Last January, I wrote a column responding to an Atlantic article claiming college students are no longer able to focus on or understand entire books. At the time, I was genuinely surprised by the article; I don’t have any friends who are “unable to read” or even close, and “elite college students” read more in my experience than anyone else I know.
In the year and a half since I wrote the article, I’ve continued to reflect on why it frustrates me so much when people imply that young people can’t read (or can’t do anything else, for that matter). I’ve written on the demonization of TikTok, “brain rot” and the prevalence of the stereotypes around youngest generations (that we’re not hard-working or intelligent, which has been said about every generation of young people by the generation before them for decades). My original article focused a lot on the value of genre-fiction, a subsection of literature that I have loved for as long as I’ve been able to read and one which I have seen consistently under-appreciated by classic literature fanatics.
The impetus for this follow-up, which I have been considering for a while now, was a TikTok I saw recently discussing Owen Yingling’s Substack article “The Cultural Decline of Literary Fiction.” As an avid defender of genre fiction, easily baited by and instantly suspicious of the term “ensloppification,” I was forced to consider this new (to me) voice on the topic.
Yingling argues literary fiction is declining because “(1) basically no one is writing literary fiction and (2) the present-day norms of literary fiction mean that the general reader will never like anyone who is.” His main point is that as magazines that published the genre declined in readership (due to a loss of ad revenue to the internet, not young people only being smart or focused enough to ingest TikToks), literary fiction became less economically feasible for authors. People with notable talent shifted to other industries, like screen writing, and remaining authors prioritize critical acclaim over general readership (and thus, book sales). As talent left the genre, Yingling says, genre-fiction took its place.
While I appreciate that the blame is shifted off of the “philistine dopamine-addled masses,” I’m still not sure if I agree with Yingling’s point. I think part of the issue with the entire conversation is a lack of recognition of the popular authors who do exist in the contemporary literary fiction space. This could be for a variety of reasons; some of these authors write across genres (making writers like R.F. Kuang not technically just a “literary fiction author”), many are women and write about primarily female characters (I find that female authors often get mis-genred into romance or “chick-lit,” and the publishing industry’s tendency to trivialize their cover designs may not help) and, of course, the explosion in popularity of genre fiction. However, the truth is that authors like Madeline Miller (think “The Song of Achilles”), Sally Rooney (“Normal People”) and Celeste Ng (“Little Fires Everywhere”) have all published novels in the last ten years. They’re certainly contemporary, fall under the literary fiction category (“The Song of Achilles” could maybe be double-categorized as historical fiction, but it’s certainly “literary”) and are very popular, well-selling books. Many have been adapted, in fact, into movies or shows; so what makes us so dismissive of their commercial success, and why are they dismissed in this conversation?
What’s more, the idea that all non-literary fiction books are “slop” is not only untrue now, it’s always been untrue. It may be clear that “Fourth Wing” is maybe not the most groundbreaking literature (though it still has cultural value), but novels like “This is How You Lose the Time War,” “The Fifth Season,” “The Only Good Indians” and even the recently-adapted “Project Hail Mary” only brush the surface of contemporary genre-fiction that explores powerful cultural themes and has received major literary acclaim alongside commercial success.
Compare these to “Frankenstein,” “The Hobbit” or “Pride and Prejudice.” Each represents a pioneer of future genre convention, and we can objectively agree that each warrants critical acclaim. They all have literary value, they can all fall under the “literary fiction” umbrella, but they incorporate genre-specific themes like a central romantic plot line, an impossible scientific alternate reality or an elaborate fantastical world. For some reason, we’ve begun insisting on separating literature from genre fiction, but it wasn’t always this way.
Finally, I stand on the ground that even the more “middling” (as Yingling puts it) genre fiction of today (not every fantasy can be Tolkein, just like not every literary fiction can be Hemingway) still has cultural value and literary relevance. Reading average works of fiction can still develop your reading skill, cognition and vocabulary while providing entertainment in a way that is accessible to readers in-between literary masterpieces. They can be funny, lighthearted, emotional, frightening or just binge-able, and these things have value, too.
It’s okay to have diversity in what you read. Just because someone recommends that you try the critically acclaimed TV-show “Severance” doesn’t mean you can’t also watch the less-than-acclaimed “Grey’s Anatomy.” It’s widely acknowledged that these shows take different approaches and serve different purposes; I don’t know why we can’t understand the same about our books.
Sophia Anderson is a junior transfer at Notre Dame studying political science and planning to go to law school. You can contact her at sander38@nd.edu.
