The Hallmarks of Pretension

I mentioned in an earlier post (way back when...) that I'm a down-to-earth kinda guy in terms of the manuscripts I like to read and publish.  I am a proud publisher of commercial fiction: For everyone's sake (including that jar of black ink that pays my salary, as well as authors' royalty checks), I want my books to sell.  I want people reading them, buying them, requesting them at the library. 

We all know of those rare instances when a "literary" book hits the best-seller list: I'm thinking of (for example) The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco; or, more recently, 2666, by Roberto Bolano. 

Despite certain aspects of American society that are the remainder of our English heritage, for the most part I think that the U.S. is a mostly egalitarian society that frowns upon pretension and "airs."  (We share that characteristic with the Australians, who are even more sensitive to, and intolerant of, those who attempt to place themselves above others.)  This leads us to the interesting question: How can a writer (whether of mysteries or otherwise) be ambitious without being pretentious?  It's an important question, because ambitious books are very much to be encouraged, while pretentious books are to be tossed out with the bathwater.

As a commercial editor, all I can do is list those qualities in a book (usually a published book) that for me are the hallmarks of pretension.  As I flip through a book and see these devices, all sorts of alarm bells go off, shrieking "PRETENSION! PRETENSION!"

1. Present-Tense Narratives.  I do loathe these self-conscious attempts to be "literary," which is exactly what they are, 99% of the time.  I've heard all the usual reasons given for choosing that tense: It makes the prose more "immediate," etc., etc.  Sorry, but no.  It sounds ridiculous.  Think of Pamela Andrews literally writing a letter as she flees the sexual advances of Mr. B in Samuel Richardson's classic (but less than technically believable) Pamela.  Things haven't changed since the 1740s, folks...what sounded ridiculous then sounds ridiculous now.  I know there are plenty of people who will disagree with me (quite actively, given the number of published present-tense narratives I see on the shelves), but I've never bought a book written in present tense and I never will.

2. Nameless Narrators.  Something is really wrong when I get to the end of the book and I realize that the writer has never deigned to give his/her protagonist a name.  Fiction does bend the rules of reality, and it does allow for a nice amount of suspension of disbelief, but one thing it shares with reality is that people have names.  Why would you want to distance me from your narrator or protagonist so massively that you would choose not to give or reveal his or her name?

3. Chapters without Numbers.  You know what these books look like.  Chapters start on a new page with some sort of flourish--a large, ornate capital letter, or some sort of horizontal rule, or just a lot of white space before the first paragraph.  These are clearly chapter breaks, but the book has no chapter numbers.  Why?   Again, it's because the writer (or editor) is trying to appear "literary" in that sort of Proustian way.  Next!

4. The Barest of Plots with Endless Description.  There are those who believe that good fiction is basically character-centered, and that a story is not really necessary--that a book can be carried purely by the internal monologue of a somewhat f***ed-up, highly egocentric/neurotic main character.  Wrong!  Fiction is the intersection of character and plot.  Without a story, you have a pretentious mess; without action you have pages of self-impressed prose and a very bored reader. 

Comments

[Lexi Revellian]

1. Agreed - how tiresome the present tense is.

2. I think this ploy works in 'Rebecca', as it shows how entirely the heroine is in Rebecca's shadow. I did it myself once, admittedly in a short story, where the guy turned out to be the Angel of Death. I felt having him called Mike or Piers wasn't right somehow.

3. Chapter titles can be good, too, but why wouldn't an author want numbers?

4. A desire to know what happens next is what keeps you turning the pages. Stories fulfill a basic human need.

[Laura DiIonno]

I normally would agree about the present-tense narrative, but I've found one exception to my aversion to it -- David Rosenfelt's Andy Carpenter series, which I now buy in hardcover. The first time I tried one of his books, I put it down immediately upon discovering it was written in the present tense, but for some reason (most likely, the fact that a dog was a major character), I decided to persevere with it, translating the present tense to past tense in my mind as I read. His writing and humor won me over in no time, and I was soon reading his books without any thought to tense.

But he's the only one I tolerate this from! And I do sometimes wonder what other gems I'm missing because of my dislike of it.

I agree with your other points and would add one more, maybe as an extension of number 4: I'm not interested in being dazzled by how brilliant an author is with words when the wordplay takes precedence over the story. Those authors should probably be writing essays rather than commercial fiction.

[Jim Rozhon]

Hmmm.

I strongly disagree with #1. I actively look for stories written that way. Parker comes to mind with his Spencer books. You wouldn't buy "Looking For Rachel Wallace"?

I'm not looking for omniscience, a god-view or super powers. When I buy a mystery, I'm looking for a single human being that can solve a problem that affects him and live to tell the tale.

Suddenly, my opinion of you and this website has taken a hit.

[Alan Orloff]

Jim,

I believe you're mixing up present tense with first person POV narrative (how Spenser is written, I believe).

Chalk me down as one who can't pick up a present-tense book. Too weird.

I agree with number four, too. Who wants to know what color the tree's leaves are? I want to know what happens next!

[Christine]

Sometimes I have been stuck on an airplane or bus with a book that I didn't know was written in present tense when I bought it (thought it would have been easy enough to have flipped through it first!) So I was left with the option of either not reading it and being totally bored, or reading it and "overlooking" the strangeness of the present tense. This makes me realize that I have read present tense books, but usually under duress, and always in a way that causes me to mentally reject the tense or pretend it's not there. Which makes me think how much can I really enjoy fiction when I am attempting to ignore a key part of it? Good post - thanks.

[Jersey Jack]

I love the present tense. Gets rid of almost all those stupid "hads" you want us to put in.