She blinded me with Science

     Moretti takes an analytical and objective approach to literature in his article, “Graphs, Maps, and Trees” by trying to discover the bigger picture literature poses rather than focusing on the smaller, less significant patterns that most scholars today focus on.  In doing so, Moretti takes a scientific approach to literature, analyzing graphs and historical information to draw conclusions about the rise and fall of a genre.  This approach to literature gives it an objective, quantitative result, excluding the subjective aspect usually studied in literature, which, depending on the application of the result, can be beneficial or detrimental.
     This method of looking at literature is beneficial in that it presents information systematically, leaving little room for interpretation by describing the trends observed in the popularity of literary genres.  Moretti attempts to shift the focus of the study of individual texts to the study of texts in general.  Genres rise and fall according to the political situations governing the time and wars dictate popularity, shown in tracing the rise and fall of ‘the novel’ in different countries during various wars.  He concludes that if literature is depicted scientifically, quantitatively, then it poses questions to popularity of genres and the disappearances of genres that do not already have an answer.  This, at large, is a very science oriented way of approaching literature. 
     There are, however, detriments to this ‘scientific method of literature’, which completely discredit the subjectivity of a text.  In Moretti’s research, for example, he discredits the idea that a text, or a specific genre, is popular simply because people at the time enjoy reading that type of literature.  He seeks to explain away the power of words through graphs and data, and then presents his audience with an unanswerable question, providing unnecessary ambiguity to the study of literature, as if it didn’t have enough of that already.
     As applied to Super Sad True Love Story, this method brings into question the genre of the novel, the political aspects of today as a dictator in the novel’s popularity, and the big picture that is reflected in the novel’s pages, all of which are readily available from a close read.  This novel could be many genres: a dystopian novel, a romance novel, a coming of age novel, all of which have specifically to do with the political atmosphere of the country in this day and age.  SSTLS mirrors political predictions of a United States in the near future, and comments heavily on the corruption of the society.  In fact, a little bit of Moretti’s theory of generation and the disappearance of a genre are in play IN the novel.  Books in this future United States are obsolete ‘novelties’.  The generation depicted during this time period does not read books, nor does it produce anything of literary merit, and books of all genres disappear.