Text and Hubris

If I have to read one more story about a mid-life crisis, the joy of an upper middle-class life or learning to love a husband or wife, I think I am going to go insane. When did our literature become the equivalent of a reality show? I understand that we are supposedly in the midst of nonfiction’s resurgence but the truth is the nonfiction out there is absolute crap.

What worries me is that we are beginning to see this self-indulgent nonfiction invade the fiction space and I just don’t think I care to deal with that. I like my fiction, oh I don’t know, fictional. I don’t really want to read narratives about the average person living their average life. Nor do I want to read authors waxing sentimental about their “ordinary” lives.

I am egotist. We all know this. I have a space online, one that I pay for, where I sit and pontificate. That requires a serious bit of ego. Hell, part of my job is to convince people to read what I write. Really, though, how truly narcissistic do you have to be to think that people actually want to read about your bullshit life, especially when your bullshit life is almost exactly the same as their bullshit life.

There was a time when I considered nonfiction. Now, I just want poetry and fiction. Give me the world of allegory, of mystery, a world that exists purely in the landscapes of the craziest authors out there. Show me difference, show me something new and maybe, just maybe, let me imagine how things might be different for better or for worse.