YES.

[rj_anderson]

Thanks to thegameiam for linking to a splendid essay by Dave Wolverton that explains the difference between literary and genre fiction, and reveals the little-known origins of the modern literary novel. It also does a very good job of explaining why I read very little so-called literary fiction, and don't feel a bit embarrassed about not writing it either:

On Writing as a Fantasist.

Comments

[wahlee-98.livejournal.com]

That is a truly fascinating essay, and it perfectly explains my general disgruntlement with the English Department (collectively) as it now stands-- although there are a few people trying to make strides away from the domination of Realist Fiction. People were so busy trying to open the Canon to minorities and women, they didn't bother thinking about opening it to genre fiction.

I want to be the kind of professor who teaches a class on English Fantasy Literature or the Mystery Novel or Science Fiction and Social Commentary. People who don't read genre fiction miss out on so much.

[yunitsa.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting essay that diagnoses some trends, and before reading it I thought that I would feel the same way you do, but I find myself disagreeing with it - possibly because I haven't encountered the full unpleasantness of the mainstream market yet, or because I'm all about the Joyce and Eliot and elitism and opacity (even in my genre reading, actually), but mostly I think that for every literary magazine full of "Manhattan Angst" stories, there is a bookshelf full of badly-written (but well-selling and -marketed) Tolkien-lite fantasy with a scantily-clad woman on the cover, and one shouldn't judge any category by its worst and least-original examples. Also, I'd argue with what his definition of "postmodern" seems to be, which is "just like modern but more so".

My own view is that it's not that "literary" or "genre" fiction is inherently better or more original, it's the way the distinction is managed (by trolls. with sledgehammers.). And I love that there are writers (postmodern writers!) now who are set on blurring those boundaries.

[penwiper26.livejournal.com]

Yes. Wolverton strikes me as having perceived it as a distinction managment issue -- and that's the problem I have with canon formation(s) of the present. But even though I've said some of the exact same things, I loved my time in graduate school in English, and I appreciate what it taught me, though I learned it more or less in an oppositional way.

Also, what I don't think Wolverton quite appreciates is the fact that "political correctness" is not a specific morality. In America right now, "political correctness" is no longer what it was in the 90s; it's still used as a term of abuse for anything representable by the face of Hillary Clinton, but what's actually "correct" right now is a diffuse jingoism and a distaste for people who rock the authoritative boat. Wolverton would have done better to leave the terms "political agenda" and "political correctness" out of the discourse and say that those who hate "moralism" in literature actually hate either a) didacticism or b) moral stances that oppose their own. And, well, yeah. I hate reading stories whose moral stances oppose my own, whether lots of other people like them or not.

[yunitsa.livejournal.com]

Good point about current "political correctness" - it all seems a bit dated, to be honest.

I'm taking a course in the Politics of the Canon this year, though I really wanted to switch to 20th Century Crime Fiction (case in point, hee), so maybe I'll have more to say on this topic after that. But yes, I do share the frustration with the way the canon is constructed around dull things, especially in schools. (And I think there's a related false link between things that are "good" and things that are "worthy of analysis", and also the idea that something can become - be redeemed as? - a "Classic" just by being more than a hundred years old - Dumas and Conan Doyle are genre, dammit.)

And now I am going to bed, honest.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I don't agree with every point Wolverton makes, and I do agree with you that he overstates his case in some respects. But I think that his explanation of how the current standard of what constitutes "literary" came into being, and how arbitrary and unfair and even silly that standard really is, makes the essay worth reading.

I didn't get the impression he was saying "all genre fiction is great and all literary fiction is terrible", either, or even that he was deliberately choosing the worst examples of literary fiction. He chose a work of literary fiction (Il Postino) which was widely praised by people who value literary fiction, and the "Manhattan Angst" stories were but one extreme example among several less extreme.

So yes, by no means a perfect essay -- but I felt that its sound and well-made points considerably outnumbered the exaggerated or spurious ones.

[drmm.livejournal.com]

That's a really interesting article. As a kid, reading was always an escape from a rather depressing reality. As an adult, while I can read and enjoy the occasional 'modern lit' book or short story (I prefer the short stories), they don't help me escape. Reading a steady diet of modern lit in college nearly killed my love for reading. It took a children's fantasy book to remind me that reading can be fun. I suspect this is why I still love and adore Harry Potter, even though I'm able to recognize some serious flaws. I doubt I'd be reading as much as I am today if Harry Potter hadn't come along to remind me why I loved to read as a kid.

Pardon me if I disagreeify and exceptionate.

[becominghuman.livejournal.com]

I am pretty sure, right off the top, that there are a few extremely awkward, or mis-used words in that essay, that set me on edge. Elitist that I am.

I am a huge fan of so-called "Genre" fiction. Not romance novels. But SF/Fantasy/Speculative-Fiction, yes.

I think that mainstream literature has a few characteristics, each of which is a mixed blessing, not all bad, and not always good, that define it:

1. intellectual sophistication, which he would put down as elitism and snobbery. Intellectual sophistication includes truly fabulous writing, like the short stories of Flannery O'Connor and the novels of Graham Greene, and also includes what I consider to be unreadable dreck. Just because it's intellectually sophisticated, doesn't make it bad writing, nor does it make it good.

2. avoiding conventions in how the story is written, wherever possible, to an almost pathological extent. For example, if the Old Way was telling stories in a plot-driven, character-driven way, the literary elite may consider this "too easy" by some within the "literary" world, and so there has been some (maybe a lot) of inaccessible writing in the mainstream literary world. Inaccessible to those of us who care about characters, plot, and conventional novel structure. Let's read something entirely narrated in the second person, shall we? Uh, no thanks.

3. a pathological need to break taboos, shatter sensitivities, jar your readership, and otherwise upset morally conservative or religious (christian, jewish) people, or anything to whom something is sacred. In Mr. Smith's brave new novel, the themes are X rated, and filth is somehow passed off as sophistication. Nothing must remain sacred. It is the writer's duty to tear down whatever he can, destroy and desecrate.


So, I don't like those tendencies, but when they're held in cheque, there is a kind of emotional realism that mainstream fiction reaches that genre fiction almost never reaches. I know there are exceptions. But they are not the rule. Show me a science fiction novel that has depth of insight into the human condition that can compare with Graham Greene, Flannery O'Connor, or Evelyn Waugh, anyone?

That being said, 90% of everything is crap, including SF/Fantasy, and most Literary stuff.

Warren

Re: Pardon me if I disagreeify and exceptionate.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Show me a science fiction novel that has depth of insight into the human condition that can compare with Graham Greene, Flannery O'Connor, or Evelyn Waugh, anyone?

A Canticle for Leibowitz sprang to mind within about 0.02 seconds of you asking this question. To use a more recent example, M.T. Anderson's Feed -- which is not just SF, but YA at that. And since we're talking not only about F/SF but genre fiction as opposed to non-genre fiction, if Dorothy L. Sayers' Gaudy Night is not a great novel which speaks to the human condition, nothing is.

There is no reason whatsoever that genre writing can't be every bit as deep and insightful as the best "literary" fiction -- or more so. Unfortunately, due to the very snobbery Wolverton mentions, many intelligent young authors who might have written wonderful genre books have been cowed into forsaking genre in an effort to prove they are "real" writers.

On the other hand, there are "literary" authors like Margaret Atwood writing works which anywhere else would be recognized as genre, but who get a free pass because they made their name with the drab pseudo-realistic stuff. If Atwood wrote a novel about superheroes or vampires, the lit establishment would be all over it -- if not to praise it for its cleverness, at least to analyze its faults. Whereas there are some very fine authors working in genre who will never be so much as glanced at by the same literary establishment.

Re: Pardon me if I disagreeify and exceptionate.

[becominghuman.livejournal.com]

I just read A Canticle For Leibowitz two weeks ago. And it's probably the best example I could have thought of, and yet it also illustrates my point. The characters are each quite transitory. Well drawn, well written. A Canticle for Leibowitz is better LITERATURE than most "LITERATURE". In fact, it transcends genre. Genre fiction that transcends genre is that most rare of creatures. Those who recognize great writing must stop being "literary snobs". That is where you and I, and the article writer probably agree.

I don't even like Atwood. I dislike Can-Lit especially. I don't like Ondaatje either. I think both are probably great writers, but their stuff doesn't move me. Kind of like the band Rush, which lots of people seem to like, I just can't stand 'em.

I say, forget the literary establishment. Lots of people are reading lots of new authors. The literary establishment is mostly irrelevant to most people who read.

Genre fiction writers don't need to throw stones at "literary" types, or prove anything. Just try to write books as good as "A Canticle for Leibowitz". If angry rants (like his) empower him to write better books, then good for him. I just think it all comes off badly, and makes everybody look chintzy.


Warren

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent! Thanks for the link! *goes to post in own lj*

[camillofan.livejournal.com]

I read lots and lots of genre fiction, classic English mysteries (and their clones) being my drug of choice. And I've gone on record (http://camillofan.livejournal.com/13025.html) as hating the "reality TV" genre precisely because I prefer well-formed stories (in fact, what I actually said, in my usual subtle way, was, "I want to hop onto that roller coaster of suspended disbelief and ride the Aristotelian plot diagram up over the hump of peripety and discovery, sliding down the slope of denouement and ideally ending up in the safe haven of catharsis").

So I, like a previous commentator here, thought I'd like the article better than I did. But maybe because I loved Il Postino, remember T.E. Eliot fondly, count Anita Brookner among my top favorite writers, and had no trouble finding a (wonderful, albeit only 200-level) course in "Modern Fantasy Literature" at my good little Jesuit college twenty-some years ago, I just couldn't get all worked up with Wolverton.

[camillofan.livejournal.com]

And T. S. Eliot even more fondly. :-)

What cammillofan said...

[becominghuman.livejournal.com]

Amen. You said it better than I did.

[infiniteviking]

Thank you so much for linking to this. "As a writer of science fiction, I find it difficult to conceive why anyone would want to obscure the fact that there are cause-and-effect relationships in our lives...." so much for that teacher that made my class read a Hemingway story which he praised to the skies for having no story to it at all. The fact was that it DID have a hidden plot, and the artfully concealed elements that made sense of the disjointed narrative were what made the piece (sort of) satisfying in the end.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Splendid article.

Thanks!

[elizabethcbunce.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link--it gave a backbone and a context to something I've been feeling since I was about 16.

I somehow managed to get a degree in literature without studying anything written post-1900 (or in America) BESIDES a single course in science fiction (it was not until about six months after graduation that this occurred to me. Somehow I never took any modern lit or American lit. And I regret this fact, on an intellectual-if-not-emotional level). But I digress. The fascinating thing about that was that the professor who taught the S/F class *also* taught post-modern American fiction. I remember him confiding in me one day after class that the more he taught S/F, the less he found that Po/Mo had to say. (It's also interesting to note that he later became the head of the English department.)

As for "Show me a science fiction novel that has depth of insight into the human condition that can compare with Graham Greene, Flannery O'Connor, or Evelyn Waugh, anyone?" I think part of the point is that the READER gets to decide whether or not the story/author has anything insightful to say. I have not felt greatly edified by Flannery O'Connor. The insights I gained from Alice Munro are the same I gain from walking down my street and talking to my neighbors. The new ways of thinking that Connie Willis, Orson Scott Card, and Peter S. Beagle have given me, however, did not come from stories tied down by realism. I think this is what spec/fic gives us--the opportunity to free our thoughts and to let them soar beyond the mundane and realistic. There's something to be said for taking the expansive, imaginative view... and seeing how *that* can comment on our own everyday existence.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. Very well said, and I agree -- especially about the Alice Munro comment.

i love those authors too!

[becominghuman.livejournal.com]

I love Connie Willis, OSC, PSB, et al. I just disagree with the author's deploring pretty much all "non-genre" stuff on the flimsy grounds that if the NYT likes it, it must be crap. not true either.

The lift of longing and the crash of loss...
Tumpty umpty oss, Cross boss moss...

W

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Actually, I agree with Becoming human and Camillofan. The essayist overstated his case. In particular, I actually resented what he said about Joyce, because, when I read "Dubliners" twenty or more years ago, I was stunned by the sheer reality of it. I *knew* these people; I understood how they spoke and how they thought, and it bowled me over. It still does. I am also a fan of T.S. Eliot and of Flannery O'Connor, but also (as you know) of Tolkien, Lewis, Walter Miller Jr., Nancy Farmer (author of one of the ten best SF novels I've ever read), and Ursula Le Guin - among others. The point, I think, is that great literature can be any genre, or none. There's nothing wrong with realism; there's nothing wrong with fantasy.

That said, I now do understand better the (ridiculous) pressure a young friend of mine was under. He is a writer (age 18); the founding member of our writing club, and loves fantasy and SF. He was always getting told - by his English teachers, for example - that he should stop writing it. I could not understand why, since he knew and loved the genre and had something to say. Well - now I do. I had no idea the literary establishment was so hostile to genre fiction. That's sad. Of course, it goes hand in hand with the lack of respect for children's fiction, which is considered a genre in itself.

(But my young friend will continue writing fantasy, and so will we. And, hopefully, we'll all produce good books that give people pleasure. That's the main thing, right?)