Mixing Fiction and Politics

I’m going to be honest, I never really thought about this issue much until I came across this article in the Guardian Unlimited. The issue: contemporary fiction authors ignoring the explosive political climate America finds itself in. There aren’t many authors speaking out against the current administration, not to mention all the injustices done by way of eroding civil rights.

Instead, a majority of criticism has come from, of all other people, a former sports broadcaster! Keith Olbermann takes constant jabs at our government on his daily, primetime show, Countdown, asks questions and raises issues that few dare to bring up. I watch the show whenever I get a chance and must admit he does an incredible job pointing out the blunders of the Bush administration (not that it’s very hard to begin with).

Yet, in the United States, intellectuals (ie. authors) are usually thrown into the background and regarded as sideshow entertainment, listened to but not taken too seriously. And novelists just haven’t been that vocal in the American political scene, especially since 9/11:

Part of this – I think – has to do with the difficulty so many novelists, let alone Americans at large, had in absorbing 9/11. The trauma, the anger and the loss of that event have sucked up all the imaginative oxygen in the room.

The article continues:

Here’s why the gradual drowning out of the public intellectual role in America is so dangerous – whether it’s of novelists or historians or thinkers in general. The public intellectual’s job isn’t just to have an opinion, but a tangible memory and a context through which to view what just happened- whether it’s 9/11 or the assault on the constitution.

Novelists will always remain an important part of this country’s cultural landscape. And given the power words can have, especially when crafted by a skilled author, they can take a political issue and illuminate it so that strong public discourse snowballs down the mountain.

In other words: authors should take on American politics. I’m not saying that every book they write is a dripping commentary on the Bush administration, but give us something to chew on, or we might look more and more to former sportscasters for our daily dose of political insight.

Read the entire article here:
J’accuse George W. Bush

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