Whitman news since 1896

Whitman Wire

Vol. CLIV, Issue 6
Whitman news since 1896

Whitman Wire

Whitman news since 1896

Whitman Wire

Embracing mediocre novels, a fate we deserve

by Hanna Perry
COLUMBIA DAILY SPECTATOR (Columbia U.)

(U-WIRE) NEW YORK – Who is the voice of our generation? The literary world’s most trite question has inevitably been pored over in recent years by publications from the New York Times to Time magazine. Previous generations have pointed to Hemingway, Salinger, Kerouac and Vonnegut, among others, and maybe the overwhelming white-maleness of that list merely reveals the absurdity of looking for one writer to represent everyone in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 30. Nevertheless, the latest suggestions include Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Safran Foer and Dave Eggers, all critically acclaimed and well-read by the public: though time has yet to tell whether or not the public will look back upon any of them as “the one.”

Tyler Duckworth, author of the recently published novel “Kids of Oblivion,” would like to be added to this list. No one could accuse Duckworth of not taking the role seriously; in fact, his narrator, 22-year-old Jude Campbell: whose name, it can safely be assumed, may just as well be Tyler Duckworth: spends many pages philosophically extrapolating his generation’s flaws. On sex: “Teenage pregnancies are no longer the anomaly; the anomaly is no teenage pregnancies.” On politics: “My generation walks around as blind as the last generation, who allowed America once again to be the bad guy and smear the good name of democracy in the process.”

Jude’s story is generic post-adolescent angst complete with a happy ending in which Jude, his girlfriend, and his best friend move to Manhattan together. The whole thing is punctuated by “knowing” sound bites like, “Just let the road take you where it wants to, and basically do your best to enjoy the ride. Anything else is wasted.”

Our generation has overturned conventional criteria for what is worthy of public attention and what isn’t: these days, if it can be uploaded to the Internet, someone will watch it.”

And yet, by expecting that people will passionately identify with his earnest, profoundly mediocre novel, Duckworth has perhaps accomplished what he set out to do. One of the defining features of our generation is the compulsive need to publicly document even the most banal details of our lives. Our generation has overturned conventional criteria for what is worthy of public attention and what isn’t: these days, if it can be uploaded to the Internet, someone will watch it.

In keeping with this phenomenon, the house that published “Kids of Oblivion,” Schadenfreude Books, Inc., will read anything anyone e-mails to its office: and Duckworth also produces his own short films, available online to the general public.

Alas, it seems that Tyler Duckworth, while far from being a J.D. Salinger, might just be the writer we deserve.

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