No Such Thing As A Contemporary Novel?

Russell Smith on Graham's Swift essay that claims that there is no such thing as a contemporary novel:

"His argument is simple and undeniable: As soon as something’s written and published it is about the past. Novels take years to write, so “… the ‘now’ with which they begin will be defunct by the time they’re finished.” And the hippest of new novels will look very dated in a couple of years. He points out that many of our favourite novels from the 19th century are actually not about their own time but are set many years previous to their writing: War and Peace, for example, was written in the 1860s but set during the Napoleonic wars, about 50 years earlier. The lag seems immaterial to us now."


Globe and Mail

Modern Novels - Too Long?

Interesting post on the length of modern novels, and whether they should be that long or not.

"Literary novels appear to have universalised their length to at least 300 pages. It is a rare publishing event when a respected author produces something dinkier. Ian McEwan did it in 2007 with On Chesil Beach, his story of a disastrous wedding night; in 2010 Bret Easton Ellis gave us Imperial Bedrooms, his first novel in five years, which concluded in 250 pages and was all the more arresting for it."

It all depends on the work. I did think that Freedom was too long, but I wanted more about the son and his wife with the half-formed personality.  Imperial Bedrooms was more of a novella than a full novel, but I didn't want to continue any longer than it did.

The Independent