Reading in Public No. 48: Pondering literary maximalism
Must everything in a book be "necessary?"
Recently my husband and I have been talking about various House Things we want to do. This happens every time we travel. We see other spaces, get inspired, and return home both happy to be here and eager to make it feel more like us. Over the weekend we were talking about wanting to have a more maximalist home. Not in terms of more stuff everywhere, but rather more color, wallpaper, art—just a more vibrant feel to our home. We’re very indecisive people when it comes to actually tackling home projects, so we’ll see if it happens. But this conversation about maximalism and our growing distaste for the minimalist aesthetic (emphasizing aesthetic here because I think minimalism as a practice and as an aesthetic are two very different things) has been ongoing.
So it was funny and charming to wake up on Sunday morning to this
post:
“In Praise of Excess!!!” reads the subtitle and I thought, okay, I’m not the only one…I guess maximalism is having a moment. This newsletter features a guest interview with Becca Rothfield, a book critic for The Washington Post and the author of the new book All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess. I will absolutely be reading this book because much to my surprise and delight is was actually the world of books and the rise of sparse, minimalist prose that inspired Rothfield’s interest in maximalism.
I for one love a maximalist book. Don’t get me wrong, I marvel at an author’s ability to craft a perfect novella. Short books are magical. I squeal with delight when an audiobook clocks in around eight hours. And as a professional reader who has to read a lot of books, sometimes big books are just too daunting. Professional reader math means I could read three whole books in the time it would take to read a doorstop of a tome and that equation often tips the balance in favor of the short.
I’ve also had some interesting conversations with my expert reader friend
about the move away from short novels in recent decades. There seems to be a publishing trend (or mandate even?) around book length. Books that are around 300-350 pages sell better and that’s often considered the ideal length for books. Many 20th-century classics clock in quite a bit shorter than that mark. Think about Passing, The Great Gatsby, The Awakening1, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The End of the Affair, The House on Mango Street, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. These are all much shorter than the typical novel is now (although sometimes reprints widen the margins to make them look longer. Truly!).And it’s true that not every novel should be 300 pages or more. There are plenty of books that might have been better if they were tighter. But as a reader who appreciates a maximalist novel, I wonder if this trend is working in the other direction too. Are we missing out on some great, hefty, maximalist books in favor of hitting a perceived ideal page number?
I could understand if that was the case because I know many readers (understandably) avoid long books and I know that reviewers can be brutal on books they feel are too long. I have read—and probably written—reviews with phrases like “this book could have been 100 pages shorter” or “a lot of it felt unnecessary.” And I’ve started to bristle a little when I see or use that kind of language without thorough explanation. Because what do we actually mean when we say part of a book was unnecessary or filler? To me, these statements beg the question2, what is the point of a book? I worry that a readership that insists on only including what’s “necessary” reduces the purpose of a book to efficient transmission of a story or a theme. And I don’t want efficiency to be the defining quality of my reader life.
What I love about reading is being immersed in an experience I could never have in my own life or—conversely—seeing something I’ve felt but never fully articulated depicted for me in words and story. Hitchcock said that drama is “life with the dull bits cut out,” and that may be true, but I often feel that the details and the tangents are where I find—if not the drama—the resonance I crave from reading fiction.
I wrote a bit about this last year as it was my unofficial Year of Big Books, but that essay was more about challenging my own active attention. Now I want to add unto that seeking pleasure in maximalist books. I’m challenging myself to not skim through what may seem extraneous to me. To savor the details. The lap up all that an author is willing to give. To see tangents as gifts from artists who are trying encapsulate as much about the human experience as they can in ink on paper.
I know that to find this type of languid pleasure reading I’ll have to struggle against my impulse towards another type of maximalism: reading as many books as I possibly can. But as someone who cites many epic, winding, maximalist books as favorites, I believe the payoff will be more than worthwhile.
Tell me your thoughts! Are you a literary maximalist or minimalist? What’s your favorite maximalist tome?
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-Sara
1899 but I’m counting it!
Fellow rhetoric nerds, I know I’m using this phrase incorrectly but it is colloquially accepted, and I’m sorry.
I think a lot of contemporary (especially debut) novels are too short tbh! I often find that characters and their lives aren't well-developed enough and I feel like more pages to flesh everything out would make them much better books. Being able to say more in less words is probably a skill that can be developed, but I think it's a lot harder to pull off effectively – and I do always find myself immersed in bigger books!
I read this earlier today and loved the ideas behind it. Now as I’m sitting in bed reading Colored Television there is a passage where the Jane is talking about teaching Millennials and Gen Zers and how their brains aren’t evolved for the kind of reading experience in big, sprawling, old-fashioned novels. While just a novel, the connection between your Substack today and this passage makes me think about my own reading life and preferences. Especially as someone who is also on Bookstagram and can fall into the trap of “needing content” therefore shying away from larger books.