As writing and mathematics are both intellectual tasks, there is probably a parallel in terms of age of fecundity. Notably a large number of mathematical breakthroughs have been made by mathematicians in their twenties, and not much of consequence happens past age thirty. In the case of writers, I think more time is needed for absorbing empirical information in which to frame their work, because no fiction is purely abstract.

Writing fiction is also different from mathematics in that there is not necessarily a problem to solve. Therefore, a few themes of personal interest may preoccupy an author throughout her career, and even though their best presentation may be made early on, she may not move to different terrain in later years.

In theory, a perceptive writer who evades dementia could produce interesting work into her nineties, though perhaps the energy required for stylistic innovation, which is more akin to mathematics, may decline.

Thank you for such an articulate explanation of the way an artist–regardless of age or continent–finds a way in to the story to say something about the human condition. The imaginative process is an imperfect one, to say the least. And getting the craft right is challenging on even the best days. But when all these elements converge there are few things more gratifying, both for writer and reader.

And let’s not forget that that reader plays an important role. Reading isn’t a passive act; a text demands more than attention–you have to be willing to meet the work on the author’s terms, to learn how to re-read each time you pick up a book. Cormac McCarthy is a great example. Many people abandon his novels after a few pages because they “can’t get through his prose.” Yes, it’s dense. And it’s often dark. But the style has a purpose, both in terms of reflecting the landscape and the interior lives of these characters. This is why he’s such a fantastic author–his vision and his craft are in harmony.

This is what my writing students often struggle with–intentionality. Humor for the sake of being funny is, for the most part, useless. It serves no purpose. When a student says of an author’s work, “I just don’t like their style,” what they’re really saying is that the writing didn’t come easily to them. They didn’t identify with it. And because it didn’t pander to their pre-developed tastes, or their expectations, they decided that the easiest thing to do was to reject it. But in most cases (excepting bad work) this has nothing to do with the writer’s craft or vision. Rather, it has to do with an underdeveloped palate on the part of the reader. It’s akin to complaining that you didn’t like the food at an Indian restaurant because they didn’t serve spaghetti. But I digress…

The real reason I thought I’d offer a comment here has to do with the idea of artistic vision and age that was batted around earlier in this thread. It’s a topic I’ve been fascinated by recently, partly due to the fact that our colleague here at the University of Michigan, Nicholas Delbanco, who served as a mentor to a number of the Contributors to this site, is in the process of finishing a book of essays entitled “Lastingness” (many of which have been already published). The project’s goal is to examine the aging artist, specifically those rare individuals–musicians, artists, and writers alike–who continue to produce vigorous and worthy art into their 60s, 70s, and 80s. Because the truth of the matter is that no matter how much wisdom age is said to deliver, it also brings a clouding of vision, a dampening of technical ability, and a retreat to well-trodden tropes. With the rare literary exceptions like Alice Munro, Cormac McCarthy, Mavis Gallant, and a handful of others, most writers have traditionally produced their best work in their 30s and 40s. And it could be argued that some authors like Philip Roth, E.M. Forster, Thomas Pynchon, Flannery O’Connor, and F. Scott Fitgerald even did their most compelling writing in their 20s.

But to actually take a more objective look at the situation, I compiled a small survey of authors and some of their major works (below). There’s no rhyme or reason to the choices–I tried to find a mix of contemporary and canonical work, written by male and female, who are traditionalists and avante-garde. The only organizing principle is that I’ve ordered them by age of their first major work. So Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein at 21, tops the list. While Cormac McCarthy, who wrote one of his firsts, Blood Meridian, at 52, wraps things up. And, frankly, he’s one of the only authors here who wrote much past 50 at all. Nabokov’s masterpiece Lolita was completed when he was 56, and Dostoyevsky published his last book, the Brothers Karamazov, when he was 59. But those are outliers, really. Most work that’s stood the test of time–regardless of how long a particular writer lived–was written when the author was in their 30s and 40s.

Mary Shelley (1797-1851) lived to be 54, but wrote Frankenstein (1818) at the age of 21.

Carson McCullers (1917-1967) lived to be 50, but wrote The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) when she was 23.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) lived to be 61, but wrote his collection In Our Time (1925) when he was 26, A Farewell to Arms (1929) when he was 30, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) when he was 41, and The Old Man and the Sea (1951) when he was 52.

Philip Roth (1933-) wrote Goodbye, Columbus (1959) when he was 26, Portnoy’s Complaint (1969) when he was 36, and American Pastoral (1977) when he was 44.

E.M. Forster (1879-1970) lived to be 91, but wrote Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) when he was 26, A Room with a View (1908) when he was 29, and Howard’s End (1910) when he was 31.

Thomas Pynchon (1937-) wrote V (1963) when he was 26, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) when he was 29, and Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) when he was 36.

Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) lived to be 39, but wrote Wise Blood (1952) when she was 27, A Good Man is Hard to Find (1955) when she was 30, and Everything That Rises Must Converge (published posthumously in 1965).

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) lived to be 44, but wrote The Great Gatsby (1925) when he was 29.

Lorrie Moore (1957-) wrote Self Help (1985) when she was 28, Anagrams (1986) when she was 29, Like Life (1990) when she was 33, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (1994) when she was 37, Birds of America (1998) when she was 41, and A Gate at the Stairs (2009) when she was 52.

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855) lived to be 38, but wrote Jane Eyre (1847) when she was 31.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) lived to be 40, but wrote “In the Penal Colony” (1914) when he was 31 and The Metamorphosis (1915) when he was 32

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) lived to be 73, but wrote Enough Rope (1926) when she was 33.

Jeffrey Eugenides (1960-) wrote The Virgin Suicides (1993) when he was 33 and Middlesex (2002) when he was 39.

William Faulkner (1897-1962) lived to be 64, but wrote The Sound and the Fury (1929), when he was 32, As I Lay Dying (1930) when he was 33, Light in August (1932) when he was 35, and Absalom, Absalom (1936) when he was 39.

Herman Melville (1819-1891) lived to be 72, but wrote Moby Dick (1851) when he was 32.

James Joyce (1882-1941) lived to be 59 years old, but wrote Dubliners (1914) when he was 32, Portrait of the Artist (1916) when he was 34, and Ulysses (1922) when he was 40

Isaac Babel (1894-1940) lived to be 45, but wrote Red Cavalry (1926) when he was 32.

David Foster Wallace (1962-2008) lived to be 46, but wrote Infinite Jest (1996) when he was 34

Henry James (1843-1916) lived to be 72, but wrote The American (1877) when he was 34, The Europeans (1878) when he was 35, Washington Square 1880) when he was 39, Portrait of a Lady (1881) when he was 38, and The Golden Bowl (1904) when he was 61.

Jane Austen (1775-1817) lived to be 42, but wrote Sense and Sensibility (1811) when she was 36, Pride and Prejudice (1813) when she was 38, Mansfield Park (1814) when she was 39, and Emma (1816) when she was 41.

John Irving (1942-) wrote The World According to Garp (1978) when he was 36, The Hotel New Hampshire (1981) when he was 39, and Cider House Rules (1985) when he was 43.

Charles Baxter (1947-) wrote Harmony of the World (1984) at 37, First Light (1987) at 40, Shadow Play (1993) at 46, Believers (2000) at 53, and The Soul Thief (2008) at 61.

Saul Bellow (1915-2005) lived to be 89, but wrote The Adventures of Augie March (1953) when he was 38, Henderson the Rain King (1953) when he was 38, and Herzog (1964) when he was 49.

John Fowles (1926-2005) lived to be 79, but wrote The Magus (1965) when he was 39 and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) when he was 43

Toni Morrison (1931-) wrote The Bluest Eye (1970) when she was 39, Sula (1974) when she was 43, Song of Solomon (1977) when she was 46, and Beloved (1987) when she was 56.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-) wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) when he was 40 and Love in the Time of Cholera (1980) when he was 53.

J.M. Coetzee (1940-) wrote Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) when he was 40, The Age of Iron (1990) when he was 50, and Disgrace (1999) when he was 59.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1921) lived to be 93, but wrote War and Peace (1869) at the age of 41 and Anna Karenina (1877) at the age of 49.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) lived to be 59, but wrote Mrs. Dalloway (1925) when she was 41 and To the Lighthouse (1927) when she was 43.

George Elliot (1819-1880) lived to be 61, but wrote The Mill on the Floss (1860) at the age of 41 and Middlemarch (1872) at the age of 53.

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) lived to be 91, but wrote Of Human Bondage (1915) when he was 41.

Ford Maddox Ford (1873-1939) lived to be 56, but wrote The Good Soldier (1915) when he was 42.

Jane Smiley (1949-) wrote A Thousand Acres (1992) when she was 43.

Tim O’Brien (1946-) wrote The Things They Carried (1990) when he was 44.

Richard Ford (1944-) wrote The Sporstwriter (1986) when he was 42 and Independence Day (1995) when he was 51.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) lived to be 59, but wrote Notes from the Underground (1864) when he was 43, Crime and Punishment (1866) when he was 45, and the Brothers Karamazov (1881) when he was 59.

Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) lived to be 64, but wrote Winesburg, Ohio (1919) when he was 43.

Alexander Solhenitsyn (1918-2008) lived to be 89, but wrote One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) when he was 44 and The Cancer Ward (1968) when he was 50.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) lived to be 75, but wrote The House of Mirth (1905) when she was 47 and The Age of Innocence (1920) when she was 58.

Don DeLillo (1936-) wrote White Noise (1985) when he was 49.

Isak Dinesen (1885-1962) lived to be 77, but wrote Out of Africa (1937) when she was 52.

Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) lived to be 78, but wrote Lolita (1955) when he was 56.

Cormac McCarthy (1933-) wrote Blood Meridian (1985) when he was 52, All the Pretty Horses (1993) when he was 60, No Country for Old Men (2005) when he was 72, and The Road (2006) when he was 73.

“A Hunger Artist” is also one of my Kafka favorites. I don’t know how he thought of it, but all of his writing reflects his unique alienation and ultimately seems to be a Rorschach of his mind. Most of his writing is like pure self-expression and resembles a bad dream in his longer works. Reading “The Burrow” left me feeling as if I were a rodent trapped in my lair.

Maybe I’ll give Cormac McCarthy a try. Am currently enjoying Michel Houellebecq.

I agree, Paul, that motherhood – let’s expand that to parenthood to include the men here too – could be a potentially distracting choice for a writer (as the post from today discussed). But there are certain leaps that seem worth it, whatever the unforeseen cost, and I think for many, parenthood is one. And if Lorrie Moore is “mining every little experience she can find in her life” now that she’s a mother, I don’t see that as any different from what the vast majority of writers do every day, week in, week out, or probably what was involved long before Ms. Moore had children.

George Eliot is one of the greats, and I agree that Middlemarch is a masterpiece. Kafka too is a wonder. His story “Ein Hungerkünstler” is one of my favorites, but I doubt he knew hunger artistry as a carnival side-show from personal experience. He can imagine it though, right down to the filthy straw on the bottom of the cage. What’s more: he makes you see it. You mentioned not having read McCarthy, and, as I said, he’s an acquired taste. But I think his masterpiece thus far is Blood Meridian (unoriginal of me), which was published when McCarthy was 52, living off the money from his MacArthur Fellowship. Hardly anyone read the book when it first came out. But the books leading up to it – The Orchard Keeper (he was 32), Outer Dark (he was 35) – give an intimation of the force that was building. All that to say, McCarthy at 32 had something to say. George Eliot at 33 was accumulating the experiences that would inform her future work. I couldn’t agree more with Anne that it’s not the what – the factory line or the grad school program or the banker’s job (yep, looking at you T. S. Eliot) – it’s the eyes to see it, to make it true again, and then again.

There are writers out there now, American, Peruvian, South African, Malaysian, Russian – you name it – who will be the George Eliots and Franz Kafkas of our generation. They may already be, but no one will know it unless they pick up some contemporary fiction and give it a try. It’s a risk, a book is always a risk. But I know you’re a reader, Paul, and you keep giving us a shot, so I’m not worried.

I agree that “People Like That Are the Only People Here” is an exception to my point. I would rate it among her best. However, I get the feeling that she has to work at mining every little experience she can find in her life as if it has the scarcity of a precious metal or jewel. I felt that she was more spontaneous and prolific at the time of Like Life, her second short story collection. She herself has attributed her recent low output rate to motherhood, so I’m not just speculating. This isn’t to say that motherhood makes good writing impossible, but rather that it can be a significant handicap to the process.

As far as the schism between the working class and the educated elite is concerned, I wasn’t trying to idealize minimum wage jobs. My point is that many college professors don’t know what’s going on out there, and I and others can see it in Moore’s writing. To some extent she is writing in a way that promotes the views of the politically correct elite – the precise outlook that she feigns to eschew.

I completely agree that education is the one chance for bringing greater equality to this country. At the moment the polarity is increasing, not decreasing, and the living conditions for most factory and minimum wage workers are on the decline. While this group is struggling to survive, I know a couple of computer science students graduating next May who already have $80,000 jobs lined up! These two will live in a different world from the masses.

My complaint about academe is not about its vocationally successful programs, but about the failings of our intelligentsia as a class. During the Bush years, they may have quietly mumbled disapproval about the goings-on to each other, but you would never know it unless you were there with them. Thousands of college professors should have been screaming their lungs out about the Iraq War, but I barely heard a peep. To my amazement, many supported it. If you will permit me to generalize again, our intelligentsia are a docile group unwilling to risk tenured positions by speaking out against the corporate mentality that has increasingly intruded into public policy in recent years. Lorrie Moore fully qualifies as one of these academic elite, with a tenured position and a coveted voice at The New York Review of Books. That detracts from her street cred in the hood.

To respond to the Salon commenter’s “bet” that a person’s life is “more interesting” when she is forced to work on an assembly line in a dying industry than if she teaches at a university: This widespread romanticization of minimum wage labor — as well as the condemnation of the so-called “ivory tower” (see also: unicorns, the “liberal” media) — is a huge part of what keeps this country from being great and what keeps the poor, poor. Of course the US’s systems of education are deeply flawed, but demonizing universities (or the teaching profession) as some kind of vampiric, castrating tower hardly makes sense. It’s sad when we idealize the very poor and very rich for their “experiences,” and then yawn at education – which is one of our last hopes for class mobility and growing/sustaining a middle class.

Side note: I never expected to be having this debate as part of a thread on the Bad Sex Awards, but hey.

I think I partially responded to your comments in my answer to Anne. It does take time for writers to develop their writing skills, but experience must enter at some point. George Eliot’s development is an example worth looking at. She lived at home with her father until her 30’s when he died. During that time she absorbed a phenomenal amount of information about the mid-nineteenth-century Midlands while accompanying him on his rounds as an estate agent. She made some literary connections when he moved to Coventry, and when he died, she became an unpaid editor in London. During that period she wrote the essay Silly Novels by Lady Novelists – an early indication of her genius. She soon began writing fiction at about age 37 with Scenes of Clerical Life, which I also strongly recommend. Then she went on to write her well known novels, the best of which I think is Middlemarch. Notable is her lack of training in writing and no college. I think she could have benefited from that, but her work is still a towering monument that rests on a deep understanding of the culture in which she grew up.

I didn’t want to get started again on Lorrie Moore, which could get me into trouble, but will say that motherhood may have had an adverse effect on her writing. I mean that the time and energy spent on mothering has to come from somewhere, and in this case, my enjoyment of her writing began to decline the moment she became a mother. It may be that having a comfy position at a university for 25 years is partly to blame – that can be taken as part of my “experience counts” argument. One commenter on Salon said of A Gate at the Stairs “I’ll bet Ms. Moore would be writing a heck of a lot more interesting stuff if she was working as a waitress at an Applebee’s in Nebraska, or on an assembly line in the last few factories of a dying automotive manufacturer.” Moore has spent the best years of her life in an ivory tower and no amount of writing skill can make up for that loss.

I will continue to seek ideas from this site and will let you know whether my views about American literature change with additional reading. I am pursuing this from an aesthetic standpoint and therefore don’t feel bound to undertake an exhaustive study – as if I were writing a Ph.D. thesis. My starting point is somewhat anti-American and I’ll be surprised
if I suddenly discover a new set of American authors who meet all my expectations, though it’s possible.

I’ve been picking on MFA programs mainly because of their affiliation with the academic world. I recognize that all sorts of people might be in MFA programs, and that the programs may offer them the time to hone their skills. However, I’m skeptical of academics and the propensity of universities to become degree mills where people get the professional certifications to pursue careers. That may work for, say, doctors, lawyers or engineers, but I don’t think it extends to the art of creative writing. I’ll take a look at the Mark McGurl interview, which could change my position.

As far as age is concerned, I prefer reading writers who have gone through something and are not mere stylists. It’s a simple fact that the longer you’re alive, the more experiences you have to think about. In my case, I’m at an age where in previous generations I might already be dead, and I have plenty of material to ruminate over. When I think about my earlier life, I can see it with greater clarity than I could when I was 30, and no doubt you will feel the same as you approach 60.

Moreover, I think this criticism of younger writers overlooks something very important. Like any skill, writing takes repetition and practice to develop technical skill. And I’m not talking about just language here; even the simple act of telling a story in a clear, understandable, and engaging way isn’t so simple after all. Writing–whether it’s trying new things, or trying one thing over and over until you get it right–develops the writer’s skils. It asks the writer to observe carefully, to describe carefully and clearly, and to think about motivations and human nature and larger, universal themes. So let’s say those younger writers are actually so shallow and naive that they shouldn’e even bother writer. When those older, ostensibly wiser writers do have material that would satisfy even our Mr. Dorrell, will they be able to write that material in a compelling and meaningful way without ever having practiced?

Paul, I can’t decide if you are extremely pessimistic, assuming automatically that no young writer could ever come up with anything worth reading–or extremely optimistic, reading the works of those young writers in the eternal hope that one of them will impress you. Since you’ve described yourself, here and earlier, as not having read much contemporary American fiction, I lean towards the former. However, as a generally optimistic person myself, I still hope that you’ll eventually transform into the latter. You do keep coming back to this site, and as it’s devoted to emerging writers (many of whom are under 50), should we read this as a sign of–gasp–optimism?