I feel the same way about TikTok. I have friends and coworkers who sit and just mindlessly scroll through, never finishing a video. I just find it so annoying and don’t understand what they get out of it. I do have the app but I just find it boring and unappealing.
I read Lolita as a warning - that it is possible to be completely obsessed with beauty and completely oblivious to cruelty, both at the same time.
Lolita catches me when I find myself relishing something Humbert wrote, when I feel myself admiring or even envying the beauty of his prose, then noticing a moment later that he was describing something horrifying. I don't find Lolita to be useful as some sort of attempted documentary, nor as a rote morality play about keeping your hands off of little girls. I find Lolita valuable as an *evocative confrontation*, something bearing an awareness that can only be gestured at rather than reductively described.
There are many such works of literary fiction, and I hope you find some that work their magic on you in the same way!
Choosing what we look like will not be felt as "a kind of freedom" by all -- if it becomes widespread, it will feel obligatory to many and that will produce even more anxiety and misery in our culture.
I generally love your posts, but as regards fiction I found myself feeling like you need to widen your lens. I will list three recentish books below (randomly chosen off the top of my head) that contain unforgettable characters that don’t feel remotely unrealistic:
- Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel
- The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
- The Overstory by Richard Powers
I too read a ton of “genre” fiction and am especially well-versed in sci-fi. There are some great writers there, but the characterization and big-issue grappling is generally far less satisfying. Contemporary writers like Richard Powers, Hillary Mantel, Peter Mathiessen, George Saunders, Percival Everett, Rachel Kushner, Rachel Cusk, Denis Johnson, etc are all doing / have done things well worth paying attention to.
If you’ve not investigated Powers in particular, you should. His writing about the wonder of science and the effect of technology is incredibly powerful.
Your criticism of "literary fiction" is not only the trope of "Don Quixote" (though Cervantes was satirizing romances, not novels), it's at the heart of attacks on of novels in the 19th century & comic books in the 1950s. It's just silly. Much of the fun of "literary fiction" is that it lets us know more about the lives of fictional characters than we can ever know about the actual people in our lives. Nobody confuses the two.
As it happens, I am in Seoul at the moment visiting family, and just walking around the city and riding the subway, people watching, some of your observations on "beauty" stuck a chord.
The Millenial and Get Z Koreans, esp women, and even some Gen X and boomer women, seem quite consciously presenting a certain appearance: curated, fashionable without ostentation, non-attention demanding. One almost never encounters in-your-face or ironic sleaze, whole body tattooing, extreme piercing, T-shirts with slogans (in Korean), etc. The message seems to be 'sophisticated and respectable.' These are people it would be nice-and entirely safe-to know.
There is a small percentage however (5%?) of 20-something women who remind me of 90's Goths: jet black hair, paper white skin-suggestion of near pathologic/phobic sun avoidance. Rather wan, slightly affected or distracted facial expressions. Drugs are an unlikely explanation given current laws and norms. Maybe it's just an observational anomaly , but I wonder if the "ultra pale Korean" is a cultural motif in 2025?
I read a lot of science fiction too but find myself reading older works. I just re-read Neuromancer by William Gibson and Space Cadet by Heinlein. I'll be re-reading Fire upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge next. Among the newer books, I have enjoyed Ramez Naam's Nexus series and Neal Stephenson's Anathem but not much else.
Despite being a technology worker, I tend to not be quite the techno-utopian Noah is, and the beauty thing is another example of this. I find the idea that someone I would be physically close to is partially made of plastic parts deeply off-putting. Too far, I guess, from our upright apes biology. Besides that anyone who invests the same time, money, and effort in fitness and basic hygiene will probably do more for themselves from a hotness perspective.
It is good that culture and “beauty” haven’t been completely homogenized/globalized.
Certainly what Brazilians and S Koreans think of as “beauty” and worth getting cut up for (or otherwise augmented) and spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on doesn’t align with what I think of as “beauty”. To each their own.
I agree and disagree about literary fiction. The interesting characters don’t provide insight, but they often provide aspiration and introspection. People typically aren’t like the characters, but can consciously try to be more like the characters. Of course, being inspired by Atticus Finch is quite different than being inspired by Humbert Humbert or pining for the antebellum South.
I thought maybe a novel about literary characters , who are beautiful, dress up in cosplay and appear on screen with varying products for about 5 secs. It could also be a short form long form video. Lots of clips pulled together that go on for about 80 mins . You wouldn’t have swipe.
Ok, I’ve GOT to say something regarding your literary fiction blurb here ;). I think it’s based on a couple of very significant fallacies.
1) The notion that great characters are somehow more prevalent in literary fiction vs genre fiction just doesn’t hold water. While it is true that literary fiction writers may bill themselves as character development focused, actual results do not suggest that they are in fact any better at this skill than genre writers. If you think of the great works of genre fiction - whether it’s Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes or the stories of Poirot or Miss Marple, works of Heinlein or Asimov - you will find that great books tend to have great characters (along with strong plot and other qualities). This isn’t genre-specific, it’s simply a skill of great authors, period. And conversely, literary fiction as a genre (and a marketing concept) unfortunately tends to suffer from a fair degree of pretentiousness (which is why I personally do not seek it out purely because of its classification); in actual reality there are plenty of literary fiction writers who write weak characters (often resulting in mediocre novels with fancy vocabulary), whatever they may claim in their self-promotion materials.
2) The second fallacy is even bigger - much bigger. This idea that we understand the world based on what we read in a book is just horribly simplistic. It’s akin to saying that people become violent killers because of shooter video games. This has been thrown into great relief recently for those of us who have been deeply affected by the war in Ukraine. For generations, there has been this popular notion that the great Russian literature must somehow make those that consume it better, wiser, more ethical. A person who grew up reading War and Peace will never advocate for war, went the thinking. Alas, it just isn’t true. People read for all kinds of reasons, and books do not have some magical power in educating us any more than television, music, or everyday experience. On a purely statistical basis, what we read in books is a fairly small percentage of the total information input that creates our understanding of the world. So this idea that a well-written but unrealistic character makes people misunderstand how “real people” behave is just not well-reasoned.
Apparently the video is actually from 2005, but didn’t get transplanted to YouTube until 2008. I do remember it as one of the first bits of original online video content (as opposed to clips from TV shows or someone filming their kids biting each other after the dentist or whatever) that became quite popular.
I feel the same way about TikTok. I have friends and coworkers who sit and just mindlessly scroll through, never finishing a video. I just find it so annoying and don’t understand what they get out of it. I do have the app but I just find it boring and unappealing.
I read Lolita as a warning - that it is possible to be completely obsessed with beauty and completely oblivious to cruelty, both at the same time.
Lolita catches me when I find myself relishing something Humbert wrote, when I feel myself admiring or even envying the beauty of his prose, then noticing a moment later that he was describing something horrifying. I don't find Lolita to be useful as some sort of attempted documentary, nor as a rote morality play about keeping your hands off of little girls. I find Lolita valuable as an *evocative confrontation*, something bearing an awareness that can only be gestured at rather than reductively described.
There are many such works of literary fiction, and I hope you find some that work their magic on you in the same way!
Choosing what we look like will not be felt as "a kind of freedom" by all -- if it becomes widespread, it will feel obligatory to many and that will produce even more anxiety and misery in our culture.
I generally love your posts, but as regards fiction I found myself feeling like you need to widen your lens. I will list three recentish books below (randomly chosen off the top of my head) that contain unforgettable characters that don’t feel remotely unrealistic:
- Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel
- The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
- The Overstory by Richard Powers
I too read a ton of “genre” fiction and am especially well-versed in sci-fi. There are some great writers there, but the characterization and big-issue grappling is generally far less satisfying. Contemporary writers like Richard Powers, Hillary Mantel, Peter Mathiessen, George Saunders, Percival Everett, Rachel Kushner, Rachel Cusk, Denis Johnson, etc are all doing / have done things well worth paying attention to.
If you’ve not investigated Powers in particular, you should. His writing about the wonder of science and the effect of technology is incredibly powerful.
Thanks for the recs!
Your criticism of "literary fiction" is not only the trope of "Don Quixote" (though Cervantes was satirizing romances, not novels), it's at the heart of attacks on of novels in the 19th century & comic books in the 1950s. It's just silly. Much of the fun of "literary fiction" is that it lets us know more about the lives of fictional characters than we can ever know about the actual people in our lives. Nobody confuses the two.
As it happens, I am in Seoul at the moment visiting family, and just walking around the city and riding the subway, people watching, some of your observations on "beauty" stuck a chord.
The Millenial and Get Z Koreans, esp women, and even some Gen X and boomer women, seem quite consciously presenting a certain appearance: curated, fashionable without ostentation, non-attention demanding. One almost never encounters in-your-face or ironic sleaze, whole body tattooing, extreme piercing, T-shirts with slogans (in Korean), etc. The message seems to be 'sophisticated and respectable.' These are people it would be nice-and entirely safe-to know.
There is a small percentage however (5%?) of 20-something women who remind me of 90's Goths: jet black hair, paper white skin-suggestion of near pathologic/phobic sun avoidance. Rather wan, slightly affected or distracted facial expressions. Drugs are an unlikely explanation given current laws and norms. Maybe it's just an observational anomaly , but I wonder if the "ultra pale Korean" is a cultural motif in 2025?
I read a lot of science fiction too but find myself reading older works. I just re-read Neuromancer by William Gibson and Space Cadet by Heinlein. I'll be re-reading Fire upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge next. Among the newer books, I have enjoyed Ramez Naam's Nexus series and Neal Stephenson's Anathem but not much else.
Despite being a technology worker, I tend to not be quite the techno-utopian Noah is, and the beauty thing is another example of this. I find the idea that someone I would be physically close to is partially made of plastic parts deeply off-putting. Too far, I guess, from our upright apes biology. Besides that anyone who invests the same time, money, and effort in fitness and basic hygiene will probably do more for themselves from a hotness perspective.
It is good that culture and “beauty” haven’t been completely homogenized/globalized.
Certainly what Brazilians and S Koreans think of as “beauty” and worth getting cut up for (or otherwise augmented) and spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on doesn’t align with what I think of as “beauty”. To each their own.
I agree and disagree about literary fiction. The interesting characters don’t provide insight, but they often provide aspiration and introspection. People typically aren’t like the characters, but can consciously try to be more like the characters. Of course, being inspired by Atticus Finch is quite different than being inspired by Humbert Humbert or pining for the antebellum South.
I thought maybe a novel about literary characters , who are beautiful, dress up in cosplay and appear on screen with varying products for about 5 secs. It could also be a short form long form video. Lots of clips pulled together that go on for about 80 mins . You wouldn’t have swipe.
I wish we had fancy dress parties in the US.
You can host one anytime you like!
Ok, I’ve GOT to say something regarding your literary fiction blurb here ;). I think it’s based on a couple of very significant fallacies.
1) The notion that great characters are somehow more prevalent in literary fiction vs genre fiction just doesn’t hold water. While it is true that literary fiction writers may bill themselves as character development focused, actual results do not suggest that they are in fact any better at this skill than genre writers. If you think of the great works of genre fiction - whether it’s Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes or the stories of Poirot or Miss Marple, works of Heinlein or Asimov - you will find that great books tend to have great characters (along with strong plot and other qualities). This isn’t genre-specific, it’s simply a skill of great authors, period. And conversely, literary fiction as a genre (and a marketing concept) unfortunately tends to suffer from a fair degree of pretentiousness (which is why I personally do not seek it out purely because of its classification); in actual reality there are plenty of literary fiction writers who write weak characters (often resulting in mediocre novels with fancy vocabulary), whatever they may claim in their self-promotion materials.
2) The second fallacy is even bigger - much bigger. This idea that we understand the world based on what we read in a book is just horribly simplistic. It’s akin to saying that people become violent killers because of shooter video games. This has been thrown into great relief recently for those of us who have been deeply affected by the war in Ukraine. For generations, there has been this popular notion that the great Russian literature must somehow make those that consume it better, wiser, more ethical. A person who grew up reading War and Peace will never advocate for war, went the thinking. Alas, it just isn’t true. People read for all kinds of reasons, and books do not have some magical power in educating us any more than television, music, or everyday experience. On a purely statistical basis, what we read in books is a fairly small percentage of the total information input that creates our understanding of the world. So this idea that a well-written but unrealistic character makes people misunderstand how “real people” behave is just not well-reasoned.
For me, as someone fascinated with the past, the appeal of classic literary fiction is that it is the closest thing we have to time travel.
One of my favorite posts of yours this year, thank you!
I despise TikTok for this exact reason.
Also hated YouRube ever since that stupid fucking unicorn video. When my friends forced me to watch it, I questioned their sanity. Loudly.
Which stupid unicorn video was it? (There are a lot of them!)
I assume it’s Charlie the Unicorn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsGYh8AacgY&vl=en
Apparently the video is actually from 2005, but didn’t get transplanted to YouTube until 2008. I do remember it as one of the first bits of original online video content (as opposed to clips from TV shows or someone filming their kids biting each other after the dentist or whatever) that became quite popular.