I’m reading The Razor’s Edge by M. Somerset Maugham at the moment and while I’m enjoying it I can’t help but notice that nobody in it seems to work. I know the characters are all from a fairly wealthy background but I’ve noticed in a lot of novels, particularly written around this time, that it seems to me to be a kind of crutch that the author leans on. Having all your characters be financially untouchable means that they can spend all their time gossiping, having drinks and basically adventuring. I wonder if it was a fascination of the time or if it was the author’s inexperience with poverty that drove this type of writing? In contrast, Down and Out in Paris and London is the opposite and only concerns itself with the struggle for money.
I suppose my question is, why do authors ignore the work day as much as they do? Is it because people don’t want to read about it or authors don’t want to write about it. The only exceptions to this I can think of are books explicitly about the drudgery of work like Post Office or Then We Came To The End.
by JoyousDiversion2
3 Comments
I just heard David Means talking about this and basically he said that people read to relax or get away from their job— unless you’re someone like the poet Philip Larkin. I also recall Faulkner talking about working in some detail in his novels.
A book can only capture an aspect of a person. It would be rather boring to have a character go in to work every day, not much happens at work, it’s a day like every other, they don’t think much about it, and then the interesting stuff happens, and then they go back to work the next day, not much happens, it’s a day like every other, they don’t think much about it, and then more interesting stuff happens, and then the next day they go into work…
That said, lots of books do involve people at their jobs – James M. Cain, Patricia Highsmith, John Steinbeck, really any detective novel, any campus novel, as I think of it probably most books will at least mention the character’s jobs. They’re not all about the relentless, single-minded pursuit of money, but then most lives aren’t either.
One: it’s often as relevant as the characters having to go to the bathroom. Sure it happens but you don’t need it described.
Two: a lot of writers, especially older ones, were rich or even nobles and never had to work a day in their life lol. Write what you know.
Plenty of novels do show the workplace though, it’s not really so widespread in recent works as you imply.