I was reading an interesting book review in the New Yorker and then came across this surprising bit:
The idea that ordinary life can be the subject of great art has long been accepted when it comes to poetry and literary fiction—in these genres, its status as a worthy subject feels self-evident—but it can still raise hackles in creative nonfiction. An invented life can be ordinary, but an actual life had better be seasoned by either extraordinary suffering or particular achievement.
I was stunned to see this claim, in the New Yorker, without any reference to classic New Yorker writers A. J. Liebling and Joseph Mitchell, who built much of their careers on writing about local characters. Mitchell’s the one who had the famous line celebrating the ordinary people who were the subjects of his reporting: “There are no little people in this book. They are as big as you are, whoever you are.” We could also add St. Clair McKelway, who wrote a long report about a charming down-and-out guy who counterfeited $1 bills.
I can understand that a particular writer might not be aware of these once-celebrated but now-obscure figures in literary journalism. But I was disappointed that whoever at the New Yorker who was editing the piece didn’t notice. Liebling is one of my favorite writers!
And A Midwife’s Tale is one of my favorite books, and not exactly obscure! All in all, a very odd statement by the reviewer.
I would add Calvin Trillin as well.
Reading about little people reminded me of Lou Reed in the great live album ”Take no Prisoners”: (“Don’t you hate those Academy awards? Here’s fucking Barbra Streisand – ’I wanna thank all the little people’ – fuck little people, I like big people… ”)
Liebling is awesome!
Wasn’t a large part of Mitchell’s output fabricated? Together with Jonah Lehrer and (to a lesser extent) Janet Malcolm, perhaps that’s the reason why the New Yorker would want to avoid drawing too much attention to the “seasoning” of “creative nonfiction”.
Roxana:
Liebling made up a lot of stuff too! But, even setting all these superstar reporters aside, the New Yorker has a century-long tradition of stories about ordinary people in their Talk of the Town section.