Unless you are American you may not know the signifigance of O Henry. He was a bank embezzler who began writing seriously while doing his prison sentence. He was 100 percent commercial. HS teachers assigned his stories to get students reading. His most famous was "The Gift of the Magi" which is a xmas story that has probably been ripped o0ff as much as "The Christmas Carol." His stories are synonymous with clever twist endings. Very hard to write.
The RANT: Recently I picked up a collection of O Henry Stories from 2018 in a charity shop. All the stories were boring. Almost all the writers were professor at some creative writing course. All the stories sounded a bit alike. First person, some minute happening in daily life with bland or outrageously made up characters.
Now if they had led a life like O Henry a slice of life would likely be pretty exciting/interesting. The problem being professors at American universities have rarely done anything interesting/ exciting in their lives. Getting that teaching position was probably full of passive aggressions, humiliations, and heartbreak-but not much experience in the real world therefore not really interesting enough for the rest of us to pay hard-earned cash to read. ( I paid 50 p and the charity shop won't take it back as a donation so now it's firestarter.) Here is my takeaway thought. The ultimate divide between old literary fiction and modern is that it didnt used to be a university career thing where you exist from grants etc. People outside the insular community had to pay money to read you. And you did stuff that led you to universal insights ie wisdom. I've decided that the "O Henry 2018 Stories" aren't worth reading, because there is no human truth there. It's not there because these writers have led very sheltered, dull lives.
The RANT: Recently I picked up a collection of O Henry Stories from 2018 in a charity shop. All the stories were boring. Almost all the writers were professor at some creative writing course. All the stories sounded a bit alike. First person, some minute happening in daily life with bland or outrageously made up characters.
Now if they had led a life like O Henry a slice of life would likely be pretty exciting/interesting. The problem being professors at American universities have rarely done anything interesting/ exciting in their lives. Getting that teaching position was probably full of passive aggressions, humiliations, and heartbreak-but not much experience in the real world therefore not really interesting enough for the rest of us to pay hard-earned cash to read. ( I paid 50 p and the charity shop won't take it back as a donation so now it's firestarter.) Here is my takeaway thought. The ultimate divide between old literary fiction and modern is that it didnt used to be a university career thing where you exist from grants etc. People outside the insular community had to pay money to read you. And you did stuff that led you to universal insights ie wisdom. I've decided that the "O Henry 2018 Stories" aren't worth reading, because there is no human truth there. It's not there because these writers have led very sheltered, dull lives.
