رائــد

In most contemporary literary novels, you'll find a lot of dialogue and stream-of-consciousness rants; rarely, on the other hand, will you find elaborate physical descriptions of places or people. Why is that? For one, the literary establishment tends to dismiss descriptive passages as slow or unnecessary, but the better explanation is that writing good descriptions is just really, really hard. It's relatively easy to jot down thoughts and feelings, especially in the first person—after all, such writing is really just a replication of your inner voice. Similarly, you can master dialogue by paying attention to day-to-day conversations or by watching movies. But describing the physical world requires an entirely different level of literary craftsmanship—and the only way to attain it is by reading great literature. But because contemporary writers are increasingly influenced by other contemporary writers, all of whom have been taught to prioritize minimalism and immediacy, we've produced a generation of authors who know how to describe the pangs of global warming but who have no idea how to capture the world it affects.

One of the worst developments in contemporary literature is this idea that protagonists have to be "relatable." Raskolnikov is a murderer. Humbert Humbert is a monster. Emma Bovary is an adulteress. Literature isn't supposed to introduce you to people you'd like to have brunch with. It's supposed to teach you how a wide variety of people think.