rj_anderson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rj_anderson) wrote2007-08-29 05:03 pm
rj_anderson) wrote2007-08-29 05:03 pm
YES.
Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
no subject
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.