February 9, 2024
my last post was too optimistic and that’s personally very annoying to me so i am going to take an instance of an issue i have with gen z and millennials and generalize it into a generation-spanning trend so that none are exempt.
lolita by vladmir nabokov is one of my favorite books. nabokov’s writing is outstanding; his descriptions of landscapes and social dynamics are both unmatched and i find myself absorbed into all his books, but he does it best in lolita. the descriptions given of the concept of being in america are second-to-none, his analysis of an abhorrent character is unmatched, walking a line of being completely in humbert humbert’s head without sympathy. it is a terrible book to praise because people believe that the book endorses humbert’s actions and this could not be further from the truth. the reader’s enjoyment stems from the complexity of the book and trying to untangle humbert’s perceptions from what is actually occurring; in this way, it is another instance of a life skill in trying to determine truth from necessarily-biased observers.
this complexity stands in contrast to the proliferation of young adult novels. apparently, approximately three-fourths of fifty-one percent equaling thirty-eight percent of young adult novels are read by those between the age of thirty and forty-four. many people are also in the twenty to thirty year old age bracket judging by the number of viewers on booktok™ (which is the equivalent of algorithmically generated soylent). even bleaker, it looks like only twenty percent of ya books are read by those in the ya demographic. but why would you do this to yourself, flattening the rich range of experience capturable by the written word into those fit for teenagers? the complexity that an adult experiences in their day-to-day life has a different quality to it than that of someone still in high school. it’s probably not good that a lot of readers relate more with the themes of adolescence than adult life.
i’m attempting to address this with some humility; i have a long time to experience adulthood, and i do not imagine that i will feel the same way about life at thirty, forty, fifty, and so on than i do now. regardless, from my current perspective, it seems that much of the consumption of ya novels is to capture those fading feelings from a time where the complexity of life was less. more than anything else, adulthood is marked by increased resolution and complexity. it is the first time where you are confronted by such a variety of choice, the results of each individual choice following you for the long run. and, upon looking into each choice, therein lie more, each with its own inevitable conclusions. one is presented with a dizzying array of choices. as an aside, another failure point is believing that every choice is exactly the same in the long run. regardless, given the nausea one may feel upon looking into this pit, it is apparent why some may attempt to retreat to the safety of ya novels.
there are a few issues with this. for the negative argument, even as you read, time still passes, making your future choices more urgent and past ones paying due; inaction too is a choice. as for the positive, this complexity is good and by avoiding it one deprives themselves of the richness of life. one only has one life; reading works of complexity will give the reader a look into a life or idea that they will never experience otherwise. there are traps of escapism here; regardless, the words you take in should be ones which enrich you. ya novels are candy – they’re sweet and ultimately unsatisfying. more complex books sustain the reader, assist in their growth, provide ideas or clarity, etc.
however, this phenomenon is not new to gen z or millennials. looking at demographic surveys, baby boomers and gen x are guilty of this too! the inability to grapple with the complexities of adult life is not new (though it does seem like millennials/old gen z have it worse, though there isn’t enough information on reader demographics to make an informed inference). hippies and whatever generational trends gen x has (sorry no one cared enough about y’all to record your trends – name one good gen x cultural writer aside from chuck klosterman) were told to grow up too and this critique was essentially correct. and most internalize this critique!
long-dead generations did not have this problem aside from the affluent who wrote books and seemed to be tortured by meaning; their culture falling down upon everyone else put us in this situation – in the past, adulthood was defined by some sort of ritual drawing a line between one state and another with more responsibilities. the absence of this leads us to the current crisis. we need new rituals, but ritual created out in the open fails to capture an essential air to it, and in the information age everything is laid bare. i do not believe that being lax on the young is going to fix this one – it clearly hasn’t in the past. what acts can form a bridge between childhood and adulthood? the well-paved road of adolescence is broken, weeds growing between the cracks and dislodged travelers stuck on the side of the road for a bus that may never come; old rickety wood-rotten bridges in the distance, some leading to an open space of air, some decaying but functional. the steel cables, iron, and concrete yet to be delivered so that a new one may one day reliably span this canyon again.
y’all arent ready for whats cooking in the background here:
because they are among the only people in modern society who undertake a mortifying and harrowing coming of age ritual that ends with choosing a new identity and induction into a rarefied community, trans women are men and cis men are not
— alice maz (@alicemazzy) May 11, 2023