In a series of forty-five short essays that constitute his book translated into English under the title “Damn the Novel: When a Privileged Genre Prevails Over All Forms of Creative Writing,” Sudanese-born poet and essayist Amr Muneer Dahab denounces the privilege granted to the novel, the literary genre that is treated by publishers—and viewed by the public—as superior to all others and is virtually guaranteed marketability and profitability, to the detriment of others.

In this series of posts, the prolific author shares excerpts from the book.

This week: Chapter 16

The Reader as Accomplice

The novel’s nefarious domination over the literary scene in specific and over creative writing in general couldn’t have been within reach without the collusion on the part of readers who insatiably, and without having any scruples, gobble narrative fiction, ignoring all other categories of writing and speech arts alike.

According to business owners (publishers in this case), a successful piece of product, regardless of any other proclamation that the losers may drawl, is one that attracts more consumers. The word “losers” in this context denotes the loss of “market(s)” despite claiming the possession of good merchandise, whose only defect lies in lacking public interest on the part of the audience(s).

Because we are concerned here with readers rather than with publishers, we proceed with the first counterpart to notice that they (readers) perpetrate their love for novels with premeditation and relish. In fact, what they consider blemish in the essay (in some of its cases) at the level of the strange use of language, is warmly welcomed when it comes to the fantasy of novels. As for the weird choice of themes, it represents the narrative trick whereby readers are hunted as prey. I will not have any serious objection here provided weird topics are meant to address social or moral taboos or any other similar thematic considerations. Apparently, the debate has never been about measuring the spread among writing arts (even though some may think the opposite) but about how the approach to the subject matter(s) is carried out.

Apart from what is considered morally, socially, religiously, or politically shocking, writers and publishers alike are surprised by the readers’ gourmand devotion to strange topics such as wave motion (physics), which not only propagandized The Perfect Storm as a realistic novel but also incited the making of a movie, with the same title, starring George Clooney.

In the Arabic version of Why We Write, Sebastian Junger, the author of The Perfect Storm, stated: “I do this sort of explicit distinction when I’m writing. I’m very aware that I’m writing for (presumed) readers, and I do everything I can to engage them, to make my writing accessible and compelling. At the same time, I try to be completely disinterested in what I think people will like. I’m writing for myself. I want to learn about the world, and writing is the way I do it. You can never determine people’s tastes anyway. No one could have predicted Perfect Storm would be a hit, a fishing boat sinking in a storm? Neither the publishers know nor do readers; nobody knows how it happened.”

With a little more update talking about the oddity of the idea, Junger proceeds: “In every book that I wrote there were moments I thought that: I can’t insert this topic. I will lose half of my readers. In The Perfect Storm, the topic was about wave motion; how would anyone like to read about this? But I said to myself: the story needs that simply because the waves drowned the boat. You have to explain how waves work. Thus I made use of physics. If no one reads it, let it be. It will not be the end of my life anyway. If I cannot succeed as a writer, it will be always possible for me to go back to trees.”  Sebastian Junger then continued: “I will write the best book that I can write. However, in case I am dealing with a topic I know readers cannot stand perceiving, I work on my language with extra effort to make them eat spinach. I don’t like spinach but if you put enough garlic I will eat it.”

Do all novelists and popular writers tackle the strangest themes in their work by adding more garlic? Perhaps yes, but garlic seems not to be enough of a magical spice to endure the (bitter) oddity of nonfiction writings for Arabs in specific. This leads to the conclusion that ignoring the other types of writing in favor of the novel was deliberate for the sake of propagandizing the new trend, a new “innovative accessory” for summer or winter of this year as a result of people’s weariness about poetry’s tyranny over Arab literary tastes for centuries. But what happened is that after decades of stumbling attempts by the other narrative genres, the markets of literature have submissively been taken over by the novel (even at the expense of the story and the short story), not only as a seasonal fashion for summer or winter but basically as an ongoing trend, as most of the critics love to underline. Publishers couldn’t believe that, at last, “something” written has brought back glamour to the book market, so they could not resist blessing it regardless of its genre.

Where do readers exactly stand concerning the above phenomenon? In fact, the reader is the one who ultimately ratifies the promotion by the critics and the media and executed by the publishers, though cautiously in the start. It is worth mentioning that the ratification process occurs sometimes while the readers themselves are surprised by what they are assenting to. This is the opposite of what happens in other situations where the readers are ready to assent to a category of creativeness they are already acquainted with, either from the same familiar genre or another genre that is still a new product to the literary markets in terms of the number of centuries it has existed.

In the book we quoted from earlier, Sebastian Junger states: “When you are at the ranking that you could be on the Times Bestseller lists, that’s part of your work. There are very formidable books which did not enter the list, while fully ridiculous ones are included. Every writer and every person knows that entering (and remaining for the longest time possible in) the list does not rely entirely on the work quality.” Here we add to Sebastian’s words that entering the bestseller lists does not depend completely on the quality of what is written, but hugely on the nature of what is written regarding the genre to which it belongs. Readers are being prepared to welcome the best-selling, thus they become accomplices in the crime of disregarding what is written in the other luckless genres. Precisely, the matter is so because readers tend to submit to the march towards the direction dictated by the compasses in the hands of the critics, the media and the publishers.