I’ve been thinking about the Mannerist phase in European art following the High Renaissance, and it occurs to me that western literature, since Joyce, might be going through a similar period of tumult, from which the culture has yet to emerge with its common sense intact. Mannerism can be viewed as a period of great diversity, encompassing the work of Michaelangelo, El Greco, Bronzino, Pontormo, and many others. It was also a period of great exaggeration, with elongated human forms, impossible poses, dramatic use of color, heightened emotion; but more broadly, of over-intellectualization and over-stylization. Especially in the work of El Greco, it comes as close to twentieth century expressionism and abstract expressionism as pre-modern painting was able.
It’s that over-intellectualization and over-stylization in contemporary literary fiction to which the reading public reacts with such boredom and disdain. Granted, much of the distaste expressed for literary fiction may simply be Foxification, the aggrandizement of ignorance for political ends, but that doesn’t mean it ought to be dismissed out of hand. For all of Murdoch’s false populism, his style struck a chord with the public which literature and criticism ignore at their peril. Readers love a juicy tale, and until the advent of Ullysees, and the literary fiction it spawned, they usually got one from literature.
One could say that literary fiction’s demise, and the rising popularity of pulp, owes much to its striving for mannerist effects at the expense of ideas and storytelling. Mostly, our literati today are academicians writing for a like-minded audience. Few would pollute their beautiful minds speaking plainly to the reading public, which makes the charge of elitism stick.
Murdoch and his minions can claim to be the public’s friend because they’ve learned to speak the public’s language in ways the intellectuals have not. They can claim no higher authority exists than every man’s opinion and many intellectuals would agree. It’s a very short hop from there to the proffering of knowledge and ignorance as interchangeable commodities. Under the guise of such populism, Murdoch serves up propaganda and outright lies as balanced news. For our constantly diminishing incomes and supposedly “structural” job losses, he points the finger everywhere but where it truly belongs, and people believe he’s telling the truth because they think he is on their side. He is not. He is telling lies that seem like truth in terms that folks understand, adding an emotional fillip that obviates critical thinking. It’s as if the world’s largest media conglomerate were run by Joseph Goebbels.
Back when I was just out of college and working for Jimmy Carter as a lowly campaign volunteer, a wise old union shop steward told me the President would lose the election “because he talked over people’s heads.” What we need from our intellectuals is a literature which deals with ideas and speaks to people in plain terms about what is really happening to them, not navel gazing in rarified language that the like-minded only can countenance.
