WRITERS TALK ABOUT 2000
A series of mini-interviews with poets and writers
on American literature at the turn of the century
Copyright © 1999 - 2000
Copyright © 1999 - 2000
In 1998, a committee which included such literary lights as Gore Vidal and William Styron issued a list of the top 100 novels of the 20th Century. What do you think of such endeavors? If you'd been on such a committee, what works would top your list?
RSG: The list, like all such lists, was ultimately pretty silly. I don't have any problem with the novels listed (as far as I recall them now), but one shouldn't put too much stock in such a project. I don't have any particular suggestions for list-toppers, but I would have liked to have seen something by Richard Yates on the list. I think that Revolutionary Road, if not one of the best novels of the century, is certainly the one that most precisely nails the 1950s. It is, I think, the closest an American novel has come to the spirit of Madame Bovary. Yates was always a writer's writer and he never had a popular reputation that amounted to anything. But I carry his novels and stories around in my heart, and I will eventually revisit all of them.
What trends have you observed among writers that you think will continue into the next century? Are there any trends you feel will dominate letters? Any you'd identify as passing fads only?
RSG: Experimentation has reached a dead end, and a reaction is long overdue. If music is returning to tonality and painting to representation, then poetry will return to its traditional strengths--meter, rhyme, and narrative.
How would you characterize the final years of this century in artistic terms? Will the late 20th Century be remembered as an historic period in American letters?
RSG: It is highly doubtful that it will be. I suspect that in fifty years poets like Ashbery will be read (if they are read at all) in the same spirit we read Swinburne. I would term the last two decades of the 20th century as a period of decadence that rivals that of the previous century.
Sam Gwynn's new book of poems is now available from Amazon:
Books by Ernest
GainesIn 1998, a committee which included such literary lights as Gore Vidal and William Styron issued a list of the top 100 novels of the 20th Century. What do you think of such endeavors? If you'd been on such a committee, what works would top your list?
EG: I don't think much of it. About 60% of it sounds good. I don't think it makes sense for Ulysses to be there but not Finnegan's Wake.
I haven't seen books by anyone who started writing in the last 45 years. All I've seen are books by people writing at the turn of the 19th/20th century. It's like asking a sportwriter to name the 100 best ballplayers, and him listing Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth, but no one since then. Plus there are about 12 books on that list I simply wouldn't have included.
What trends have you observed among writers that you think will continue into the next century? Are there any trends you feel will dominate letters? Any you'd identify as passing fads only?
EG: The people who write about the land--agrarian writers, Southern writers writing about the South has it was, the romantics writing about moss-covered trees: all of that will be gone.
How would you characterize the final years of this century in artistic terms? Will the late 20th Century be remembered as an historic period in American letters?
EG: The great thing happening in fiction now is that we're including many new nationalities. That's another thing you don't see reflected on that "best of" list. In the last 30 years, we've seen far more Black, Asian and Hispanic writers come to the fore. Before the 1970s, there were very few. In fact, more Black writers have emerged in the last 30 years than we knew about in the previous 300 years.Until we're all contributing to what America is about--the Blacks, Hispanics and Asians in search for their identity as Americans, asking themselves "Who AM I as an American?"--American literature isn't complete.
As for the future, it will point toward the Internet. Despite the privacy issues, which are already causing problems, the information availability will continue to make it a driving force.
Books by Wyatt
PruntyIn 1998, a committee which included such literary lights as Gore Vidal and William Styron issued a list of the top 100 novels of the 20th Century. What do you think of such endeavors? If you'd been on such a committee, what works would top your list?
WP: It's fine to do such a thing because it renews interest in fiction. It encourages people to buy a book and read it. But all lists like that have their limitations. They are mischievous in that regard. The very act of including books excludes books.
What trends have you observed among writers that you think will continue into the next century? Are there any trends you feel will dominate letters? Any you'd identify as passing fads only?
WP: The thing that will persist is a recognition that what is essential about writing--what makes it art--is that it is not the sole property of any one school.
A number of very good writers are more aware of that now, that art isn't limited to any one movement. In my essay, "Primary and Secondary Form, I distinguish between innate (that is, something essential that makes us recognize something as art) and physical form. That essential thing survives translation.
All movements have a half-life. And all individual poets, in their corporal existence, will fade. I hope their poetry survives.
How would you characterize the final years of this century in artistic terms? Will the late 20th Century be remembered as an historic period in American letters?
WP: It's the millennium, so everyone is looking for something, and therefore they will find something.
But I do think there will be change. What I will look for, what's on my mind, is the recognition of a kind of essentialism: an interest in the verbal aspect of language. We talk about nature as nominative; in fact, being is doing. Humans are active beings, and I believe that will play a role in aesthetic choices. I already see it happening in the culture. We're so eclectic, and changing so rapidly--we're not losing traditions: we're proliferating them. It shows us there are many different ways to live.
Poetry that's built around action (an action taken by a character) is more vital. It's moving away from descriptive poetry--that type of work now seems flat, static, un-engaging. The poetry that is most engaging is the opposite of that. I'm talking, of course, about different forms of action. Not just physical, but intellectual too.
The growth of the Internet is great. But when I pick up a first-rate print magazine, I see stability and selectiveness. The Net disburses information but it is still too early in it sdevelopment for it to have a serious impact on writing. It isn't an edited, filtered, reliable source for new literature.
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Dr. Gloria
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