the social lives of books

272 Pages·2011·8.33 MB·English

THE SOCIAL LIVES OF BOOKS:
LITERARY NETWORKS IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN
FICTION

A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES
OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Ed Finn
May 2011
© 2011 by Edward Frederick Finn. All Rights Reserved.

Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-

Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/

This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/mk148kb9574

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I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate
in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Ursula Heise, Primary Adviser
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate
in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Franco Moretti
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate
in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Frederick Turner
Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies.
Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education
This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in
electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in
University Archives.
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Abstract

Long-established models of literary production are changing dramatically as
the digital era continues to blur, and at times erase, the divisions between authors,
critics and readers. Millions of cultural consumers are now empowered to participate
in previously closed literary conversations and to express forms of mass distinction
through their purchases and reviews of books. My project argues that these traces of
popular reading choices constitute a fresh perspective on elusive audience reactions to
literature, one that reveals distinct networks of conversation that are transforming the
relationships between writers and their readers, between the art of fiction and the
market for books. Employing network analysis methodologies and ‘distant reading’ of
book reviews, recommendations and other digital traces of cultural distinction, I
develop a new model for literary culture in America today. Through readings of the
fiction and reception of Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, David Foster Wallace and
Junot Díaz, this model outlines the fundamental requirements for contemporary
literary fame.
My introduction lays the groundwork for the methodological tools I have
developed to pursue this project and situates them in the critical traditions of literary
reception, cultural capital and contemporary media theory. With these tools in hand, I
describe the digital ecologies that have emerged around literature online and their
value for studying the choices and connections that are made by professional critics
and scholars as well as a much larger sample of contemporary readers. The project
draws on two primary datasets: first, a corpus of professional and consumer book
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reviews collected from nationally prestigious reviewing newspapers and magazines
along with consumer reviews from Amazon (the latter dating back to 1996); second,
networks of recommendations based on consumer purchases and book ownership
drawn from the websites Amazon and LibraryThing. Using Named Entity Recognition
and collocation-based networks allows me to compare the use of proper nouns like
titles and author names in professional and commercial literary networks. These noun
networks reveal not only the distinctions between everyday readers and more
traditional arbiters of literary taste but the ways in which popular authors are
increasingly carrying on multiple independent and complex literary conversations.
My first case study, in Chapter 1, explores the nature of contemporary literary
fame through Thomas Pynchon, whose carefully guarded anonymity does not prevent
him from living in Manhattan and dining with literary cognoscenti. This very
postmodern prominence makes him an ideal candidate, an author who has gone to
great lengths to communicate with readers almost entirely through fiction. Pynchon’s
literary networks link together a dizzying array of cultural zones, from continental
philosophy to jazz, from Joseph Schumpeter to The Simpsons. I argue that Pynchon’s
ironic distance from capitalism is reflected in the networks his readers construct
around his difficult, weighty tomes. This anti-consumer consumption draws together
the aspirations and anxieties of both the 1960s counterculture and the techno-scientific
corporate behemoth, leading readers into their own acts of critical production, ranging
from Pynchon wikis and mailing lists to an encrypted broadcast of The Crying of Lot
49 in semaphore from an office building in San Jose.
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In stark contrast, Toni Morrison has been both highly visible as a writer and
hugely successful at allowing the mass marketing of her work without compromising
artistic integrity. Clearly America’s most critically and commercially successful
author, Morrison has tirelessly sought out her readers and worked to form literary
communities around her writing, most prominently through her long collaboration
with Oprah’s Book Club. Considering Morrison’s career in light of the trope of the
“talking book,” in Chapter 2 I argue that her unswervingly political fiction
nevertheless succeeds in appealing to a huge range of audiences. Her unique gift for
welcoming academics and Oprah viewers alike into stylistically challenging,
emotionally charged books also encourages a personal, readerly investment that turns
consumers into stake-holders in national literary conversations about race, gender,
social injustice and the quotidian struggles of love. While her professional critics tend
to interpret these lessons in the context of African American literary history, everyday
readers understand Morrison’s political arguments through her characters and a much
broader referential lens, from William Shakespeare to Gabriel García Márquez.
The evolution of literary conversation is generational as well as digital, and if
Morrison successfully adapted to the mass medium of television, younger authors are
engaging in more complex interactions with the wealth of new media spawned by the
Internet. Considering two “Generation X” writers who have captured national
attention through particularities of authorial identity, I argue that authors as well as
publishers are beginning to adapt to a shifting balance of literary power. For Junot
Díaz and David Foster Wallace, novelistic style has become a vehicle for intricate
metanarrative interjections, leading to narrators who live out the larger challenges of
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authorial identity in a heavily mediated world. As the barriers separating readers from
ordained critics crumble online, these younger writers are increasingly interacting with
audiences that are both collaborative and vocal. For Díaz and Wallace, this has meant
a sustained engagement with a new style of intellectual discourse, the language of
nerds. Tracing these two writers’ career arcs, Chapter 3 lays out the final elements of
my model of contemporary literary culture: a reading society that demands new forms
of authorial reflexivity to mirror the collaborative, iterative nature of digital literary
conversations.
The project concludes with a brief consideration of the exciting prospects and
challenges for contemporary fiction in a world that reads more than ever but is
growing disaffected with the material realities of literary production. Digital literature
remains in many ways trapped in formal adolescence as the media foundations for
electronic writing continue their rapid evolution in both hardware and software. At the
same time, new forms of reading and modes of literary culture paradoxically reinforce
traditional genres and canonical boundaries even as the potential functions of narrative
are rapidly expanding in digital spaces. My coda considers the literary potential of
emerging digital platforms for collaborative reading and reviewing, as well as the
ways in which authorship is becoming a role increasingly distributed and multiplied
by social media, particularly the subtle fictive gradients emerging in our own stories as
mediated through platforms like Facebook. I close by arguing that contemporary
literature is, slowly, rising to meet the intellectual and ontological challenges of a
world that is increasingly defined by digital texts and governed by digital readers.
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Acknowledgements

This project began when I started to think about the networks of people and
ideas that make writing possible. As I traced out the links and nodes of contemporary
literary culture I grew increasingly conscious of the debts I owe to my own intellectual
networks and all the ways they have made my writing possible.
I am especially grateful to my committee for their unwavering support of an
unorthodox critical experiment. Ursula Heise has been a stalwart advisor for a student
who packed off to Phoenix and completed most of this work 700 miles away. She has
proven an invaluable source of practical advice and insightful criticism, always ready
to time out of her herculean schedule and chat with me in the digitally mediated
presence of sundry dogs, turtles, parrots and numberless desert fauna. Franco Moretti
lent his unflagging intellectual energy and infectious enthusiasm to this project with
typical generosity, rekindling my own excitement for the work in every exchange. He
has been a wonderful advocate of my research, both to me and to the world, and I feel
lucky to have him in my corner. Fred Turner’s inspirational emails and deeply
considered interdisciplinary perspective helped me position my work within broader
critical registers and gather myself off the floor time and again as the project neared its
end. As a fellow recovering journalist, I look to Fred as a model for how to thrive and
delight in academic research.
I have been amazed and delighted by the support my work has received from
the Stanford Department of English. In particular, this project has been shaped by
thoughtful feedback and assistance from several quarters: Paula Moya, Ramón
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Saldívar, Saikat Majumdar, Jennifer Summit, Amir Eshel and Blakey Vermeule have
all offered support, insightful criticism and excellent advice. Andrea Lunsford in
particular has always had time to discuss my progress, suggest new directions and read
lengthy drafts despite her gobsmacking travel and work agendas, leading me to
suspect that she possesses some kind of time-manipulating amulet. If so, it’s in the
right hands. The organizers and participants of what has become the Stanford Literary
Lab deserve special mention for modeling new methods and, dare I say, styles of
inquiry, not to mention offering their feedback, and I am particularly grateful to Matt
Jockers for his friendship and support over the past six years. I also received valuable
input on drafts from members of the Stanford Humanities Center Workshop on the
Contemporary Novel and Andrea Lunsford’s Future of English Studies seminar.
Finally, I will be forever indebted to the department staff whose patience and
enthusiasm made my out-of-state dissertation possible, especially Alyce Boster and
the unflappable Judy Candell.
I was lucky to have a number of excellent teachers and guides during my
academic career who have shaped my thinking in pervasive ways. Anouk Lang and
the anonymous reviewers associated with the Transforming Reading book project
made valuable critical contributions to my work on Toni Morrison. At Stanford my
conversations with the late Jay Fliegelman, Carol Shloss, Rob Polhemus, Gavin Jones,
John Bender, Seth Lehrer, Nick Jenkins and many of the scholars mentioned above
inspired me to broaden my own critical horizons. At Princeton I single out Eileen
Reeves, Eduardo Cadava, Paul Muldoon and the late Robert Fagles for helping me to
truly discover literature. If these excellent teachers taught me the finer points of
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