mindstalk | (Reply)

Well said, I completely agree. Also, while 98+% of what I read is SF&F, I've had read and enjoyed literary fiction, but in all cases it's literary fiction written before WWI. In addition to almost all English language litfic written after that era having unlikeable characters, there's also the issue of the CIA using the Iowa Writer's Workshop to turn post 1930s American litfic into completely worthless crap by stripping out anything like a social conscience from it. I have no idea if that's also the reason so much litfic from that era is also exceptionally bleak, but it certainly is. From my PoV, pre-WWI litfic is a mixed bag - some of it, like Moby Dick is well done, but also very much not my thing, other works are excellent, but I've yet to see anything described at litfic from after (at latest) 1930 that was worth reading.

On a related note, I immediately thought of Tim Pratt's Doors of Sleep when I read this - the protagonist is a genuinely good and humane individual who basically decided that since he has no choice about bopping through the multiverse everytime he falls asleep, he'll do his best to help out wherever he ends up.