Ben Lerner’s ‘Transcription’ Shows Us Why the Novel Will Never Die
The New York Times • • entertainment
Key Points:
- Between 2009 and 2014, the novel faced criticism and was considered "embarrassing" by some prominent writers like Rachel Cusk, who dismissed fiction as "fake and embarrassing" after writing several novels.
- Autofiction, blending the writer's life with fiction, rose to prominence with works like Karl Ove Knausgaard’s "My Struggle," which emphasized detailed, mundane reality and rejected traditional fictional fabrication.
- The novel was criticized for being politically conservative and outdated, with authors like Sally Rooney questioning how radical politics could be encoded in a form seen as resistant to change.
- Ben Lerner, a highly acclaimed contemporary novelist, embraces the novel's self-awareness and artifice, using autofiction to explore authenticity and the construction of identity, often blending critique and creation within his works.
- Lerner’s trilogy portrays a Gen X voice marked by irony and emotional intensity, emphasizing reading as a profound event that navigates between reality and representation, cynicism and belief.
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