A Response to Reality Hunger by David Shields

David Shields’s highly anticipated Reailty Hunger: A Manifesto came out a few weeks ago and is garnering a lot of reactions in the book world. Some of them overwhelmingly positive and others extremely negative. This probably isn’t a surprise, as Shields is an interesting and talented writer, but doesn’t build much of a convincing case for a book proclaiming itself a manifesto. I took the middle ground, finding the book engaging and worth reading, but full of holes and weak arguments.

I have a fairly long response essay up at The Rumpus titled Reality Boredom: Why David Shields is Completely Right and Totally Wrong if you want to take a look.

1.
Reality Hunger, the newest book from the always interesting David Shields, comes sheathed in glowing blurbs from the likes of Lydia Davis, Ben Marcus, Amy Hempel and Jonathan Lethem. Needless to say, I had high expectations and on one level they were met. Shields writes passionately about the vitality of short works, the inanity of our copyright laws, the relevance of remix culture, the changes technology is bringing, and, as always, the need to find new modes of expression. Reading these arguments left me with a renewed faith in the relevance of fiction and the authors, filmmakers and other artists who are making fascinating work from the power of their imaginations.

2.
However, this outcome might annoy David Shields. Because while Shields praises the same qualities I look for in my art, the book is framed by a somewhat incoherent thesis that fiction is dead, narrative is pointless and the premier literary form of the now is the lyric essay (with memoir, it would seem, being a close second). I cannot be the only one to read a supposedly radical manifesto—the book jacket labels detractors as mere defenders of “the status quo”—and be a little disappointed to learn that the novel is dead (again?) and the literature of our bright, hectic future is the lyric essay and memoir. Even the terms “lyric essay” and “memoir” feel dusty sandwiched between discussions of hip-hop and cell phone stories. In short, I read this book with as much disagreement as agreement.