This is an unrelated idea this topic reminded me of. I’ve had a question about why fiction becomes less compelling with age. There’s a simple answer, mere familiarity, but this elides the question a bit. What exactly am I becoming familiar with that no longer grabs my attention? I think one of the factors is status. This will be obvious to people who are fans of Johnstone’s Impro, but the basic idea is that interpersonal fictional scenes are mostly about status fights, deltas, negotiations, updates etc. This stuff is fascinating when you’re young because it’s good training data. It is less appealing when you feel that your position in life is somewhat settled.
I’ve been rereading Sandman, which was deeply important to me in my young adulthood but has fallen flat for the last decade+. This reread has been filled with thoughts like “Gaiman is so overrated” and “what did I ever used to get out of this?” Until I got to book 9, where it out of nowhere started hitting me at levels of depth I had no conception of at 20.
So I think some of what’s happening is that having a catchy beginning isn’t that correlated with having a strong ending, and young people are easier to hook at the beginning due to less experience. There are lots of books with deeply satisfying endings but so-so beginnings, and people only get to the ending if they’re easily impressed enough to get through the meh beginning.
This is really clear with good-but-cliched books: if it’s your first time reading the trope you can just enjoy the good parts. But I think it’s true for a lot of books on a more subtle level.
I’ve noticed that my intuitive perception of fiction has shifted from “almost like an alternate reality” to “clear artifice” as I’ve gotten older. Perhaps just from seeing enough fiction and enough reality that the ways in which they differ become obvious.
My tastes in fiction have changed as I’ve aged, but I still enjoy it quite a bit. I think your observation generalizes. A lot of tropes and conflicts in fiction (and in reality, for that matter) seemed critically important in my youth, partly because they were novel in that form. Having read/seen a lot more, I now recognize the shape of most conflicts, and am no longer particularly invested in the characters’ reactions to them.
I STILL really enjoy the art forms, the presentation, and the new focus on aspects I hadn’t noticed or had forgotten about. And sometimes I just let the critical thinker in me and just enjoy the ride, the same now as my youth.
Haven’t read The Waves, will check it out. I mostly find things like Project Hail Mary still entertaining, ie borderline rationalist fic where the main character is portrayed as deliberating. Once you start noticing how no one discusses options in most fiction it makes a lot of it difficult to stomach.
For me it’s not that fiction would be less compelling, but my standards have crept up, and it would take more time and effort to find something that would really grab me.
This is an unrelated idea this topic reminded me of. I’ve had a question about why fiction becomes less compelling with age. There’s a simple answer, mere familiarity, but this elides the question a bit. What exactly am I becoming familiar with that no longer grabs my attention? I think one of the factors is status. This will be obvious to people who are fans of Johnstone’s Impro, but the basic idea is that interpersonal fictional scenes are mostly about status fights, deltas, negotiations, updates etc. This stuff is fascinating when you’re young because it’s good training data. It is less appealing when you feel that your position in life is somewhat settled.
I’ve been rereading Sandman, which was deeply important to me in my young adulthood but has fallen flat for the last decade+. This reread has been filled with thoughts like “Gaiman is so overrated” and “what did I ever used to get out of this?” Until I got to book 9, where it out of nowhere started hitting me at levels of depth I had no conception of at 20.
So I think some of what’s happening is that having a catchy beginning isn’t that correlated with having a strong ending, and young people are easier to hook at the beginning due to less experience. There are lots of books with deeply satisfying endings but so-so beginnings, and people only get to the ending if they’re easily impressed enough to get through the meh beginning.
This is really clear with good-but-cliched books: if it’s your first time reading the trope you can just enjoy the good parts. But I think it’s true for a lot of books on a more subtle level.
Becoming busier? (Becoming more aware of how little time you have in the world and how much other people need it.)
I’ve noticed that my intuitive perception of fiction has shifted from “almost like an alternate reality” to “clear artifice” as I’ve gotten older. Perhaps just from seeing enough fiction and enough reality that the ways in which they differ become obvious.
My tastes in fiction have changed as I’ve aged, but I still enjoy it quite a bit. I think your observation generalizes. A lot of tropes and conflicts in fiction (and in reality, for that matter) seemed critically important in my youth, partly because they were novel in that form. Having read/seen a lot more, I now recognize the shape of most conflicts, and am no longer particularly invested in the characters’ reactions to them.
I STILL really enjoy the art forms, the presentation, and the new focus on aspects I hadn’t noticed or had forgotten about. And sometimes I just let the critical thinker in me and just enjoy the ride, the same now as my youth.
What fiction, if any, have you found to be compelling in the recent years of your life? (And do you have a sense of what made it compelling?)
As an aside: I’m curious if you’ve read The Waves by Virginia Woolf, and if so, what you thought of it.
Haven’t read The Waves, will check it out. I mostly find things like Project Hail Mary still entertaining, ie borderline rationalist fic where the main character is portrayed as deliberating. Once you start noticing how no one discusses options in most fiction it makes a lot of it difficult to stomach.
For me it’s not that fiction would be less compelling, but my standards have crept up, and it would take more time and effort to find something that would really grab me.