I agree with you that the economic factors are much more persuasive.
I'm curious though, if you're a reader of contemporary literary fiction, do you think that it hasn't undergone a transformation to become more obscure and trendy compared to where it was in, say, the 1960s? Are the critics' favorites now just as accessible and of the same standard as, say, Lolita or Portnoy's Complaint were back then? Or do you agree there was a transformation and just disagree with the vague reasons he gives for it?
Also, do you have any recommendations of contemporary literary fiction for us here on Hacker News? Asking as someone who mostly only reads literary novels by dead people, contemporary sci-fi or speculative fiction, and of course, inevitably, books by Sally Rooney.
I'm not trying to present myself as an expert in the field, and certainly not as a tastemaker. I'm just a regular reader of contemporary literary fiction. My personal taste doesn't match well with the critics, or with the best-seller charts for that matter, so I don't pay a lot of attention to either. The article author is much more familiar with the empirical facts than I am.
My objection was that, from the perspective of a reader of the submitted article, there seems to be a giant plot hole in the author's story. The author claims:
> beginning in the 1970s, authors were willing to optimize for critical praise at the expense of sales to a degree they had not been before.
This may or may not be empirical true, but the question is why? As far as I could tell, the author never explained why.
> It’s easy to see how a vicious cycle could have arisen from the preoccupation with status, not sales:
> 1. Authors start to optimize for critical praise
You can't just start the argument there! Ironically, the author talks about a vicious cycle, but that's actually a circular argument. I want to see 1 as the conclusion, not the first premise.
> How exactly did this cycle start? I think there’s reason to believe it began in the 1970s.
That's an answer to the question of when it started, not how is started.
The author places as footnote at that point and admits at the very end of the article, "Epistemically, this section is the shakiest."
There is a theory presented about mass behavior, the behavior of novel writers as a group. Yet a psychological motive is lacking. Writers all just decided to change their writing fundamentally, for no apparent reason?
I'm curious though, if you're a reader of contemporary literary fiction, do you think that it hasn't undergone a transformation to become more obscure and trendy compared to where it was in, say, the 1960s? Are the critics' favorites now just as accessible and of the same standard as, say, Lolita or Portnoy's Complaint were back then? Or do you agree there was a transformation and just disagree with the vague reasons he gives for it?
Also, do you have any recommendations of contemporary literary fiction for us here on Hacker News? Asking as someone who mostly only reads literary novels by dead people, contemporary sci-fi or speculative fiction, and of course, inevitably, books by Sally Rooney.