by Angelika Friedrich and Henry Whittlesey

[This paper is the foreword to the short stories collected in Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted]

Introduction

I. The values and norms of pragmatism and romanticism

II. Literary fiction case studies of pragmatism (United Kingdom and America)

III. Literary fiction by romantics – stories from Columbia and Hungary

Conclusion

Introduction

In this foreword, the values and norms of pragmatists and romantics will be studied in literary fiction. We will begin with pragmatists because Western culture is dominated by their influence. In part, this foreword will offer a concise summary of what was argued in “The Purpose of Literary Fiction at the Beginning of the Third Millennium,” namely how fiction by critically acclaimed authors adopts, propagates and reifies the values and norms of pragmatism. After the examination of pragmatism, we will turn to the reflection of values and norms in literary fiction composed by romantics. Finally, we will make some remarks on the role of truth in literary fiction.

To date we have covered the following:

i. The philosophical treatise Peripatetic Alterity explains the overarching framework for grasping the concepts of pragmatism and romanticism as we define them primarily on the basis of differences in leitcultures or mainstream cultures (chapters one, two and six): For example, the leitculture in America is pragmatism, whereas it is romanticism in Eastern Europe and Russia (best reflected in chapter ten). Chapter four shows what one form of this looks like (in rural Russia). Since we (in America and western/central Europe) are working in a context largely informed by pragmatism, the treatise is effectively biased, focusing on criticism of pragmatism and praise for romantics (although in a fair ideal world neither one nor the other is better or worse). It also shows the continuity of these lines in history, which extend deep into western history as I (Henry Whittlesey) was just explaining to a friend in my recommendation to read The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: Each juxtaposes a pragmatic (reason-guided) character (Tom, Elinor) to a romantic one (Maggie, Marianne);

ii. The influence of culture on aesthetics and in turn aesthetics’ impact on perception is examined in chapter five of Peripatetic Alterity and “The Purpose of Literary Fiction at the Beginning of the Third Millennium.” The former offers an analysis of mainstream media’s role in the inculcation of our values and norms. In Western societies, that means the values and norms of pragmatism. This line of thought is then continued with an analysis of acclaimed contemporary American writers of fiction in “The Purpose of Literary Fiction…”;

iii. The various forms of depicting romantics or framing their existence are discussed in “The Representation of Romantics in the Classics and Perypatetik.” This preliminary list consists of childhood, falling-in-love as a trope for the metaphysical and the dissipation of love as gravitation toward materialism, two selves, “confined inside” versus “free outside” (especially the concept of air outdoors);

iv. In almost every text, we have discussed how works of art, perception, mindset, culture, values, norms, etc. have been transposed and/or transadapted both from the past to the present and from one context in the present to another.

This paper intends to fill a critical gap in our work. That is, viz., a lengthy examination of exactly how literary fiction by romantics differs from what is composed by pragmatists. This issue is particularly pressing in cultures such as America firstly because establishment literary fiction is so biased and skewed towards pragmatism that one would never even conceive of the alternative perspective (romanticism). Secondly and perhaps even more importantly, and bizarrely, bordering on insanity, one of the strangest circumstances that could possibly be conceived of in the present-day environment – Western writers of all backgrounds (rightly) avow their allegiance to advancing a socially progressive agenda and (rightly) rail against injustice, inequality, lack of diversity and white supremacy, but compose narratives that are consistent with pragmatism. Furthermore, numerous values and norms in pragmatism are facets (rightly) criticized as furthering injustice, inequality, lack of diversity and white supremacy, depending on how these concepts are defined. It makes no sense for a Western writer to support progressive messages while composing a pragmatic novel marginalizing romantics and either directly or indirectly reaffirm¬ing support for pragmatism. That is absurdly illogi¬cal in itself, and all the more so in a society, American society here, where the majority of the people are actually romantics – but obviously they don’t realize it or even think in these terms because the number of creators grasping this phenomenon is infinitesimally small and entirely marginalized (like us). Nobody has ever heard of them.

We will start by briefly reviewing the inexhaustive list of fifteen values and norms that distinguish pragmatists from romantics. The second section will contain literary fiction case studies that exemplify the worldview of pragmatism. In section three, the romantic orientation will be highlighted, with extensive comparison to the findings in section two. The conclusion on the role of truth is primarily aimed at pointing out the current disregard for diversity in mindset (despite all the attention other forms of diversity garner).

I. The values and norms of pragmatism and romanticism

As Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey wrote in the foreword to Evanescent, last year’s collection of transadaptations, and we explained in Peripatetic Alterity, the values and norms of pragmatists can be perceived along fifteen prominent characteristics: materialism, consump¬tion, self-determination, focus on ends or goals, positive/optimis¬tic mindset, importance of education, success/achievements, networking, moral¬ity, constant work, slow and consistent, relaxation in activity, obligations, management, tough love. Each characteristic in this set of values and norms is viewed in contrast to pendants for romantics, creating the following dichotomies:

i. Materialism vs. the metaphysical
ii. Consumption vs. production/living
iii. Determining vs. accepting fate
iv. The end vs. the process
v. Positive vs. negative attitude toward the future
vi. Education: Critical vs. inessential
vii. Success: Critical vs. inessential
viii. Networking vs. attending to inner circle
ix. Laughter: Sententious vs. pointless humor
x. Activity vs. relaxation in leisure
xi. Mental agility: Slow vs. fast
xii. Relaxation in activity vs. polarized minds/life
xiii. Obligations vs. freedom
xiv. Manage vs. work
xv. Love: Tough vs. compassionate

These characteristics of pragmatism and romanticism can be roughly divided into two groups: values and norms.

A value is what is considered important. For pragmatists, values consist of the accumulation of material, (self) determining your future, focusing on the end of a process, holding education to be important and success as a desirable objective.

The norms are common “cultural” practices. Pragmatists, for example, consume, network, laugh or make jokes to demonstrate or affirm their affiliation to an agenda, work constantly and do not like to relax, resulting in slow thinking, but consistent conduct; their lives are full of obligations; they prefer management to labor or aspire to management positions; love is something to be earned.

So what does a pragmatic novel or story look like?

To answer this question, we must start by addressing a few underlying issues related to literary fiction.

One is the author/narrator distinction. Leading narratologists such as Dorrit Cohn, Franz Stanzel and Wayne Booth along with most academics in their wake have distinguished between the author as the composer of the book and the narrator as the person recounting the story/plot in the work of fiction. The general consensus today and in most postwar literary fiction is that the author is not synonymous with the narrator. We agree with this in most contexts. However, in the context of pragmatism and romanticism, the point is moot: Western writers fundamentally have no awareness of the distinction between the two. They are all composing in the pragmatic paradigm (even if probably a lot of them are actually romantics in real life). Consequently, whether one speaks of the author or narrator does not matter – they will both be pragmatists. In non-Western literature, the situation is less clear. These authors may intuit both sides due to America’s international influence. Here the distinction is more important: a narrator may well signify the author’s orientation and align with desirable characters. That is what is seen in most of the stories in this collection.

It is also important to consider a possible divergence between the position of a character and the narrator. Professional writers often employ this technique for the purpose of irony. Such distance between a character and narrator is uncommon in the work we publish, perhaps because we are (fortunately) working with non-professional writers, who (equally fortunately) only rarely narrate in an ironic manner (a trait of pragmatism). The humor found in such divergence is not absent from romantic work. On the contrary, Jonay Quintero Hernandez, Svetlana Molchanova and Adriana Uribe, to name but a couple of examples, masterfully make the reader laugh by employing the classic romantic method of humor for the sake of humor.

Another underlying issue is: How does one summarize the effect or purport or orientation of a work of art? Isn’t that, by way of analogy, like trying to narrow down a person’s life to one single facet? We cannot argue much against this criticism. It is also a problem with the analysis of a culture or leitculture. Works of art, people, cultures are too complex to be reduced to uniform single aspects. However, we do believe that one can glean an overall feel or impression from art, people, cultures, etc. The impression left on a foreigner visiting the country of Columbia will differ from the one they have from Germany. The same applies to what happens in our daily encounters with multiple people. A reader’s response to Anna Karenina will diverge from their encounter with Crime and Punishment.

A work of literature leaves a distinct impression due to innumerable factors. Obviously, the setting, descriptions, characters and plot figure heavily and take precedence in the generation of an impression. Below this primary level, however, is a secondary one that will be the focus of our analysis here. On this level, the author or narrator may repeat, emphasize, include or exclude (accidentally or intentionally) topics, themes, descriptions, ideas, details, or … values and norms.
It is on this secondary level that we find startling distinctions between pragmatic and romantic authors.

II. Literary fiction case studies of pragmatism (United Kingdom and America)

In this florilegium, The Opportunist by Lauren Voaden is characterized by pragmatic markers of materialism, self-determining fate, lack of humor, the pursuit of success, relaxation in activity/materialism, and an orientation on ends (rather than the process). It is set in the United Kingdom. In last year’s collection, the story 5-4-3-2-1 by Talia Stotts features the pragmatic hallmarks of obligations (social and “physical”) (Evanescent, 37, 38, 42, 43), orienting on success (35, 41, 46-47, 48, 50, 51), management (in general, 49), activity (51). The story unfolds in America.

What does this look like specifically?

The Opportunist is a story about a successful professional and his socialite wife. At work, the husband learns that his sick mother has passed away and bequeathed the family house to him, although it was originally intended for his brother. The story begins with a description of his wife relaxing in the couple’s London penthouse. Their affluence is clear. Her husband returns home and announces the mixed news. The brief dialogue contains five explicit statements, references or content that can be directly associated with either materialism or consumption and one rejection of proximity.

Materialism/Consumption

i. “I just did some shopping on Bond Street.”

ii. “What’s for dinner tonight.” [His wife asks to avoid a dull conversation about her husband’s emotional state, which he “clearly wanted to have.”]

iii. “‘Mum’s left it [the house] to me.’ Elizabeth’s eyes lit up.” [She was previously uninterested in his mother’s death and was noncommittal about attending the funeral.]

iv. “She made her way over to her husband and planted a kiss on his cheek.” [After double-checking that her husband’s statement was in the will.]

v. “How many bedrooms is that house? It’s on a farm, isn’t it? [Her transparency is even noticed by her husband.]

Rejection of proximity

i. [The wife refuses to take calls from her husband’s family, which is why they did not know about her passage]: “Apparently, my family has been trying to call the flat, but no one has ever picked up.” – “You know I don’t answer the phone to them.”
In the remainder of the story, the narrator repeatedly broaches the topic of materialism/consumption. She is neither sympathetic nor critical, but these two themes are ever-present. Additionally, the further narration is marinated with these instances reflective of pragmatism:

Success

i. “Harold had always felt a strange sense of jealous pride whenever he caught another man ogling her. At times he worried it was what he loved most about her, the way he always felt like a winner with her by his side.”

End or results (preferred to process)

i. “What’s with all this traffic? How much longer are we meant to sit and wait here? Someone could at least give us some information. What’s the holdup? God knows how long we’re going to be stuck on this stretch of road. Why can’t everyone just be turned around and diverted?”

(More) Materialism

i. “Are we visiting the house before the funeral tomorrow?” Elisabeth asked. [Immediately after arriving in what is also her hometown, she is only interested in the property inherited.]

ii. [and success]: “For Christ’s sake, Harold. You’d be giving away an incredible opportunity for us. Why on Earth would you give that up so willingly? You’re not married to your brother. Think of everything the sale of that house could do for us. The amount of—” [Her husband is considering a return of the house to his brother.]

iii. “You’d be a fool to share that house with your brother.”
Rejection of proximity (preference for networking over people close to one)

i. “A heavy silence filled the room. [After the husband thinks aloud about moving back to be close to their families.]

Determination of fate

i. “Once she exited the hotel, she took a moment to decide her next move. She reached into her bag for her phone and decided to search for directions to the house.” [Passage reflects her determination to will the fate of the house.]

An obvious caveat to the association of pragmatic values and norms with Western storytelling is that the plot here centers on an unappealing affluent b-t-h. That will naturally entail a bias toward content of a materialist, success-based nature.

In 5-4-3-2-1, the American contributor Talia Stotts told a story about an African-American guidance counsellor who has been working with a homosexual boy in her school (the main character of her 2021 story). The plot of the 2022 story revolves around a girls’ night out with three old friends, one of whom has a breakdown in the bathroom and recovers with the guidance counsellor’s deft handling of the situation. The milieu, the lives, the middle-class setting, the group of friends, among other aspects of the story, all deviate widely from The Opportunist. Yet the elements of pragmatism remain:

Success

i. “Olivia’s in marketing. Jenna is an accountant. I’m not sure exactly what Maritza does, but it’s something in home healthcare. Really, they’re the women who do it all, the kind you read about in magazines, the ones who are main characters in sitcoms.” (41)

ii. “Amelia Kathleen Rose – no, scratch that – Doctor Amelia Kathleen Rose – you are the most successful one out of all of us! You’re out there living the dream! A great job, no kids, no husband, and a freaking title – if we knew what we were getting into before we did, I think we’d all have followed your lead.” (50)

iii. [Desire for acknowledgement of success]: “Look, Jen, I know my life would be more difficult if I had kids like you guys, but it’s hard as it is. And I think it’s ok for you guys to recognize that sometimes. You’re not the only ones who get tired you know. I almost said no to coming out tonight.” (51)

iv. [Fear of revealing weakness/failure]: “I can’t hold back these tears that I’ve been trying to hold back for too long and I’m scared of letting out all of these emotions.” (46-7)

v. [Horror at failure]: “Amelia, I can’t do this anymore. It’s too much. It’s just all too much! I’ve only been back at work for three weeks and my boss hates me and I keep screwing up simple things and then I get home and I have to deal with Ellie and dinner and… and I just can’t anymore.” She heaves a deep breath outward, emboldened by her own voice. “And then there’s Ethan, who, when he’s not finding some excuse to not have to feed or bathe, our daughter is pawing at me like a rutting deer!” Her voice is louder now. “And then, after feeling insufficient at work and with my kid and with my husband, I have to come here and meet up with my best friends in the whole world and still feel insufficient! I’m drowning! I’m failing! I’m –” (48).

Management

i. [In general]: The lead protagonist, the guidance counsellor, is a manager (of children).

ii. [In Jenna’s crisis where she repeats “I can’t do this anymore,” the guidance counsellor manages her friend]: “Jenna, what can you see?” [This is followed by a therapy exercise.] (49)

Obligations (chosen over freedom)

i. [Social] “I love these girls – we’ve been friends since college and weeknight cocktails aren’t unusual in our group. But since they all got married and started having kids, I’ve been forced to wonder if we really have anything in common anymore. It’s starting to feel like we don’t.” (41-2)

ii. [Indirect obligation -> stress]: After a twelve-hour day, the guidance counsellor is forced to perform therapy on herself in the park: “I hadn’t realized I was that stressed out.” (37-8) [She perceives a level of duty that exceeds what is required, hence she voluntarily imposes an obligation on herself rather than enjoying leisure.]

iii. [Excessive obligations]: “I was so desperate to get out of the house.” (43) [This is a case where the parent feels the need to make others (her child) happy and overdoes it (a common problem with Western parents). In this decision-making process, the parent is choosing an obligation vis-à-vis the child rather than freedom for herself.]

A preoccupation with success, an orientation towards management (as opposed to work) and the preference for obligations over freedom define the environment in which these young adults live. The author frames their existence firmly within the bounds of pragmatism.

In these two examined stories, we can also see the bias in favor of pragmatism by showing the absence of romantic values and norms in one form or another (also indirect and abstract ones) within the narratives. Inevitably, there will be some scattered about, especially since romantics themselves are widespread in both countries, and, obviously, these elements of romanticism and pragmatism are not entirely mutually exclusive. The author or narrator will simply favor pragmatism. So let us search for the tenets of romanticism in these two stories:

i. Is there any spiritual/metaphysical element?

Definitively not in The Opportunist. Perhaps a touch in the park scene of 5-4-3-2-1 where the guidance counsellor sits on a bench and calms herself.

ii. Does anyone accept fate?

No. On the contrary, the characters in both stories take things into their own hands and attempt to determine futures.

iii. Do the characters view life as a process?

Exactly the reverse, as explained above, in The Opportunist. This theme is not applicable to 5-4-3-2-1.

iv. Is life viewed as a circle with no worry about the future, but a pessimistic outlook?

Absolutely not, in both. All the characters worry about the future (the wife wants wealth in The Opportunist; the young professionals are pursuing direct or indirect success, broadly defined).

v. Does anyone disregard education or is this thematized in some form?

Not applicable to either story.

vi. Is there distain for success, achievements and money?

Under no circumstances in Voaden’s story; the subject is disregarded in Stotts.

vii. Do characters or narrators express or suggest a greater affinity for people in close relations to the speaker?

The wife in The Opportunist hates her husband’s family, does not take their calls and categorically rejects moving back to her hometown. In 5-4-3-2-1, the lead protagonist has grown apart from her oldest friends because they do not have much in common any more – i.e., having “things in common,” arguably something material¬ist, takes precedence over being friends for more than ten years. This strongly suggests that the protagonist is more interested in networking (“theme-based” relationships) than preserving ones from the past (“proximity” relationships).

viii. Do characters laugh for the sake of laughter? Does the author evoke non-intellectual, i.e., non-ironic laughter through the narration?

Not at all in The Opportunist. The reader does not even laugh at the brazen wife. Some jokes are told at the table of the bar in Stotts’s story (before the breakdown scene). The narration is not funny in any form.

ix. Does anyone or anything in the narratives indicate enjoying relaxation and rest or fantasy?

Again: nothing. The wife in Voaden’s story is obsessively preoccupied with possessing the inherited house. The young adults do meet at a bar, but the lead protagonist does not want to be there, while another member of the group has a breakdown from stress. In the park after work and before the bar, the guidance counsellor decompresses – performing therapy on herself and weighing compliance with her social obligations. Nobody is enjoying their leisure time. Fantasy is completely absent.

x. Are there people or parts of stories that reflect quick thinking and/or erratic behavior?

No.

xi. Does anyone have a polarized mind or does the narration reflect polarization in the perception of the author?

The wife in The Opportunist does seem to think quickly and fluctuates between near sadism (she calls people rats) and extreme love when the inheritance is confirmed (she plants a kiss on her husband’s cheek). The narrator does recount this fluctuation, suggesting awareness of polarization or flipping between extremes. Similar remarks can be made about the women gathering at the bar – especially Jenna who is festive at the table and then sobs in the bathroom.

xii. Do characters choose freedom or living existentially, i.e., in balance or in touch with nature, over obligations?

Voaden’s story does not involve obligations. As we have shown above, obligations of various forms dominate the perception of the characters in 5-4-3-2-1. The narrator does not mention any foils nor does she employ other literary devices to suggest the obligation-laden characters are misunderstanding essential aspects of life. There is no division between the narrator and the characters.

xiii. Are there indications that characters produce or live rather than consume? Does the orientation of the story in some form capture the poetry of production or living?

The wife in The Opportunist is solely preoccupied with consumption and materialism. The circumstances are less clear in 5-4-3-2-1. The characters themselves are not producers, but rather managers. They are also tied down by obligations, which fundamentally rules out living. Their gathering at the bar is, however, an attempt at this, but the narrator strongly suggests that they are attempting to preserve an old tradition whose time has passed. There is no indication in the narration that the narrator’s view diverges from what is conveyed in thoughts closely associated with characters.

xiv. Does anyone work (rather than manage)?

No.

xv. Is boundless compassion a trait of characters or embodied by the narration?

The wife is ruthless in Voaden’s story. The guidance counselor in 5-4-3-2-1 is certainly very compassionate, both with regard to her charges and her friend. But she also demands, at least from her friend who has the breakdown, something in return. After helping her, she explains that she would also like some recognition for all her effort in her professional capacity, even though she does not have children like the others.

This comparative analysis reveals the overwhelming pragmatic orientation of the British and American stories. It is as if the structure of British and American life determines the author’s perspective. They cannot and do not see the romantic view of life. Of all fifteen characteristics, only three – in a very weak form – surface in their stories. By contrast, the stories are teeming with pragmatic values and norms.

Now let us look at the epicenter of the perypatetik project – romanticism.

III. Literary fiction by romantics – stories from Columbia and Hungary

The international orientation of our perypatetik project coupled with non-professional writers (primarily translators) offers fertile ground for analyzing romanticism. The countries in Western Europe and North America (excluding Mexico) are the bastions of pragmatism. By contrast, romanticism is deeply rooted in the cultures and broadly accepted by establishment institutions in most other countries around the world, possibly with the exception of those in Pacific Asia (about which we can make no statement because we lack familiarity and have trouble gaining contributors from them). Non-professional writers are not trained in what is generally a degree-conferring program. Their social and professional circles are not likely to contain large numbers of such literary creatives, and even then the divergence in professions will limit exchange. Not only does this leave non-professional writers at least to a certain degree freer in their means of expression, it also entails that their social circles may be more diverse and more representative of people who are required to earn a living. In an ideal case, when the non-professional writers are mostly translators (from English into their native languages), they have a familiarity with words and English that makes it easier to transfer their life impressions to paper.

The original hypothesis (that translators in the international community would be capable of “translating” romanticism from their cultures to essays and literary fiction) was supported by our experiences internationally and has been affirmed by our contributors. That is what we find, for example, in the non-Western stories in this collection, especially the ones by Adriana Uribe, Krisztina Janosi, Evgeny Bondarenko, Svetlana Molchanova, Seyit Ali Dastan, Jonay Quintero Hernandez (despite him being in Spain) and Armine Asryan. We will commence the detailed analysis of romanticism represented in the narratives with a story unfolding in Columbia, followed by one from Hungary.

The story La Lluvia en Bogotá by Adriana Uribe creates an impression of romanticism that is hard for even a reader unaware of the pragmatic/romantic framework to miss. It is teeming with fatalism, humor, polarization and an understanding of life as a process. All four features are either largely or entirely absent from The Opportunist and 5-4-3-2-1. Furthermore, they dominate the story. At the same time, similar to what we saw in the negative analysis above, pragmatic elements are absent.

Adriana Uribe’s story is set in Bogotá, Columbia. It is told from the perspective of a child who is at home with a housemaid in a downpour. The characteristics of romanticism are embodied by the characters and the narrator in the conception of the narrative. Characters live them out, while the narrator shapes the story to convey fatalism and polarization, the process of life and humor, artistically as well as through personification in characters:

Fatalism

i. The child views the housemaid Dora as responsible for the terrifying rainstorm because she is ironing (“When water evaporates, the steam goes up to the sky and then it forms clouds. When the clouds become too heavy, they start turning into rain”). The child’s anxiety about the storm does not increase despite its intensification, which eventually requires them to place pans around the living room to catch drops from the ceiling. When Dora stops ironing at the end, the child becomes convinced that the storm will let up as a result.

Process

i. Both the child’s response and the narration peppered with humor and marked by a laid-back attitude capture the attention paid to dramatic events and, critically, the calm passage through them or embracing of the process of surviving them.

ii. “The pots in the living room are filling up. I know that because the noise has changed from an empty thump to a quieter splash. Dora replaces the containers with empty ones and throws the water in the kitchen sink. They fill up quickly, almost like a water faucet that hasn’t been closed tight. I can’t sit on the sofa because Dora removed the cushions and put a plastic bag under the small bucket to collect the drops. God, please make the rain stop.” [The climaxing of the storm’s damage to the home is composed in the same calm tone, sprinkled with the child’s humorous attitude.]

iii. “Dora continues ironing after emptying the living room pots again. She’s not worried like me because she’s a grownup and doesn’t see this danger. She’s surrounded by tidy piles of newly ironed school tops, towels, bed sheets, and even men’s underwear.” [As the storm worsens, the housemaid continues to work without substantial interruption. It is just another day in the course of life, just one with a lot of rain.]

Humor

i. “But what people do makes no sense. They keep donating money or doing things that have nothing to do with stopping the rain. Grownups are stupid because even though they know why rain happens, they don’t change the way they do things.”

ii. “I explained to Dora why she needed to stop ironing. She didn’t complete primary school so she probably didn’t know. ‘When water evaporates, the steam goes up to the sky and then it forms clouds. When the clouds become too heavy, they start turning into rain. The steam coming from the hot iron will make the rain worse. It hissed every time she slid it on the ironing table. Transparent clouds rose to the ceiling before becoming invisible. I cannot see it, but I guess the steam will leave the room through the windows to reach the sky.’”

iii. “Today the rain falls like a really big shower, but the water from the rain is not the same as taking a shower or going into a swimming pool. I think the rain is dangerous because it falls on you straight from the sky.”

iv. “I think the rain will stop soon,” she said, disconnecting the cord to the iron and wrapping it around the handle. She might be right. After all, she has finally stopped ironing. I wish Dora was part of my family so she was here to protect me and not just to work and be paid. She looks red and sweaty after her ironing workout.” [Again a mixture of romantic elements in that these remarks after steady intensification of the rain also demonstrate the complacence of the child – after all, she could have repeatedly (not just once) begged Nora to stop so the storm wouldn’t get worse from her ironing, but she remained silent and persevered through the danger.]

Polarization

i. [Environment]: The story begins with natural disasters caused by rain: floods, landslides, storms, people rowing canoes in streets, washed-away mountains, villages wiped out. [Naturally to be viewed in contrast to normal conditions.]

ii. [Personality]: “My dad’s rage is almost as scary as the news about storms and flooding rivers. Perhaps even more worrying because he would shout and say mean things to everyone in the house. He always apologizes afterwards. I guess his rage is more apparent, and Dora feels embarrassed in front of my dad. My abuela told me that men sometimes behave like that, and I shouldn’t pay much attention, but both she and Dora behave differently when my dad is around. They look nervous.”

iii. [Healthy or ill + humor]: “Abuela taught me to fear the rain more than my dad’s anger. According to her, the rain in Bogotá could not only destroy everything, it could also make you very sick. You could get a cough, develop bronchitis, catch a pneumonia and eventually die. She makes sure I wear two t-shirts under my school uniform every day, and Dora has to carry an umbrella every afternoon when she collects me from school. It doesn’t matter if the sky is blue and the sun is shining because Bogotá suffers from unpredictable rain. Everyone could get soaking wet in a matter of minutes if they don’t open an umbrella.” [Weather and health are susceptible to abrupt change.]

iv. [Social conditions]: “Both my Dad and Abuela have told me that being alone in the streets of Bogotá is very dangerous. I don’t understand why everyone in my family spends so much time away from home, but if they can go out at any time of day or night and nothing happens, then I’m not sure they’re telling the truth about dangers in the city. Abuela says that it is different for women and girls because we are weaker and cannot defend ourselves. There are a lot of homeless people in el centro and they would try to rob us and could take us away.”

v. [Safety or complete destruction]: “I keep thinking of the ceiling bursting open and water flooding inside and destroying everything we have. It could wash us away with the furniture, toys and everything else. We could end up floating in a brown river of mud and debris. Miss Belén said in class that all rivers end in the ocean and if this rain becomes a giant river and takes me away, I won’t see my family again. The ocean is far from Bogotá; I know that because when Dad took me to Cartagena, the flight took at least two whole hours.”

Proximity

i. [There is no substantive description of a person or figure outside the immediate family and the maid helping the family. Other than people in the rain on the street, whom the girl watches, there is almost no reference to anyone else. This reflects the tight-knit nature of a romantic’s perception: Only the people in your immediate circle count; the rest can be ignored]: “Abuela, Abuelo and Dad leave in the morning before I go to school. Mum used to be at home all day but since she left, she works in an office just like abuela. I only see her on weekends. Abuela and mum may be looking at the same rain from their office buildings right now.”

A similar dynamic can be unearthed from the ground feeding Krisztina Janosi’s story Freedom. Here the romantic characteristics of produc¬tion, freedom, boundless compassion, polarization, pessimism, circularity, existentiality (in the form of equality), fatalism and freedom shoot up throughout the story. Similar to La Lluvia en Bogotá, pragmatic values and norms are absent.

Freedom is about a middle-aged woman who works as a teacher. She recounts her experiences over multiple decades, including some illegal acts to boost her income by issuing fake invoices. So what tenets of romanticism do we encounter in Freedom? The first one is not surprising:

Freedom (as opposed to obligations)

i. [The narrator on her father]: “In retrospect, he must have actually found a purpose, which was to escape from us, the family.”

ii. [The protagonist burning the letter announcing the administrative decision on her fake invoices]: “When I come to myself, I don’t know where I am. Slowly I recognize the table, the chairs, the letter. I am lighting a match, hold the letter above it and watch as the flame burns the corner of the paper. I feel incredible calmness as the fire eats up the whole thing, and I know that whatever they wrote, it will not keep me hostage. Once and for all, I am free.”

Production (in contrast to consumption)

i. [Past]: “My grandfathers, grandmothers, their fathers and mothers lived in rural family houses, even had a vineyard somewhere nearby. To past generations, these vineyards fully served their purpose, which was to produce wine for the family. But, my father and his peers, working in industry, could no longer maintain this state of affairs, yet they still felt they needed land, because their fathers and grandfathers had held some, so they also had to as well, without ever questioning this tradition.”

ii. [On the vineyard]: “He was diligently working away after his shift in the factory. We could never go on vacation because he didn’t want to leave the trees without irrigation, or it was time to harvest the tomatoes, peaches, or whatever else was ready to harvest.”

Negative attitude about the future (pessimism)

i. [After one boy hits another in protagonist’s classroom] “Everybody is a miserable victim in this story. At times, outrage takes over, and I feel like I should slap everybody in the face: the gypsy boys, the parents, the principal, the guys supervising the principal, the ministry workers, the local government, right up to the MPs and the ministers. But that would just make me an outcast, send me to court, possibly prison, so it was no use. The best I can currently do is to switch to survival mode. I no longer care about making things better. I only want to keep my job until retirement.”

ii. [Pessimism and polarization] “One morning, when I realized my little teeny-tiny boy not yet in his terrible twos had started to use the four-letter word, I fell into despair. I took it as a sign. I knew I had to act before they got out of control, or later, when they grew even wilder, would end up incarcerated for some stupid petty crime. I was most probably overreacting, and in retrospect, it was a little stupid of me to even think of such a possibility. When your kids are young, you just don’t know anything about parenting.”

Circularity

i. [No change from socialism to capitalism]: “I just hate it that contemporary architecture design is so minimalist that I can’t help comparing it to the old ways of socialist realism. Before reconstruction, everything was concrete-grey, and after reconstruction, voila, everything is raw-concrete-grey.”

ii. “Meanwhile, my struggles, instead of disappearing, only materialized in a different form.”

Boundless compassion

i. “I was so enthusiastic. I loved teaching and I loved the children. In my first class, I had almost only cute kids. Even the worst little guy was better than they come nowadays. In that class, one of the little boys always broke his hand; it was almost continuously in a cast. Another student, a little girl, had a baby sister with spina bifida, and her mum was very much distracted. I tried to help this kid a lot, and she was so grateful for it. Then there was this girl whose mum died. She lived with her father, who supposedly abused her. My heart went out to her. She had trouble with the simplest math and reading exercises, but I just could not give up on her. I still cry when I think of her.”

Existentialism

i. “I can finally forget about my miserable life. When I am out there, in nature, I feel like I am a human, like I belong here. Before nature, everybody is equal.”

Similar to the “negative” analysis of the pragmatic narratives, we can probe romantic narratives for pragmatic values and norms. Analogously, if our hypothesis is confirmed, these stories produced in the spirit of romanticism will also be largely absent of pragmatic elements. Below are the pendants to each characteristic of pragmatism discussed in section two. There, most the romantic values and norms were absent from pragmatic fiction; here the pragmatic values and norms should be absent from the romantic stories:

i. Materialism (relative to metaphysical / spiritual / existential / intellectual)

It is nearly impossible for a comprehendible story to entirely exclude material factors. The physical world must be negotiated by everyone. The determining factor for whether a narrative (or person) has a materialist bent is the attitude toward the material. To put it simply, if a preoccupation with wealth, objects, possessions can be ascertained, the orientation is materialist. If not, it is whatever you want to call the binary. In La Lluvia en Bogotá, material concerns are definitely ever-present: The roof of the residence leaks; the protagonist’s parents and grandparents are always at work. However, neither any character, including the adult maid and the girl’s father, nor the narrator gives any indication that these issues are concerning, unfortunate or anything other than commonplace. Viewed in contrast to the materially insatiable woman in The Opportunist, it is fair to say that Uribe’s story is definitively neither materialist, nor does it espouse views associated with materialism, even in the case of secondary characters.

While Krisztina Janosi’s story Freedom eschews materialism as a whole, the main character does issue fake invoices to supplement her income. Whether her financial distress excuses this act is open to debate. Romantics often find themselves at the extremes of the economic spectrum, and all people on the lower end, where the protagonist would be located, must cut corners at times to ensure survival. The teacher’s fabricated invoices are to be viewed differently from the socialite’s desire for the increase in wealth from the house because their financial starting points diverge. The teacher lives in a “little apartment, in an old house” and doesn’t own a car (at the age of 47). Her leisure time is spent walking through the park after work, reading and jogging in nature (“before nature, everyone is equal”).

ii. Consumption (contrasted to living/production)

Thinking about rain and storms, watching people outside, describing family members’ work lives and interpersonal relationships, ironing clothes – these are themes closely tied to living or production, not consumption. If the narration of La Lluvia en Bogotá or the protagonist’s thoughts associated these living events with activities (e.g., restaurants, entertainment facilities, diversion of whatever sort), we would be encountering consumption. For example, the socialite wife in The Opportunist also interacts with people, but does so within the framework of some material gain sought. Uribe describes relations within the family or work (i.e., production) context, with precedence given to the leitmotifs of placing buckets to collect raindrops in the apartment and ironing clothes. Both of these acts are closer to living/production than consumption.

In Freedom, the narrator describes the protagonist’s work, impressions of the city and feelings about nature. These are interwoven with the themes of work and hardship. The teacher does not enter a single establishment or seek entertainment: She passes some buskers at the central train station regularly on her walk home, but only comments that it is slightly better than what was found there during the socialist era. She jogs in the park and sits at home reading. That is all we learn from the narrator – effectively, an abject rejection of consumption.

iii. Determining fate (as opposed to accepting fate)

As discussed above, the protagonist of La Lluvia en Bogotá claims to know the cause of the rainstorm calamity they are facing, but does nothing more than wish that her housemaid would stop ironing (and thereby bring an end to the storm). Since the maid does not stop, the child makes the best of the situation by placing buckets under the drops and closely tracking developments. Neither the narrator nor any character exhibits the pragmatic mentality of self-determining their fate or future.

In the climax of Janosi’s story, the protagonist burns the letter informing her about the administrative decision on her bogus invoices. She describes this act as making her free. Her entire handling of the investigation, from the two men who visit her apartment inquiring about records, to the letter is marked by the same fatalism as her previously related incident at school where a fight threatened her job. She acts; she modifies her conduct to survival mode after the fight, but that is not a plan, not shaping the future according to her will. She is letting fate determine that.

iv. Desire for ends (versus process)

La Lluvia en Bogotá captures the process-based mindset of romantics, as shown in numerous citations above. Perhaps it is an outgrowth of fatalism. While the child does want the rain to stop, there is no sense of urgency. She is like the worker producing a result – at the end of it, they know that they simply must produce the next result. So why not enjoy the process of producing the current one? That is the girl’s attitude toward results.

In Freedom, the protagonist cares so little about the outcome that she lights the end-bringing letter on fire, eliminating any possible knowledge of closure for the time being.

v. Positive attitude toward future (optimism)

In neither story can optimism, a defining trait of pragmatists, be said to pervade. There is a tropical storm throughout La Lluvia en Bogotá, the narration of which is interspersed with thoughts on the parents’ separation, the dangers of the city, the fury of the father, the heavy workload for everyone. Likewise in Freedom. The teacher, as mentioned above, shifts from idealistic hopes for her pupils to survival mode. When she is short on money, she engages in petty crimes; “struggles, instead of disappearing, only materialize[d] in a different form.”

vi. Education viewed as critical (contrasted to indifference to education)
The topic of education is not a theme in either story. The protagonist in Freedom is an elementary school teacher, but she does not opine on or disparage education.

vii. Success as important (as opposed to indifference to it)

Although not directly a topic of La Lluvia en Bogotá, the circum-stances suggest the antithesis of success. The thoughts on these circumstances do not revolve around success or failure. The topic is inconsequential. Directionally, similar remarks can be made about Janosi’s story. The middle-class character is not successful in the pragmatist sense, but she does not think in these terms, so it is a non-topic. Even acts like faking invoices do not amount to the pursuit of success, but rather survival. The nihilistic ending (with the incineration of the letter) and the claim to being free emphatically underscores how speaking about this narrative in the context of success or lack thereof would simply be a non-sequitur.

viii. Networking (in contrast to attending to inner circle)

In La Lluvia en Bogotá, no aspect of the story can be associated with a character’s desire to network. Outside of observations through the window, the only people mentioned are close family members or pendants of the family. Anecdotal references are made to figures emerging in the protagonist’s life over the course of Freedom, but they come and go. On the whole, this norm is not relevant to Janosi’s narrative from either a pragmatic or romantic perspective.

ix. Sententious or ironic laughter (versus pointless humor)

During the threat of calamity from the storm, among all the bleakness related in its context, the girl in Uribe’s story makes the reader laugh for the sake of laughter. Repeatedly. Her simple assertions about how things like the maid’s ironing is causing the rain are not sententious, not ironic. They are just funny.

Humor does not play a role in Freedom.

x. Activity in leisure (in relation to relaxation)

One of the intriguing norms of pragmatists is their propensity to work or be active in their leisure time (see also below – relaxation in activity). Rather than relax in their time off, they seek out other “work” they perceive to be productive. This derives in part from their materialist and end-oriented mindset (be productive) as well as the spiritual dearth of their existence: A pause in activity will put them in a depression, as they have no non-material life, i.e., imagination, fantasy, belief, dreams, creativity, etc.

The girl in La Lluvia en Bogotá is too young for this aspect of pragmatism to possibly be found. Perhaps the narrator suggests a certain ethic of “working relaxation” in the maid who irons throughout the storm without interruption. However, she is employed in this capacity and fears the wrath of the girl’s father.

In Freedom, the teacher takes walks, jogs and reads outside of school – none of these activities should be conceived of as work in the sense of volunteering at a non-profit, joining a club with an agenda, engaging in outreach at an organization, etc. She cannot be said to be active in leisure.

xi. Slow thinking (versus quick thinking)

This characteristic does not apply to either story.

xii. Moderation (relative to polarization of minds/lifestyle)

Moderation is the outgrowth of pragmatists’ excess activity. The strain from overactivity prevents a fluctuation between extremes in pragmatists. The inverse of this criterion, i.e., relative polarization, is found in La Lluvia en Bogotá only in the description of the girl’s father who fluctuates between caring calls to his daughter (e.g., during the storm) and rage when something goes wrong (e.g., with the maids). By all indications, the father spends his life shifting between hard work and complete relaxation, which in turn attunes his nervous system to such bipolar extremes. This would place him in complete contrast to pragmatic moderation.

Janosi’s description of the teacher does not suggest on balance that she is either polarized or moderate. She depicts serious fluctuations in mood, such as when she nearly loses her job due to the fight at school or when she burns the letter and declares herself to be free. She also has the ability to relax in her leisure time, the prerequisite for polarization. However, the teacher’s career in education vouches for consistency and stability, hallmarks of moderation. It is probably fair to say she is somewhere between the poles of this norm.

xiii. Obligations (in contrast to freedom)

The girl in Uribe’s story is too young for either obligations or freedom to be relevant. The narrator describes lives and circumstances that in no way hint at an acceptance of obligations. For example, the parents split up and the extended family is out of the house so much they have a maid, but no mention is made of observing or neglecting obligations along the lines seen in 5¬-4-3-2-1. It is just a fact of life.

The narrator in Freedom depicts the protagonist as a person who prefers freedom to obligations. If the title of the story is not enough, the demonstrative burning of the letter at the end is an act of asserting the freedom of not-knowing to the constraints of the obligation imposed by the letter (potentially prison or a fine).

xiv. Management in a professional capacity (in contrast to work/labor for job)

Nobody manages in either story. All the characters are workers.

xv. Tough love (versus boundless compassion)

Neither Uribe’s nor Janosi’s narrator recount stories of tough love, i.e., love tied to conditions or expectations. In La Lluvia en Bogotá, the parents and housemaid do not have reason to exhibit the romantic norm or the pragmatic one. Janosi’s narrator implies that the teacher does have the antithesis of tough love, namely boundless compassion, in her early years of employment. This would again place the character in polar opposition to pragmatism.

For the purposes of this foreword, we must limit ourselves to these case studies. However, the findings on romanticism in these narratives apply analogously to almost each story in this collection and previous collections, especially those originating from outside of Western countries. Romantic stories are dominated by the values and norms of romanticism, with almost the complete absence of pragmatic characteristics, as we have seen in Uribe’s La Lluvia en Bogotá and Janosi’s Freedom.

We are pointing out these distinctions not only for the reasons discussed at the outset, that is, namely, the peculiar current situation in which progressive writers in the West actually compose works of fiction with anti-progressive structures, ones that at least subconsciously reinforce existing inequalities especially by marginalizing all groups except for urban professionals – the flagbearers of pragmatism.

Even worse than that is another central concern of our project: grasping the truths behind the almost universal discontent, frustration, dissatisfaction and other negative attitudes across the board, in pragmatists and romantics, and the role literary fiction can play in shaping a new way of perceiving life, being, meaning and other fundamental aspects of our existence. So, to conclude, let us look at the failure of literary fiction in recent decades and how it could facilitate change.

Conclusion

Producers in the field of literary fiction have lost sight of the big picture.

We will not speculate on the reasons for this here.

As writers, editors and participants in publishing, we obviously assume a place within a larger context.

We assume a place next to, for example, the business community, scientists and academics, politicians, legal professionals, media stakeholders, IT experts, to name but a few.

A writer recently opined that since she’s an author of fiction, she has no obligation to tell the truth. One laughs on reading those words. And sure, there is a lot of truth in them, pun intended. Yet one can’t help but wonder: Is this part of the reason why literary fiction has been relegated to the absolute fringe? Of the contributions made by the various groups listed above, is there any sector less publicly acknowledged for contributing to progress than writers of literary fiction and possibly fiction in general? They neither make money, employ people, research to achieve scientific, social or economic progress, nor do they enact policies, enforce laws, inform the public about the latest developments or produce technology to make our lives better, more efficient or what not.

So what is the point of writing literary fiction? What can readers forking over $30 for a new hardcover (totally unaffordable for the editors of this anthology) theoretically hope for, even if it is not currently present, in a work of literary fiction?

The answer to this question must be that the work of literary fiction at least potentially reveals to them recognizable, but previously ignored facets of life similar to the way Immanuel Kant’s discovery of time and space rocked the assumptions of metaphysicians in the Enlightenment. The reader must be able to relate to the characters and plot, acknowledg¬ing their trajectory and gaining insight into the causes of and possible approaches to handling the problems or issues in their own lives.

Among the arts, literary fiction is ideally positioned for this role, competing only with drama and motion picture, but without the emphasis of these latter genres on entertainment. It uses words to replicate the life we perceive. It can enter into the thoughts of characters/people. It is malleable, allowing for the immense diversity we also experience in everyday life.

The unparalleled, unique aspect of literary fiction when compared to scholarly fields is its multidisciplinary character. It can explain effects as a result of multiple causes. It can grasp phenomena empirically found as a consequence of psychological, technological, social, scientific, historical… acts.

In academia, science and much human activity, the aim is to gain or use knowledge for an end. It might be profits in the case of a business or progress in the case of academia or science. All of these goals are, abstractly interpreted, a kind of truth. The accumulation of credits in a bank account means the business has discovered some way of getting revenue to exceed costs. That method or practice is a temporary truth that will be repeated until it ceases to work. In the 19th century, one of the earliest great applications of science was to resolve food shortages and hunger due to crop failure. The findings and innovations proved to be the start of a truth – the elimination of famine and hunger in the Western world, something we have yet to return to since science applied itself to this objective. Whatever truths lie behind the communications revolution that has taken place over the last 40 years have also proven themselves: we can communicate with anyone around the world (for free, no less) by pushing a button on a device that is carried in our pockets at all times (if we want) and now we can ask a machine almost any reasonably researched question and receive a competent, informative answer back within seconds.

Obviously, truth in the humanities is not as objective as it is in business or science or technology.

Before we return to literature, let us look at abstracted truth in an example from the social sciences. Similar to literature, the social sciences are not really science in the sense of the natural sciences, but rather more like the way we speak of history class in high school – social studies. This field became popular in the postwar era, in part with the agenda to resolve poverty. Academics and scholars studied the causes of poverty, the structures that give rise to it, the programs that could potentially alleviate it and so on. In America, the first large-scale major attempt to introduce legislation combating poverty and inequality was made in the sixties with Lyndon Johnson. The Economic Opportunity Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the Fair Housing Act are examples of the legislation and programs that sought to achieve the truth, however it is defined, determined by social scientists.

Put another way, no recognized businessman, scientist, IT expert or social scientist seeks to advance falsehoods for the aim of failure. They may use falsehoods to trick opponents or lobby inversely for their own agenda. But the truth of money, progress, success, equality or whatever goal is the object of their intellectual activity and actions.

It is no different for writers. Especially ones of literary fiction. Above all in the current context where immense amounts of writing is done for truths that are different from those of literary fiction.

First and foremost is the current divergence between writing done for the media and writing as an author of literary fiction.

Journalists also have their truths and aim to advance them through their writing. There is both a commercial, i.e., profit-oriented element to their work (the media company behind them should be profitable), and an ideology to be supported (usually aligned with the political orientation of the publication).

Writers of literary fiction are generally not making a living from their writing (no commercial aspect) and are at least not beholden to the ideology of the publication they work for (although a publishing house may exert pressure or indirectly censor them). In any case, the truth of their work does not have to be aligned either with money/business or ideology.

So writers of literary fiction are effectively free. Or at least they are the freest participants in the sphere of writing. Behind them come other active participants in creative production such as playwrights and script writers for motion picture, who will also have their truths but must also align their content with the profitability and entertainment orientation of their employers or clients.

No participant in creation is like a writer of literary fiction. However, this begs a couple of questions in this context:

Why would they choose to take advantage of this incredible position not to tell the truth? Why would they prefer falsity?

Again, we can debate the truth of any writer just as the truths of social scientists are heavily criticized after 60 years of colossally failing to end poverty and inequality. But, as some of the critics of such social scientists, we will not deny that these experts have made every effort in goodwill to identify truths and find ways to achieve them.

Academic fields are often dominated by a popular idea, model, theory, etc. for a period of time. But they are not monolithic bodies. Alone political divisions in any field will inform stakeholders’ perspectives today. But even without politics, every individual adopts their own position. These are then hashed out in articles, essays, papers, books, blogs and so on. Each participant has their own truth(s). It should be exactly the same in literature.

In the field of literature, a famous example of such a division in the truth can be found in the divergent representations of the Russian peasantry. Russian writers at the turn of the 20th century heavily criticized the idealistic representations of the peasantry by authors like Turgenev and especially Tolstoy. Ivan Bunin argued that the realism of Tolstoy is not real at all. In fact, rural Russia was a mess, according to him. In The Village, he depicts the catastrophic state of ordinary citizens in great detail. Andrei Platonov, albeit after the Civil War, also followed in this vein, while his Socialist Realist contemporaries harked back to Tolstoy.

The point is that each of these writers has a view of the truth(s) and expresses it in their work. If we assume that the author criticized at the outset for saying she has no obligation to tell the truth is an outlier, then it must be possible to discern a certain perspective of contemporary authors, in their work and statements.

For all the good writing being done today – and contemporary American writers use language very creatively –, their work merely functions as a documentation of this or that contemporary milieu, most often involving the failure of romantics and thereby implying the success of pragmatists. Almost every writer having a novel released by a major publishing house has an author’s page, something that exists at Amazon as well. However, it is nearly impossible to find such a website with anything more than biographical information and the boilerplate blurbs from essentially commissioned (trade) reviews. No personal statement is made. No framework for understanding the novel. Not even a brief interpretation along the lines of what we encounter at an exhibition in a museum.

Modern-day literary fiction, for the most part, is not informed by any authorial ambition to identify a truth or truths. It is simply a literary version of what we experience in daily life or would experience if we were in a different circle, coupled with the failure of alternatives to pragmatism. This is interesting, but somewhat self-evident and, for the reader, irrelevant beyond perhaps generating empathy forgotten in a week or two just like most of the books we allegedly perused last year (we sit regularly in houses filled with books, each one read cover-to-cover by relatives over the last 40 years and they can’t retell the basic plot of any one read more than a year ago).

This failure to adopt a position relative to truth is not only contrary to nearly every other professional activity, but it also makes writers’ work irrelevant and discourages people from reading, especially when the readers are romantics, as most are, yet only see the demise of like-minded protagonists.

Furthermore, literary fiction has this unique place as an interdisciplinary field per se. The reason for a character’s decision at a given point in a novel can be informed by numerous causes (which is a perfect reflection of life). A physical disease due to genetic defects might cause a girl to behave strangely in elementary school, where she is among schoolkids who almost all have a completely different social and familial background than she does; later at home she hears propaganda from her parents that then places her outside of her high school friends as well, which in turn leads to nervousness that compounds the conditions arising from the genetic defect; at the same time from a historical perspective she is perceived as an insider, but is socialized as an outsider during a period when the business community seeks to strengthen young women, and her mother has ceased to cook with salt and buys the cheapest products in the worst grocery store.

Literary fiction is the only discipline capable of showing the truths arising in this young woman as a product of multiple causes. Methodologically, this fails in every other field. In literary fiction, it is (methodologically) a borderline requirement for a character developing or for depth.

To be fair, this characteristic is also found in the work of contemporary American writers like Jonathan Franzen.

What we don’t find, is the second layer of these truths. That is, the interdisciplinary development of a character is present, but not the interdisciplinary nature of the work as a whole. The reader does not gain insights into what this oddly developed woman above can do to extricate herself from a complicated situation that culminates in a midlife crisis.

A work of literary fiction, like all other work produced in other fields, must not just consist of internal truths (e.g., inter- or multidisciplinary development of characters, observations), but also adopt some position as a work of art. This can be done structurally, through foils, counter characters, conceits, the story and an infinite number of other techniques.

Literary fiction today is like an article or paper without an introduction or conclusion. You just get some random observations.

The approach I am describing has been criticized as tendentious (Gary Shteyngart used exactly that word when I asked him about this issue in regards to his dystopian work). It is levelled at the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky regularly. There is some merit to this criticism in 18th and 19th century work with a clear agenda. The same with Socialist Realism in Russia. It is poorly handled and often lacking in the diversity of truth, which has only become accepted more recently.

Most truths are context-based. Not universal. In the old days of omniscient narrators and authorial commentary, writers viewed themselves as authorities and claimed universals. Tolstoy wrote only one single passage of the narration in Anna Karenina in the present tense: the scene where Levin is mowing the wheat in the field with the peasants and enters into harmony with the metaphysical.

Today, literary fiction writers need to figure out what their view of various contexts is and how they want to depict those contexts and for what purpose. They have to ask themselves, what do I want to say here? And then they have to ask themselves the same thing when they get to there, i.e., what do I want to say now in this case?

And what they want to say cannot be a falsehood. It cannot be intentionally wrong. It can certainly be unintentionally incorrect, mistaken, misguided, uninformed or subject to any other criticism. But at least then readers will know they are reading literary fiction for a reason, that is, they are tracking the lives of certain characters because they offer the reader potential: to learn, to understand, to adopt the same approach by analogy in their lives and to grapple with the ideas, theory, hypothesis, worldview presented by the author through the characters, situations and contexts of the novel as a whole.

Naturally, this applies to both the work we produce and this perypatetik project where the literary fiction and creative non-fiction show at the very least the vicissitudes of life negotiated in manners consistent with the theory of counterbalancing, otherwise referred to as peripatetic alterity. Solutions aren’t necessarily presented in any given story. They are not presented in the novel Angelika Friedrich and Henry Whittlesey have written, but the lives of characters in familiar situations, facing common issues, especially the host of problems coming with the currently prevailing metaphysical/spiritual wasteland in the uniform identification with materialism/consumption, reveal very ordinary possibilities available to literally everyone through simply a change in perception.

Characters in literary fiction, just like in everyday life, live out this alternative perception, best of all in romanticism or by offsetting pragmatic tendencies with romantic ones.

Since we don’t perceive it in our daily lives, maybe it will become apparent in literary fiction.

Then we will have change… for the better.

Works cited

Friedrich, Angelika; Whittlesey, Henry. “The Representation of Romantics in the Classics and Perypatetik.” Conceived: Childhood Transadapted. New York: perypatetik, 2021.

Friedrich, Angelika; Smirnov, Yuri; Whittlesey, Henry (Eds.) Peripatetic Alterity – A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being: Romantics and Pragmatists. New York: perypatetik, 2019.

Janosi, Krisztina. Freedom. In: Material Dissent: Adulthood Transadapted. New York: perypatetik, 2023.

Smirnov, Yuri; Whittlesey, Henry. “The Purpose of Literary Fiction at the Beginning of the Third Millennium.” Evanescent: Young Adulthood Transadapted. New York: perypatetik, 2022.

Stotts, Talia. “5-4-3-2-1.” Evanescent. Ed. Angelika Friedrich et al. New York: perypatetik, 2022: 33-54.

Uribe, Adriana. La Lluvia en Bogotá. In Material Dissent: Adulthood Transadapted. New York: perypatetik, 2023.