Now that we have examined a few of the problems with American literature, let's examine the biggest problem of all. Simply, America has no intention whatsoever of ever turning out a writer.
Though I cannot speak for everyone else's personal experience in high school, I know why I cannot write a decent sentence. In my entire high school experience, I wrote maybe two actual stories. What was I doing in all those four years of English classes? I was writing essays on other people's writings.
Ladies and gentlemen, the five-paragraph essay. Learn it and get used to it because it is all you are ever going to do. Write some thesis about some guy who wrote some work some time ago. Have an opinions, defend it in three ways and then, magic! Big deal. Where is the actual creativity?
In this style of education, there is no actual concern for writing skill or imagination. It is simply an exercise in having opinions. It's not as though that is a difficult task, as there is the old comparison of opinions and armpits. However, the educational system of the US seems to be concerned mostly with treating literature as though it is dead and no one will every want to write anything ever again, but if anything new does come out, it will suck. Sure, that is largely true, but it is mostly because nobody is actually helping and encouraging new writers. If an American wants to learn how to write, they have to do it on their own, all the while fighting against an educational system that wants to stifle actual writing skill and creativity.
The largest upshot of this is the simple fact that the journalism is now replacing writing. That is not to say anything against journalists, they do their job well enough, but they are not writers. As the old saying goes, "Every journalist has a book in him. It should stay there." However, journalists are the only people expected to actually write and they are the only ones who receive any training in how to do it.
Unfortunately, journalism does not have style. It is meant to be dry and factual and nothing else. Obviously, a few journalists have managed to escape that categorization, but it is pretty rare. Thus, New Journalism is about the closest thing that America has had to creativity in writing.
Equally unfortunately, journalists are not meant to have creativity. They are meant to write facts or opinions. Thus, American literature is mired in this so-called Truth idea that is so monumentally unsuccessful. It propagates itself through the continued writing of journalists, but it does not actually move forward. Thus, American literature is stuck with nonfiction and creative nonfiction as a replacement for actual literature.
Regardless of your opinion of Friday Night Lights, which I loved and frequently reread, it is not a work of creativity. It only relates facts, even if they are carefully chosen facts designed to bring across a certain thesis. When American writers attempt to escape this cycle, they turn out garbage, but people are forced to lap it up. Why? Because they are respected journalists, so they must write well. Right? Right? Well, what do you think?
There is no escaping it, American literature sucks. It is a giant, empty vacuum of hollow words brought across by people with a bad message and no talent. And there is no intention on anybody's part to actually change this. And even if there was an American who endeavored to rise above the level of a hack, nobody will ever help them achieve that.
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