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STEPHEN DONADIO
theoretical claims Mr. Fiedler may make for that, it 'hardly
~
a
memorable achievement. ,
One reason for the novel's death, according to the author, is that
"the audience-need it was intended to satisfy is being better satisfied
otherwise." The formulation is worth noting:
it
regards the novel as
commodity.
The only novel that will really "satisfy" an audience's
"need" is one that is, perhaps unfortunately, suited to it. Our major
writers (e.g. Melville, Faulkner) have not often sold well, especially
when they were working at the height of their achievements. In any
case, one thing is clear: since television, the mass audience has dis–
appeared. For ten years Hollywood has faced this problem; yet it is
rarely cited as a portent of disaster for the movies or as an explanation
for bad movies. While the form may change, it need not die. A second
reason Mr. Fiedler offers is the death of "the artistic faith that sustained"
the writers of the novel. Perhaps no writer in America since World
War I has been "sustained" by "faith" alone; yet novels, and good
novels, have been written.
What is interesting is that in both of Mr. Fiedler's propositions
the novelist takes his cues from his audience. But the problem is that
in America the writer need no longer find an audience: it will find
him. And when it does, his trouble may begin. Once he begins to suit
himself (unconsciously at first but later wilfully, almost desperately,
to stay in fashion) to the imaginative needs of that audience, the end
begins. In the present situation, where the alternatives for survival
seem
to
have become cult or commercial art, the only way is neither
way. But in addition to the writers who drift toward the poles there
are some, and Mr. Fiedler may, occasionally, be one of them, who,
like Pop artists, want things both ways. Consequently, they have
be–
come self-consciously outrageous entertainers for a society demanding
more and more extravagant and intricate forms of amusement.
The title of this book, extracted from a poem by William Empson,
indicates the song that all America is singing and that
Mr.
Fiedler
fiddles while the culture burns. But meanwhile some subversives, lashed
to their own wills with their ears plugged, have refused to join in this
unfortunate hootenanny. For them, at least, doom has not yet become
a catchy tune.
Stephen Donadio