"Strange Displacements of the Ordinary": Apple, Elkin, Barthelme, and the Problem of the Excluded Middle

Abstract

Of course one knew it hadn't died-had glimpsed it at the supermarket, observed it at the movies, was aware of it wheezing in one's livingroom. But it had surely seen its best days, had, as one of the specialists on the case observed, shifted from the peaks to the deadly plains of contemporary literature.' On the other hand, and as later events showed, one ought to have been more observant, ought to have taken in the significance of the signs, scattered though they were: get-well cards from Gerald Graff, greetings from David Lodge, a bouquet from Linda Nochlin.2 But then friends naturally expect the best, hoping against the evidence. Actually, it was the confirmation by The Times that forced a reconsideration of the whole matter, made one realize-however hard it was to believe-that after so many relapses realism was back, vital as ever. One couldn't be mistaken; The Book Review, despite its unassertive deference to various experts, knew. Listen: As we move into the 80's, what is happening to fiction? Is it becoming more realistic and less experimental? Are writers more concerned with historical and nonfictional material and less interested in being 'self-referential,' in writing about writing? Are we really living, as one critic put it, in a Golden Age of the American Novel?3