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

[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