I heard somewhere (on a podcast no less) that Gen Z are really into "Lore" in general.
Middlemarch is top 5 for me. Someone (who?) described it as one of the only novels for adults, and I thoroughly stand by that. I carry the portrait of Casaubon--both completely serious, sympathetic, and damning--around in my head, a kind of warning of my tendency to the safety of intellectual overreach over actual risky action.
I've heard something like that too. It might be because spinning bits of lore out of rules is easy, while going out and living a life is hard. So plot and character lose out to worldbuilding. Very much like Casaubon, now that you've reminded me of him. Or maybe because it's easier to talk about the lore of a given work of fiction, so that's what influencers do, so that's where hopeful creators put their effort. This could be a whole essay.
Ha! "Novels for adults." I like that. I compared Middlemarch to Anna Karenina, which I think also has the same balance of head and heart. What do you think are other "novels for adults"?
Could be risk aversion making lore more prevalent.
I also think it could be the balance between consuming "media" and interacting with "the world" has shifted. Curiosity about "the world" has been replaced by curiosity about "lore" of the fictional world. A flipside of everyone acting like influencers because they learn how to be adult from influencers.
I should also point out that more than half of the problem with my student was me. I was abstracting her actions out to include a whole generation. Two generations, since I was thinking about my own kids, too.
If I can do anything at all about the incentives operating on creative endeavor in the age of social media, it will be through my teaching and writing. So I need to make sure I'm doing good work.
I heard somewhere (on a podcast no less) that Gen Z are really into "Lore" in general.
Middlemarch is top 5 for me. Someone (who?) described it as one of the only novels for adults, and I thoroughly stand by that. I carry the portrait of Casaubon--both completely serious, sympathetic, and damning--around in my head, a kind of warning of my tendency to the safety of intellectual overreach over actual risky action.
I've heard something like that too. It might be because spinning bits of lore out of rules is easy, while going out and living a life is hard. So plot and character lose out to worldbuilding. Very much like Casaubon, now that you've reminded me of him. Or maybe because it's easier to talk about the lore of a given work of fiction, so that's what influencers do, so that's where hopeful creators put their effort. This could be a whole essay.
Ha! "Novels for adults." I like that. I compared Middlemarch to Anna Karenina, which I think also has the same balance of head and heart. What do you think are other "novels for adults"?
Could be risk aversion making lore more prevalent.
I also think it could be the balance between consuming "media" and interacting with "the world" has shifted. Curiosity about "the world" has been replaced by curiosity about "lore" of the fictional world. A flipside of everyone acting like influencers because they learn how to be adult from influencers.
I should also point out that more than half of the problem with my student was me. I was abstracting her actions out to include a whole generation. Two generations, since I was thinking about my own kids, too.
If I can do anything at all about the incentives operating on creative endeavor in the age of social media, it will be through my teaching and writing. So I need to make sure I'm doing good work.
Yikes. Have you read Jane Psmith's review of Craft yet? https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-crft-by-alexander-langlands