Negativity in the Time of Poptimism

I've been mulling over the rise of respect for pop and popular genres for some time now. Citation needed, but roll with me here: romance fiction always had plenty of readership, but now dedicated romance bookstores are popping up, sales are booming even more than they used to, and the genre has respect it didn't have before. Critics used to deride pop music and bands used to hate the idea of selling out, but now a "just let people enjoy things" sort of vibe is dominant in most media sectors.

Instead of the grim-dark themes of prestige cable TV like The Sopranos and The Wire we've got well-made, well-written family-friendly entertainment like Abbott Elementary, shows that treat the 22-minute situation comedy as a legitimate format and produce things that are, frankly, nice. And of course there’s reality TV, once the domain of mean judges crushing dreams and today the domain of Bakeoff. Even the profanity-filled Netflix rap contest Rhythm & Flow features judges Latto, DJ Khaled, and Ludacris reassuring the losing contestants they’ve got what it takes, and to keep working on their craft.

Feel-good feels good.

But there are exceptions, and worthy ones. One I ran into recently is from Christopher Buehlman, a horror novelist who dipped his toe into the fun side of the pool with The Blacktongue Thief, a frankly hilarious tale that could have been nothing but cliche (a mage, a knight, and a rogue walk into a tavern, seeking adventure...) and managed to be brilliant. The title character has a brilliant voice a sense of humor that reminds you why they call a rogue "roguish," and once I finished that book I went and read some of Buehlman's other books.

They were not funny, although there were moments of laughter in the one about the necromancer with a drinking problem. And for a follow-up to Thief, Buehlman narrates the tale of the knight in his latest book, The Daughters' War. This one is a sort of return to form for him: she's grave where the thief was funny. In fact, she's deadpan even when all the other soldiers are laughing or joking or whoring.

Buehlman manages to write the narrator as someone who speaks excellent English, but whose first language is not English; she's betrayed only by a handful of uniquely slanted phrases, like "it is not for laughing." But the phrasing doesn't detract from the tale she tells, of a kingdom that's lost its knights to invaders, then its farmers, and will now send its daughters off to be mowed down in war as well. He manages to bring us a fully realized narrator who has loved and lost, and lost badly. As someone traumatized, haunted by what she's seen and done. Someone who will do whatever it takes to do the right thing.

It isn't funny. It will not get called "rollicking" like the prior book did. But it's brilliant, too.

And Also

There's room for cruelty and disdain in literary criticism as well. I do not miss the days of guilty-pleasure hatchet jobs from the likes of Dale Peck. But there's still room for a burn in today's literary environment, like this well-deserved, scathing review of the latest from Jordan Peterson:

Or perhaps this one:

Aaaah, that's the stuff.

And Elsewhere

Utah is an epicenter for crooked adoption agencies. Truly bleak.

Brief introduction to the new right, a sort of glossary of the different factions of horrible people gloating about their ascendant power in the next four years.

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