Posted by Sterling on 17/2/2012, 21:32:24, in reply to "Re: Sense of and Ending - Julian Barnes"
98.71.100.115
: Actually none of the major literary awards
: consistently recognizes challenging and cutting edge
: literary works.
I agree with you, Steven, but to be frank, I don't know where the "cutting edge" is these days.
Post-modernism? Well, maybe. Probably. But post-modernism has been around for about 50 years, since V. and The Sot Weed Factor. Indeed, the glory days of the pomo novel were probably the Sixties and Seventies. What really new has come along since? We all loved Wittgenstein's Mistress, but even that more recent novel dates from 1988, a quarter century ago.
And it's not just literature, either. Poking around the internet, looking at the 2010 Whitney Biennial, 21st century classical music, etc., all the arts seem to be at a loss for something new. They keep recycling ideas from the second half of the 20th century.
I don't think any of us other than me listen to contemporary "alternative" rock, but even in the popular arts, it's all self-referential. Everything sounds like music from 20-50 years ago.
Having said that, what may we consider new? What works do we believe "should" be winning awards? Jonathan Franzen and William T. Vollmann? If so, the National Book Award wins. 2666? (he shudders). Then, the National Book Critics Circle Award.
I notice that classical music seems to be experiencing a New Traditionalism with faux Romantic Era melodies. Some of the most recent highly regarded visual art is representational and "pretty." Perhaps we've gone as far into the non-linear, intertextual, experimental novel as we can. Maybe the new "cutting edge" is found in a return to more traditional narratives that have been influenced and informed by all the experimentation of the past century.
