In Sigrid Nunez’s 2018 novel The Friend, a famous writer kills himself. Not long before, he complains to the narrator about readers: “People talking about a book as if it were just another thing, like a dish, or a product like an electronic device or a pair of shoes, to be rated for customer satisfaction—that was just the goddamn trouble.” Students submit papers that say, “I hate Joyce, he’s so full of himself.” Online reviewers imply, “if a book didn’t affirm what the reader already felt—what they could identify with, what they could relate to—the author had no business writing the book at all.” The famous author quits teaching, quits writing. The state of the novel, its place in the world, is too depressing.
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