So Long to Aestheticism
I just started reading Nicholas Nickleby (1867) by Charles Dickens. After the first few chapters I wondered what would happen if a hopeful author today submitted this manuscript to an acquisitions editor. It’s over 700 pages. Who will read this? Today’s reader wants shorter stories. It’s important to grab your reader at the very beginning, editor might say. Don’t get bogged down in backstory.
Some ill-conditioned persons who sneer at the life-matrimonial, may perhaps suggest, in this place, that the good couple would be better likened to two principals in a sparring math, who, when fortune is low and backers scarce, will chivalrously set to, for the mere pleasure of the buffeting; and in one respect indeed this comparison would hold good; for, as the adventurous pair of the Fives’ Court will afterwards send round a hat, and trust to the bounty of the lookers-on for the means of regaling themselves, so Mr. Godfrey Nickleby and his partner, the honey-moon being over, looked wistfully out into the world, relying in no-inconsiderable degree upon chance for the improvement of their means, Mr. Nickleby’s income, at the period of his marriage, fluctuating between sixty and eighty pounds per annum.
I daresay, this paragraph, consisting of only one sentence, would have the 21st century editor squirming. Sentence length is important, they tell us, and suggest interspersing long and short. This one-sentence paragraph appears on the very first page. Many current editors want to see that first page filled with excitement, story to follow, once the reader is hooked. 21st century editors want to see as few commas as possible, not 19 in one sentence, and several eschew use of the Oxford comma. Vernacular can be a deadly sin for an auhor. Aestheticism originated in Britain in the 19th century, so we can suppose that Dickens used the vernacular of that time. But, today’s editor might say, is it lasting? Is it relevant? You want to write it as straightforward and simply as possible, otherwise it will date your work. You want your work to remain relevant to future readers. Think who you want to read this? Will they understand what you are trying to say? Simplify it. Perhaps 21st century authors should write in text and code.
I understand why editors do what they do and say the things they say, but at the same time I think some of them miss the point of good literature. It’s meant to elevate us, not reduce us to the least common denominator. Much of our contemporary literary work does that. Elevating doesn’t imply snobbery; it implies feeding one’s brain with beauty outside our small realm and stretching our brain. I remember in school it was understood that one would read a library book with the dictionary close at hand. New words were written down and hopefully would be used. Today we are asked to write on grade level, using words familiar to the students.
I’m wading slowly through Nicholas Nickleby, hearing the voice and learning the vernacular of Charles Dickens while being elevated to another time and place. And wishing and hoping that someday I will write something as lasting and elevating, that can make it past a 21st century acquisitions editor and readers to survive in the imagination of a reader two centuries later. And I’m writing down new vocabulary words. I doubt I’ll ever use any of them. They are dated.