and getting killed on the streets for their music which advocates for violence (it's a little more complicated than this of course but this is not the point). These young people could invest their time and lyrics into poetry and we may not lose so many talented young and creative people in our days. My two cents anyway.
I work in what is supposedly a creative industry. I feel comfortable saying that "imagination and intellectual power and wisdom" are a lot more lacking than they should be precisely because we've forgotten what they are, and because mentalities like those of Morris are everywhere.
I'm trying to do my small part to pursue those, however, because I see them as a far better way forward.
I agree with your sentiment even though I haven't read Morris' op-ed, but the subject matter itself is of import. I think critical thinking skills of many men (and women) are the first casualties of this new frontier that our tech-giants are creating and more reading and writing will go by the wayside.
The few men I've spoken to about hobbies and crafts have only told me "why would I read a book if I don't have to read" - granted, that says more about the kind of men I hang around - but these kinds of comments are nails on chalkboard. We men need to learn to read and write everyday, and hopefully, it will help us to pay attention to our words.
Well said Philip. We need to pay attention to our words. Writing them down, and reading them, is one of the best ways to do that.
None of my friends are readers, either. It's video games and movies and TV. I like these things, too, but they don't satisfy the same itch that a book does. But reading has a high barrier to entry. It takes becoming a good reader to understand the value of it, whereas that's not true of those other things. Some video games have learning curves. There's no barrier to entry to film and TV. None are as rewarding in the long term as reading and writing.
It's odd that the conversation about men abandoning books for podcasts misses something vital about GOOD podcasts. They are quite similar to the philosophical dialogues that would have preceded books entirely- granted, the men who listen to those types of podcasts are most likely the same ones who have continued to read, but I'm not sure that dismisses that idea entirely.
But otherwise, do you think we need better male writers who are able to crack into the sphere needed to be taken seriously in order for a "resurrection of the literary male" to occur? Or is it more of a systemic issue in regards to who gets published?
That’s a good point about podcasts. The high quality conversational ones can be as good as philosophic dialogues. And the storytelling ones are usually more entertaining and compelling than what you find in “literary fiction” nowadays. I don’t see how prose can possibly keep up with it.
I’m a believer in both the “great man theory” and systems theory. The conditions have to be right, but it’s the luminaries that lead the way.
"The sort of literary man Mr. Morris has in mind reads literature as a way of downloading the latest cultural software, as a way of staying up-to-date on the “right way” to be."
There's nothing especially new about this idea, nor is it new that few books on best sellers listings are well written or literary. And what is literary anyway? One element is : thinking that is always relevant and is expressed ingeniously. Hemingway's old man with a sea problem is a good example of a timeless quandary expressed cleverly. Milton too. And so on...
Thanks Ron. Nothing new in the sentiment that we should resist mediocrity in all its constraints. It’s a very hard thing to describe, the kind of literary work that’s truly great. It’s certainly not for “increasing one’s emotional I.Q.”
Yes, by "nothing especially new" I meant to point out that the best-seller lists rarely are where fine literary achievements are identified. Your sentence, however, is fresh, clever, and spot on. Well said.
Fiction today sucks, and women probably have something to do with it. Is there a female Shakespeare or Tolstoy? No, there’s not. Not even close. You are not reading honestly if you finish a book for the sake of finishing it—which is precisely how an academic plies his trade. He reads what he does not enjoy. They begin to believe the pleasure of reading is merely a happy byproduct. Aristotle understood that pleasure is the voluntary gift of attention from the reader to the writer and until writers begin to honor this again, really respect it, and treasure it, our fiction will continue to suck.
The literary men in my life share two qualities generally: they truly delight in the works they read and they read them again and again. In a sense, they come to incarnate the works in their personality, especially by tending toward a particular author--let's say a Chesterton, Tolkien, or Lewis. An especially cherished friend "gifted me" with his love of Aristotle. This is the real social value of literary men (and women): their love is infectious.
Well said Amy. I feel the same way. These things get passed down to us because of the love others had for their work. And you can feel that love in the passion with which they talk about their favorite authors. I don't get any of that from Morris's essay. I get the sense that he makes his students read The Handmaid's Tale because it's "important." That way of looking at things doesn't stick, to my thinking.
it's probably hyperbolic but I recently read someone speculating that we might be entering another kind of 'dark age' for culture. a worrying thought; but dark ages come - and go
It certainly seems that way. The decline of reading and literacy is ominous. But I always hold out hope that things can turn around. They will eventually, as you say, since dark ages come and go.
We are definitely, totally, 100% already in one.
David the dork laments no men in lit while simultaneously making the dudes he teaches read margaret atwood unironically lmfaooo
It almost reads like parody.
There’s nothing wrong with teaching Margaret Atwood. If I taught a course on dystopian lit, I’d put The Handmaid’s Tale or Oryx & Crake or both on my reading list.
To judge by this comment and the other you made about “wahmen,” Mr. Alaine, you’re a mere scoffer. In my experience, the people who scoff the most contribute the least.
“Lavender” the bisexual says there’s nothing wrong with making young men read atwood, heard it here first folks lmao
When I returned a book to the Philadelphia Free Library this morning, roughly three-quarters of the homeless reading at the tables were men. Perhaps Mr. Morris can find some consolation in that. The Literary Man is alive and kicking, and in some case a little on the smelly side.
Now that’s an opinion I’d enjoy reading in the NYT!
I know David Morris, so I will defend him. I was on the student committee that assessed his writing and teaching abilities when he was hired at UNLV. He is an excellent writer. It’s not clear in your essay if you’ve read his book, “The Evil Hours” but out of all the candidates he was up against, his writing was profoundly better and he was more personable than the others.
I don’t know him as a professor as I didn’t take his courses, and I haven’t read this article yet. I do agree with you that identity politics should not be the measure for publishing. But we are living in an era in which they are. He is responding to it through that argument with the hopes, perhaps, in reaching the people making publishing decisions. I will need to read the essay but I don’t agree with you that he’s not a good writer.
I haven’t read his book. I’m assessing his writing based on his op-ed, which fails to make a compelling case to those literary men he wants to reach. I find it very uninspiring, in bad faith even, because while he laments the loss of so many male readers, he’s okay with their lack of representation in the industry. I don’t know how you can rationalize this, especially if you believe representation is what fundamentally matters.
Middle-aged wahmen here to underhandedly give credence to the longhouse, right on time boys hahaha
The name calling is petulant and not welcome.
Very pleased that this post is making rounds on Substack. Indeed, the younger man who is interested in literature, be that reading or writing, is disappearing if not already extinct. I live in England, and so hear a lot of young people as young as 14 get in the Drill and Rap scene at an extremely young age. These are no doubt very talented, very lyrical young people, but for a specific reason, instead of contributing to literature, where there may be a more safe platform for them to innovate and bring their work to an audience, they risk getting caught in gang wars and getting killed on the streets for their music which advocates for violence (it's a little more complicated than this of course but this is not the point). These young people could invest their time and lyrics into poetry and we may not lose so many talented young and creative people in our days. My two cents anyway.
Yeah, a lot of lyrical talent there, as well as a lot of tragedy.
I work in what is supposedly a creative industry. I feel comfortable saying that "imagination and intellectual power and wisdom" are a lot more lacking than they should be precisely because we've forgotten what they are, and because mentalities like those of Morris are everywhere.
I'm trying to do my small part to pursue those, however, because I see them as a far better way forward.
We have forgotten. We have to relearn them again and again.
I agree with your sentiment even though I haven't read Morris' op-ed, but the subject matter itself is of import. I think critical thinking skills of many men (and women) are the first casualties of this new frontier that our tech-giants are creating and more reading and writing will go by the wayside.
The few men I've spoken to about hobbies and crafts have only told me "why would I read a book if I don't have to read" - granted, that says more about the kind of men I hang around - but these kinds of comments are nails on chalkboard. We men need to learn to read and write everyday, and hopefully, it will help us to pay attention to our words.
Well said Philip. We need to pay attention to our words. Writing them down, and reading them, is one of the best ways to do that.
None of my friends are readers, either. It's video games and movies and TV. I like these things, too, but they don't satisfy the same itch that a book does. But reading has a high barrier to entry. It takes becoming a good reader to understand the value of it, whereas that's not true of those other things. Some video games have learning curves. There's no barrier to entry to film and TV. None are as rewarding in the long term as reading and writing.
Good essay, Robert.
Thank you Josh. I blocked that fool.
I understand. Probably for the best. It’s a pity folks show up with crud like that.
It's odd that the conversation about men abandoning books for podcasts misses something vital about GOOD podcasts. They are quite similar to the philosophical dialogues that would have preceded books entirely- granted, the men who listen to those types of podcasts are most likely the same ones who have continued to read, but I'm not sure that dismisses that idea entirely.
But otherwise, do you think we need better male writers who are able to crack into the sphere needed to be taken seriously in order for a "resurrection of the literary male" to occur? Or is it more of a systemic issue in regards to who gets published?
That’s a good point about podcasts. The high quality conversational ones can be as good as philosophic dialogues. And the storytelling ones are usually more entertaining and compelling than what you find in “literary fiction” nowadays. I don’t see how prose can possibly keep up with it.
I’m a believer in both the “great man theory” and systems theory. The conditions have to be right, but it’s the luminaries that lead the way.
I like how Amy uses the term delight
Me too Sue
I like Amy’s comment using the word delight ! That really describes good writing!
I like this sentence:
"The sort of literary man Mr. Morris has in mind reads literature as a way of downloading the latest cultural software, as a way of staying up-to-date on the “right way” to be."
There's nothing especially new about this idea, nor is it new that few books on best sellers listings are well written or literary. And what is literary anyway? One element is : thinking that is always relevant and is expressed ingeniously. Hemingway's old man with a sea problem is a good example of a timeless quandary expressed cleverly. Milton too. And so on...
Thanks.
R
Thanks Ron. Nothing new in the sentiment that we should resist mediocrity in all its constraints. It’s a very hard thing to describe, the kind of literary work that’s truly great. It’s certainly not for “increasing one’s emotional I.Q.”
Yes, by "nothing especially new" I meant to point out that the best-seller lists rarely are where fine literary achievements are identified. Your sentence, however, is fresh, clever, and spot on. Well said.
Fiction today sucks, and women probably have something to do with it. Is there a female Shakespeare or Tolstoy? No, there’s not. Not even close. You are not reading honestly if you finish a book for the sake of finishing it—which is precisely how an academic plies his trade. He reads what he does not enjoy. They begin to believe the pleasure of reading is merely a happy byproduct. Aristotle understood that pleasure is the voluntary gift of attention from the reader to the writer and until writers begin to honor this again, really respect it, and treasure it, our fiction will continue to suck.