This is not intended as a book review. Although I am quite a large chunk through The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach's debut novel, I feel it would be unfair to express my opinion until I have shut the book for good. I can say, however, that I am enjoying my journey with Henry Skrimshander. Harbach's prose is unpretentious and bold, his characters funny and likeable. An effect of this is that the novel sometimes reminds me of Harry Potter, which may go some way to explain the absolutely monstrous advance the author received for it.
But let's take a step backwards. High profile books, like the The Art of Fielding , come around, in my opinion, far too irregularly. Whilst I do not wish upon the book world the same factory production that is haunting Hollywood, I would like to see more authors given the buzz that Harbach received. Here is a novel which had a book written about it before it was even published. That is some world to enter into it. Yet, for many authors their novels (many of which potentially surpass Fielding both narratively and formatively) pass through publication with barely a whimper by the mainstream press Why is this?
Marketability is the obvious driving force here. Harbach is a model literary icon in the eyes of publishers and publicists (especially in America, which inevitably bleeds into Britain). He is young, Harvard educated, a holder of an MFA from the University of Virginia and editor of the well respected literary website n + 1. And - there's a story behind the story in Fielding! It took ten years to write and was passed up by many agents before being snapped by a young, ambitious agent. Queue fantasyland bidding war and a famous Vanity Fair article. Rumour has it the novel sold for a wonderful $650,000. Surely Harbach deserved this. Split that figure by the 10 years he took to write it and it comes to a healthy yearly salary and not, forgive the pun, a ballpark sum in other professions. Don't get me wrong: it's a lot of money. I'd guess every writer today would bite that particular hand off.
I'd argue that the figure Harbach received is, like many other high profile book launches, a self-fulfilling prophecy. It literally garners its own publicity and creates a readership that wouldn't, without the sum, have existed. Suddenly this novel, written by yet another MFA graduate (their success is often debated, I for one am completely for them), is worth writing about - because it is one of the chosen few ordained to succeed. Think of Zadie Smith's reputed £250,000 advance for White Teeth and the subsequent literary superstardom. Her well-deserved success essentially created itself.
I don't say this to argue that Harbach or Smith or any other that received a large advance and a high profile release are undeserving, rather the opposite. I think at this time when we're all talking about big releases we should turn back to the writers who write in silence and in secret. Who write between their day jobs, on toilet rolls and postcards. Doubtless, Harbach did this for ten years. If only we all ended up so lucky. Too few hard working writers are given the credit they deserve, or the publicity that will help them keep doing what they love.
It's easy to see why I compared The Art of Fielding to Harry Potter. Because it's subject matter and prose, whilst both endearing and wonderfully accessible, is also very simple and, here it comes again, marketable. This is not criticism, rather an observation on what sells. I doubt that Harbach wrote this way on purpose, but rather because it was the only way he felt he could write at the time. I'm thankful that Fielding changed from a book indebted to Wallace's Infinite Jest and became something far more accessible. I probably wouldn't have experienced it if it hadn't.
My final thought is, therefore, on the art of simple prose. There is nothing showy in Fielding beside the constant subtly of the sentences, their balance. The lack of showmanship. Doubtless many agents passed up on it because they saw it as too simple, perhaps even bland. It is not perfect, but it is far better than I can do.