I think you may be overrating Patricia Lockwood - and also overstating the importance of Foer/Eggers. Does autofiction really develop only out of "the set of concerns" that you pose? Autofiction has much more to do with literature's loss of faith in itself and turn towards the memoir - as I think you've written somewhere else. Foer, Eggers - and I'd add Arundhati Roy to this category - were completely constructs of the publishing industry and their lack of dedication to aesthetics is, I agree with you, a bad betrayal. But I don't think that the "way out" is as simple as a couple of good books, a couple of writers who really believe in their own artistic project. Better to say that writers have to commit to imagination, that some domain needs to be clawed back from the memoirs and from the conviction that art itself is basically a secondary activity.
Easy on the good words ab David Brooks plz. Just so long as never a good word is spoken about Jonathan Safran Foer!
@Megnaa - Oh come on! What's wrong with Brooks?
I think you may be overrating Patricia Lockwood - and also overstating the importance of Foer/Eggers. Does autofiction really develop only out of "the set of concerns" that you pose? Autofiction has much more to do with literature's loss of faith in itself and turn towards the memoir - as I think you've written somewhere else. Foer, Eggers - and I'd add Arundhati Roy to this category - were completely constructs of the publishing industry and their lack of dedication to aesthetics is, I agree with you, a bad betrayal. But I don't think that the "way out" is as simple as a couple of good books, a couple of writers who really believe in their own artistic project. Better to say that writers have to commit to imagination, that some domain needs to be clawed back from the memoirs and from the conviction that art itself is basically a secondary activity.
Interesting stuff. Thanks!