Modern Jejune Fictional Codswallop

There was no posts for a few days because there was nothing to write about, and I also don’t write on weekends, as that would be silly. Even the mind needs a couple of days off to figure out what it ought to write about next.

So, the unfortunate target for this next piece of thought download is Sally Rooney, the very famous and very good young novelist who wrote a book called Normal People about two people having it off at uni in Ireland, which was serialised into a BBC television show. She’s just had her first book turned into a new TV show, but I dunno where it’s being released. Probably, you can maybe tell from the breezy tone of this blog post, it’s unimportant news. But for whatever reason the author gets referred to as a ‘voice of the generation’ type, so it’s blog worthy.

I also read Normal People several years ago when it came out, on a recommendation from The Guardian, and thought it was top notch as I devoured it in about three days. I did watch the TV adaptation as well, but it didn’t really match up with my imagination. It was highly serious, with muted colour tones and wistfully cast actors looking wistfully at each other as they behave wistfully at uni.

I could relate to the content as, frankly, I used to behave wistfully at uni so I felt a degree of universality, along the lines of, finally someone gets it. Or something like that.

In my current guise I wouldn’t bother reading it again. I did try reading the first book, Conversations With Friends, but I couldn’t finish it as it was painfully dull. The type of thing where the author dresses up the mundane in pared back sentences to give the appearance of grave seriousness, as if this is the most important thing in the world right now. And to be fair, I suppose it was the Most Important Thing in the World at that point for the author. Maybe in hindsight it appears a little inconsequential.

I’m not attempting to be flippant, more critical, as I am unsure that an author would ever improve if they were never exposed to valid criticism. Holding her up as some kind of melancholic martyr of our times is boring, and if she has any literary chops she would, hopefully, be able to write something original. It’s common for authors pushed into fame at a relatively young age to end up repeating the same one trick over and over again. And many, many authors out there steal a living writing repeats of the same thing, just recontextualised to a different scenario (eg Dave Eggers, Jonathan Franzen).

Maybe this is some facet of the material literary world (or indeed the entire cultural industries) that once you have ‘established your product’, you then spend a lifetime churning out more of the same as you become some kind of genre. In fact, if the publishers had a team of writers working under the brand name ‘Sally Rooney’, would we ever know? The brand becomes a kind of corporate institution that needs to fulfill the terms of the book deal signed, and usually this means that the distributor needs more of the same to break back even on their deal.

Creativity suffers, and what could have been an interesting literary career has been sacrificed at the alter of money.

Money is the issue that we always end up coming back to, as the root of all annoyance in the world. I won’t bang on about it too much longer, as I am unsure it’s in my interest to keep banging on about it in the context of my day, where I do in fact have things to do. But still, the industralisation of talent is boring, and it leads to the death of creativity. Hence why streaming platforms are running out of content, and it seems that the only novel stuff that gets made is either:

a) make the most absurd scenario possible, then keep making episodes forever without having to worry about closing the narrative loop (eg Nine Perfect Strangers)
b) a really boring idea stretched out and told very, very slowly (eg Severance)

Obviously it would be terrible of me to shill my own TV series ideas here, as that would be too obvious. SO aside from implying that, obviously, I could fix all of these issues (if people wanted – but people are too busy worrying about their jobs and power etc…money…zzz), I think it’s better to think about why the ‘voice of the generation’ seems to be peddling jejune fictional codswallop that does nothing but paint a very serious, very depressing picture of modernity that benefits nobody.

Honestly, whoever is art directing these adaptations, and indeed the initial writing, has it so easy. Here’s a lady, troubled in love, getting into troublesome scenarios, written with serious and terse language. I could probably spit out a version of that in an unhappy weekend, it’s really not difficult.

I wish modern culture was exciting.

How am I supposed to get excited to watch some daft sombre drama about daft women doing daft things with daft blokes.

Surely we can do better than that…honestly, if commissioners hold such a boring view about what should be the ‘voice of a generation’, perhaps they ought to go on holiday to some wellness retreat and get on top of their personal dilemmas. It would save us all a lot of time, and probably lead to vastly sunnier dispositions for all viewers out there..!