Genre Protectionism: An Infantile Disorder · 6:05pm Jul 23rd, 2014
or, a short ramble-rant that doesn't really riff on Lenin at all
Here's a quick caricature. A tale of human … well, not idiocy, but daftness.
There's this group of readers. They like SF&F. Badass rocketships and magical fireballs, that sort of thing, plus a good dose of old-fashion storytelling. They're a bit miffed at something called “literary fiction”. It's pretentious, overwritten tripe, they say. A moody stream of conscioussness that meanders aimlessly up its own arse. No one sensible could possibly enjoy that stuff – only the snobbish read it so they can lord it over everyone else.
There's this other group. They like literary – or mainstream – fiction. Deep character studies and stylistic tinkering, that sort of thing, plus a good dose of non-formulaic plotting. They're a bit miffed at something called “genre fiction”. It's escapist bullshit about people hitting each other with swords or killing giant space wasps that have an unhealthy interest in stealing scantily-clad women, they say. It appeals to the lowest common-denominator. It's the brightly-coloured candy that distracts people from nourishing their souls with proper literature.
Like I said, this is a caricature. In real life, of course, bother sides have their own internal conflicts. And in real life, people can be a lot nastier.
I can sort of empathise. When I was around 18, I read almost no books written after the Second World War. A bit extreme, yeah – David Foster Wallace and David Eddings both being excluded as crap in this scheme. Why? Because I was totally fanboying over Kenneth Rexroth. And Rexroth, in his eloquent and erudite and confident way, said that almost no good literature had been written in modern times.
I was being a prat, and I'm glad I got over it. (Rexroth is an excellent writer and critic, by the way, but he was blinkered by his philosophy of great literature. His recommendations are good; his proscriptions, not so much.)
Fimfiction is largely populated by fans of genrefic, so here we tend to see the first half of my caricature: literary fiction being derided. And perhaps I'm being unfair, but this often – not always! – seems to come with petulant tone. Those mean literary people don't like genrefic, so they must all be twats!
Nonsense.
This attitude is pretentious no matter what side it comes from. It's perfectly fine to like some stuff and dislike other stuff. But when you feel the need to issue sweeping categorical denunciations to justify your tastes … well, that's just sad, isn't it?
I was visiting a friend a couple of weeks ago. She's one of the least pretentious people I know – and she likes T. S. Eliot. Now, I find Eliot to be utterly inscrutable – but if she likes his work, there must something there worth liking.
The same goes for all literature. All art, for that matter.
More than that, the lower the boundaries are, the more cross-pollination we'll get. If each side can gain inspiration from the other, pilfer their techniques, run with their ideas, we'll see a whole lot more creativity.
Isn't that something we, as writers and readers, can all get behind?
Addenda – a few tangential thoughts that didn't fit into the above rant
1. I only talk about literary fiction and SF&F here. That's because those are the two genres I'm most familiar with, and because the rift between them is well known. But of course, there are other genres out there: Mystery, thriller, romance, erotica. I don't know about the rivalries these might have, but the above applies equally well there.
2. The friend I mentioned above – I showed her a few episodes of FIM. Her reaction on seeing Celestia was something to the effect of “What a sexy horse!!” I just stared at her.
3.The mutual dislike of Literary and SF&F mirrors, in an odd sort of way, some of the nastier arguments between Rarity and Applejack. Does … does that mean I'm subconsciously supporting RariJack?
I LIKE this friend of yours.
Yes.
Give in. Giiiiiiive iiiiiiiin.
I should have something more profound to say here, but I just woke up. x3
I couldn't agree with you more. Especially since the line between the two genres is entirely artificial and doesn't really exist. Much as I love reading some brainless escapism, the stories that stick with me the most tend to be those that actually belong to both sci-fi and literary fiction. (See anything by Ian M. Banks, who is the only author I've really mourned when they died, there will never be anybody else quite like him.)
Of course it does.
But, honestly, I kind of hate to say it but I'm awfully close to your Type 1 as described. The more I learn about writing, the more I find that I absolutely detest a lot of what seems to come out of the circle of modern literary fiction. Which isn't to say that literary fiction is worthless—not necessarily. But I've been told by a creative writing professor, in all seriousness, that stories must only deal with conflicts and issues that are parts of ordinary, everyday life for average people. Anything that stinks of "good vs. evil" must be thrown away, because real stories, good stories, can't have that kind of thing.
Oh, yeah, and if you haven't read "A Reader's Manifesto", I strongly recommend it. In a similar vein, I think it's telling that—despite having around 40% of all Nobel laureates—the US hasn't picked up a Literature prize in over 20 years.
There are good reasons for reading some books that'd be classified as literary fiction. And certainly, there's value to prose-as-art just as there's value to skillful storytelling. But I get the feeling that the modern-day literary movement is ghettoizing itself, insisting on an ugly form of ideological and technical purity that has very little to do with good writing.
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Totally. Banks' science fiction is some of the best speculative fiction ever written. And it's heavily influenced by Literary Modernism -- up to having two titles being quotes from The Waste Land. (And a lot of his literary books are influenced by genre too.)
Come to think of it, most of my favourite authors have influence from both sides. Perhaps I'm just greedy.
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Ooh, disagreement. Now this is where things get interesting. I think we've got a few different things we need to disentangle here:
First, there's just disliking literary works because they're no fun to read. Well, who am I to argue? That's just a matter of personal taste.
Second, there's rejecting the opinions of people like that creative writing professor -- people who want claim only X can be good literature. I completely agree -- such opinions are silly and snobbish. However ... I see them just as often among genre readers as literary readers. As a general rule, I'm suspicious of all self-appointed arbiters of quality among stories, no matter where they come from, and I wonder if they may be doing more harm than good.
Third, there's the matter of the "literary establishment". Who are these people? Presumably just some literature professors plus writers for, contributors to, and readers of literary magazines. Some of them might look down on other types of fiction -- but we've considered that point above. As for the rest of what they do -- writing, reading, analysing and so forth -- isn't that pretty much what you'd see from a community of genre readers? They may well be ghettoising themselves. That's the sort of protectionism I'm having a go at. But again, blame lies with both sides.
I'm singling this out because it gives me a chance to be controversial. You see, even putting aside the issue of whether there is such a thing...
I don't give a damn about good writing. I only care about writing I enjoy.
And I don't think anyone else does, either. Not really. People only use the term to justify their preferences and bludgeon works they dislike. How often do you see someone saying, "Oh, I really enjoy Author X -- but I don't read her stuff any more because it's bad writing"?
So we come back to the central point -- it's not a matter of ideological and technical purity versus good writing. It's a matter of one flavour of purity versus another. For litfic it's stuff like prose and realism. For genrefic it's stuff like foreshadowing, consistent worldbuilding and show-don't-tell.
(Reading back, this may come off a little aggressive -- please don't read it that way. I'm just being forthright and a bit of a showoff.)
ETA: I'll have a look at that piece tomorrow when I'm a little more awake.
I think I've contracted endash fever.