Kevin's Watch

This is an interesting discussion (and it's always edifying and entertaining to read someone who writes as well as luci engaging in a fully stoked rant )

This was my favourite bit:

lucimay wrote:i'm just tired of some of the best writers in western literature being relegated to a marginal genre by elitist critics who couldn't write their ways out of their own assholes, is all.

At the risk of her drawing her fire down on me (I've felt those flames before. They left me toasty if a little singed ) I'm going to say a bit about my experience and thought on the term 'literary fiction'.

When I was younger I fell for the elitist crap about 'quality literature' and felt that I wasn't up to date with sophisticated people unless I'd read the latest 'literary' prize winner. My eyes weren't opened until my brother explained the idea of 'literary fiction' as a genre.

Unlike luci, I wouldn't see it as completely lacking in conventions. Very often 'literary fiction' is based in the 'real' world, it often focuses on the psychological dramas of a small number of individuals, it is often 'contemporary'. Sometimes it is in response to recent historical events, 9/11 gave rise to quite a few 'literary fiction' novels. It can follow trends. For example, there seems to have been a rise in the number of 'literary' novels being written from the perspective of children in recent times.

It is also not completely allergic to other 'genres' but usually the person has to have their 'literary fiction' credentials well established before they attempt a 'genre' novel. Margaret Atwood has the 'speculative fiction' novel 'Oryx and Crake' (I haven't read it), 'Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow' by Peter Høeg is clearly a detective novel and 'The Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell was short-listed for the 2004 Booker Prize, Nebula Award and Arthur C. Clarke Award. All of these are accepted by the 'literary fiction' gang even though they are clearly 'genre'. (Interestingly, as far as I know, contemporary 'fantasy' has not been able to jump the 'literary fiction' fence )

The idea of the 'literary fiction' genre is useful because it allows me to avoid a lot of pointless fiction about middle-class anxieties (I'm middle-class just not anxious about it ) and I really only engage with it now when it rubs up against the types of books I like (detective, sci-fi etc.). (As an aside, I personally think that all novels (and maybe all stories) are essentially detective stories. For tension to exist there must be a mystery, the purpose of a story is to reveal the answer to that mystery )

Addressing a related issue, I have never fully bought into the post-modern idea of there being no distinction between 'high' and 'low' art forms. Maybe it's just my personality but I am always inclined to attempt to categorise and judge art and literature, dividing it into 'high' and 'low', 'good' and 'bad' and so on.

Over the years I have come to accept that, for me, there is a division between what is 'high quality' literature and what isn't. The example that I use is Stephen King. IMO, King does not produce 'high quality' literature (and I've read 30+ of his books) and there is a very simple reason for this: he is not in control of the form. Writing controls him, not vice versa. He says as much in, I think, 'On Writing' and 'Misery' is a fictional rendering of this.

When I read a 'literary' writer (like one of my favourites, Irish writer John McGahern) I get a sense that this is a person in complete control of the novel form. Now, I am not saying that all 'literary' writers have such a mastery, far from it, but there is always an effort towards such a mastery. I think that King decided years ago that he was a 'storyteller' (a noble calling and gift) but not a novelist. There is artistry in storytelling but it is not overly concerned with the form. And in the end, IMO, art is ultimately concerned with form. When form and content are in harmony then you get great art.

I have my asbestos umbrella at the ready

u.

Didn't Michael Chabon write something fantasy-ish that was considered literary within the past few years?

u., I have read Oryx and Crake, and it is, in fact, dystopian sci-fi. So is the prequel, The Year of the Flood, which I have also read. So was The Handmaid's Tale, come to that.

You left out Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, another dystopian novel masquerading as literary fiction. It's a great book. And Toni Morrison's Nobel-Prize-winning Beloved can certainly be read as horror, altho I suppose a snob would insist on calling it allegory.

I do agree with you that middle-class anxieties are a prime plot line in literary fiction. And I don't have much use for them either.

Your comment about postmodernism refuting the terms "high" and "low" is interesting. Maybe that's why we've now got genres -- it's a way to classify (supposed) schlock without using those bad words....

ussus!! yer so cute!

luckily for everyone i am much to sleepy and tired (and it's 1:56 am) to even consider a considered response.


i understand your position and i think i'll need to think about it before attempting to present my thoughts without all the emotionally charged ranting i'm so famous for!

I haven't read this whole thread because I'm trying to avoid being spoilered, but I just wanted to jump in to say great thought-provoking post Squash Man!
I would have used the 'good post' button, but it seems to have disappeared or just isn't available in this forum.

I agree with Ali who agrees with you re: the link between 'genre' acceptability and established literary credentials and also believe it illustrates a kind of elitist prejudice.

lucimay, I look forward to being able to read your

fully stoked rant

when I'm a bit further down the Malazan path.

aliantha wrote:Didn't Michael Chabon write something fantasy-ish that was considered literary within the past few years?

I think The Yiddish Policemen's Union is often referenced as such, but from what I understand it's an alternate history (where the Jews settled in Alaska instead of Israel).

You left out Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, another dystopian novel masquerading as literary fiction. It's a great book.

I wouldn't really say it's "masquerading". I wish I could remember who I was reading recently on the subject. While it features a science fictional trope that's essential to the story, it's not really central to it.

Shaun das Schaf wrote:I would have used the 'good post' button, but it seems to have disappeared or just isn't available in this forum.

Shaun, one of luci's powers while in rant mode is that she can psychically remove the good post button from any post that she considers to be bilge. (She also mods the Gap dissection forum and so has more mundane earthly powers as well )

Shaun das Schaf wrote: lucimay, I look forward to being able to read your

fully stoked rant

when I'm a bit further down the Malazan path.

I'm a bit of a Malazan noob myself (Fist is a mighty convincing advocate for Erikson ) so I was stepping daintily around this thread in case of spoilers but there are none from here onwards and luci's rant is totally spoiler free (they were all burnt off in the steam )

u.

Thanks for treading the mine field first and passing on directions for safe passage. I shall explore further....

Edited to add: I have explored further and I agree, interesting thread, much of what was said needs to be said loudly and repetitively within earshot of the 'literary' opinion-makers.

Stonemaybe wrote:At the local literature festival last year, I saw China Mieville ripping shreds out of one of the recent Booker Prize judges about 'literary fiction'.

He was trying (and succeeding, but I may be biased) to make him see that the Booker prize is a prize for the best book in the literary fiction genre, NOT in literature as a whole.

So true. A poet (and former English Lit teacher) friend and I often bond over how many Booker-winning books don't do it for us, (at least wrt to 'substance' and originality of idea/style, which is what appeals subjectively to us.)

I must have been thinking of another book than Chabon's. Altho isn't alternate history a sort of sub-genre of fantasy? I've always thought so, but maybe I'm wrong.

Murrin wrote:

aliantha wrote:You left out Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, another dystopian novel masquerading as literary fiction. It's a great book.

I wouldn't really say it's "masquerading". I wish I could remember who I was reading recently on the subject. While it features a science fictional trope that's essential to the story, it's not really central to it.

"Masquerading" was probably the wrong word. But I would disagree about how central the trope is to the story. You could make that argument with almost any sci-fi that's sociological in nature. I've only read one of Octavia Butler's books, but she immediately springs to mind as an author who uses sci-fi tropes in a similar manner as Ishiguro does here.

EDIT after googling: I think it was Parable of the Sower that I read. The book seemed to me to be about racism, with a veneer of dystopian sci-fi.

on literary fiction ussusimiel wrote: Unlike luci, I wouldn't see it as completely lacking in conventions. Very often 'literary fiction' is based in the 'real' world, it often focuses on the psychological dramas of a small number of individuals, it is often 'contemporary'. Sometimes it is in response to recent historical events, 9/11 gave rise to quite a few 'literary fiction' novels. It can follow trends. For example, there seems to have been a rise in the number of 'literary' novels being written from the perspective of children in recent times.

well to be perfectly honest, that statement you're referring to was total sarcasm, i think i said something like "what are it's conventions? that it HAS no conventions?" my point was that "literary fiction" is a redundancy.
fiction is literature and therefore literary, in the strictest sense of the word.
there absolutely are trends in fiction writing. some one writes a book about a school bus crash in north american town somewhere (russell banks, the sweet hereafter) which becomes a critical and popular success and suddenly there are a spate of such novels. they pop right outa the woodword for a variety of reasons, a writer reads russell's book and thinks to himself, oh i can write about small town tragedy! or pft. russell can't write that well, i think i can tell that story better, lemme change a few things around and rewrite that! or whatever.

you get the idea. trends in literature happen. things that people write about (or make any kind of art about, for that matter) happen. they evolve and change, and come in and out of fashion.
but that's what they are, trends.
this decade we're calling a certain type of novel "literary fiction" because we need labels to market them (which i conceded to in one of my rants), but really they are just trends which correlate to the tenor of the times.

and speaking of which, if you want to read a REAL rant, check out mark helprin's short essay on The Literary Tenor of the Times!!
the guy's a much more eloquent writer than myself but BOY can the dude rant! heh. (i came across this little piece when googling the phrase "the tenor of the times" to make sure i was using it in the right context)

ussusimiel wrote: The idea of the 'literary fiction' genre is useful because it allows me to avoid a lot of pointless fiction about middle-class anxieties (I'm middle-class just not anxious about it )

wait...there's still a middle class??? where do you live??
( just kidding)

see, really you're using this redundant moniker to avoid a certain section of the bookstore. labels. like i said, we sort of need em, much to my chagrin.
i'm not fond of labeling mostly because it's been my experience that labels are highly susceptible to abuse. (such as the marginalization of certain kinds of stories or art, or even PEOPLE, discriminations which narrow peoples choices and sometimes dictate what is acceptable or unacceptable in society)

that being said, i DO love organization, grouping, categorizing, classification, taxonomy, etc. i like an organized world because i constantly feel disorganized. i like tidy because i am easily lost in clutter and i hate being lost. psychologically speaking, it's a dilemma for me because tho i recognize the need for organization or labels i fear the abuse of them and feel compelled to point out those abuses loudly so as not to fall victim to them myself.
so i do concede that labels are, as you said, useful.
just be careful which labels you buy into. (which was really my whole point in railing on about "literary fiction"! lol)

i know i'm over-explaining but welcome to luci world!

ussusimiel wrote: (As an aside, I personally think that all novels (and maybe all stories) are essentially detective stories. For tension to exist there must be a mystery, the purpose of a story is to reveal the answer to that mystery )

now THIS is a whole 'nuther topic! a detective with a gun is pretty much just a gunslinger in a western! think about it. and what is a gunslinger? why he's a hero. westerns = hero journeys (see joseph campbell for more interesting thoughts on this subject! )
and yeah i seriously love vladimir propp (speaking of organizing) and northrup frye!

i'm a walking contradicion, aren't i?

ussusimiel wrote:
Addressing a related issue, I have never fully bought into the post-modern idea of there being no distinction between 'high' and 'low' art forms.

i did. and do. heh.

ussusimiel wrote: Maybe it's just my personality but I am always inclined to attempt to categorise and judge art and literature, dividing it into 'high' and 'low', 'good' and 'bad' and so on.

because of the wide variety of fiction that i read i simply cannot do this. i can't think this way. yes i do consider that there are things that don't appeal to me or that i think aren't done in the ways i would like to see them done but i don't feel qualified and don't think really anyone is qualified to say any kind of art is "good" or "bad" (tho i have been known to rant extensively on what i consider to be REALLY bad music!! again, luci the walking contradiction! i do try to be aware that i am, essentially, full of sh*t! )

ussusimiel wrote:
Over the years I have come to accept that, for me, there is a division between what is 'high quality' literature and what isn't. The example that I use is Stephen King. IMO, King does not produce 'high quality' literature (and I've read 30+ of his books) and there is a very simple reason for this: he is not in control of the form. Writing controls him, not vice versa. He says as much in, I think, 'On Writing' and 'Misery' is a fictional rendering of this.

i'm just not gonna go there on King. i understand your position (as i said last night) but i definitely do not agree. this is a gut thing for me. don't ask me for intellectual substantiation of my gut. i can't do it. i hope you don't think that's a cop out but i'm just not interested in, nor do i have the academic background to try and sway your opinion to mine, which is that stephen king writes very high quality hero journey stories. (not that he hasn't written some duds, he definitely has, and i've been pretty vocal about those too. all writers write duds, it's just that king's get published! lol!!)
king is not alway in control of HIS form and that's for sure. the published duds prove it. but what do you mean by "control of the form"? do you mean he makes blunders in his plot structures or something of that nature?
before i make any statements about that, i'd need to know what you mean.
examples if you can, please.

ussusimiel wrote: There is artistry in storytelling but it is not overly concerned with the form. And in the end, IMO, art is ultimately concerned with form. When form and content are in harmony then you get great art.

tell that to jackson pollack please!

the reason i bolded your IMO is because that is what it is, your opinion.
i just don't agree with you yet. i'm not categorically DISagreeing either.
i just don't know. am not sure that IS "knowable".
your opinion helps you to navigate through your preferences but your preferences are not necessarily mine nor can i allow your opinions to
dictate what i read or enjoy.
i can take them into consideration, maybe try to see things from your
perspective, and possibly come round to your way of thinking but i still
don't believe that you absolutely know what is "good art" or "bad art".
(using "you" as the general other, not you personally) it's just too subjective.
your criteria is not necessarily my criteria and mine is not yours.
(even if in my rants i make you FEEL like you should be thinking like me! )

i have always had trouble with absolutes. i realize some people need them.
as an example of that, i once worked with a fella who was a devout christian, and had been in the navy for a number of years prior to his "born again" experience. it slowly dawned on me, after working with him for many years and hearing some of his life history, that he was the kind of person who needed absolutes, needed rule books and manuals to dictate parameters to him. it's the only way he could sanely negotiate the world.
(i never really saw him have any genuine joy in his faith, just a strict adherence to the rules of it, like in the military)
i've never done very well with rules myself, especially around creativity.
like i said, i like organization but i don't mind if things get a little messy.
messy doesn't mean bad to me.
labels are helpful but not absolute.

and in closing i'll support the idea of labels to some degree by quoting frank zappa...

“The most important thing in art is the frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively - because, without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. You have to put a "box" around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall?”

so go ahead and use the labels (as a frame) but i may not use the same ones you do and i may have ranting hissy fits when you don't use MINE!!

ussusimiel wrote: have my asbestos umbrella at the ready
u.

i hope you didn't need it!

psst, luci:

Spoiler

Styx!

aliantha wrote:I must have been thinking of another book than Chabon's.

Maybe, he wrote Union of Yeti Police or something like that that won the Nebula and Hugo awards and was known by my English graduate friends.

Orlion wrote:

aliantha wrote:I must have been thinking of another book than Chabon's.

Maybe, he wrote Union of Yeti Police or something like that that won the Nebula and Hugo awards and was known by my English graduate friends.

No, that's the one Murrin mentioned.

At this point, I dunno *what* book I was thinking of. The cold medicine has definitely taken over my brain....

Thanks, luci. Just what I was hoping for (the hugs and the response ).

lucimay wrote:i'm just not gonna go there on King. i understand your position (as i said last night) but i definitely do not agree.

I picked Stephen King thinking he might be uncontroversial but now I've checked and found out that you're the mod on that forum

I've no real bone to pick with King regarding his good novels, and there are plenty of them; 'It', ''Salem's Lot', 'The Shining', 'Misery' to name but a few. You could drive a truck through the flaws in his duds so I won't waste the diesel. I don't know about you but how anyone could finish 'Desperation' is beyond me. (Now that I type the title I wonder was King desperate at the time to fulfil his book contract )

I suppose what I'm trying to say about form and content is that all elements of the form: plot, pace, style and so on need to lend themselves to the story being told or the message being transmitted. While I remember lots of things and situations from King's novels (most often snippets of dialogue) I never go back to his books to read a specific passage or description (and I've done plenty of re-reads on some of his books) whereas with other writers, whom I think have greater formal control, I can dip into their best books at just about any point and enjoy the shape and texture of their language knowing that it is all of a piece with the plot, characterisation and pacing.

In an attempt to remove some of the subjectivity from the above what I'll say is that even in books I don't particularly like I can have this same appreciation of the quality of the writing. For example, with someone like Charles Dickens I recognise his quality but haven't so far been able to finish any of his books.

lucimay wrote:labels are highly susceptible to abuse. (such as the marginalization of certain kinds of stories or art, or even PEOPLE, discriminations which narrow peoples choices and sometimes dictate what is acceptable or unacceptable in society)

I am at one with you on this and I especially associate this with academia. In the case of someone like Stephen King one of the reasons that he is not appreciated by academia is that his books don't lend themselves as readily to endless papers and doctoral theses. And this for me is the key point about academia: it likes books that suit it. (I have an even bigger gripe with academia in relation to poetry, but that's for another day.) I agree completely with you that labelling narrows the range of books and writers appreciated when it should be all about opening up and exploring new areas.

lucimay wrote:but i don't feel qualified and don't think really anyone is qualified to say any kind of art is "good" or "bad"

In relation what's good, I am with Robery Pirsig ('Zen an the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance') on that:

what's good is what you like

More from the if-you-like-it-then-it-has-to-be-good side rather than whatever you don't like is automatically bad.

lucimay wrote:i've never done very well with rules myself, especially around creativity.
....
labels are helpful but not absolute.

As to absolutes, well what can I say. I hope I'm not so rigid that I need rules and lists to make me feel secure in the world. I would once have held the admirable idea that creativity should have some democratic or egalitarian element to it, experience, however, has suggested to me that this is not actually a true reflection of reality. Judgement of art and literature springs from this source for me because if there is some 'extra' element to art that makes it 'great' then if I can perceive it I can make a judgement. (Of course, then we're right back to subjectivity again, but that's okay, it gives us something to talk and rant about. I think I would prefer to be passionate and wrong, than be right and not give a s**t )

u.

I don't really like King myself. I've only read the first four Dark Tower novels and nothing else, though.

aliantha wrote:Altho isn't alternate history a sort of sub-genre of fantasy? I've always thought so, but maybe I'm wrong.

I would agree I guess, although technically anything that isn't non-fiction is fantasy. Somebodies, anyway.

Murrin wrote:I don't really like King myself. I've only read the first four Dark Tower novels and nothing else, though.

Hmmm...tough one. I tend to like King a lot. Most of his books. Especially his earlier ones. I love the DT, even if he did fuck it up a bit by the end. But then, I read it over the course of 17 years, and having read almost all of his other books, recognised the allusions and easter eggs and whatnot scattered throughout his entire written universe.

--A

Avatar wrote: recognised the allusions and easter eggs and whatnot scattered throughout his entire written universe.

This is definitely one of the things I enjoyed most about reading King, the growing awareness over the years that most (if not all) his books partake in his 'written universe'. IIRC, a book like 'Misery' doesn't overtly reference the wider universe but its atmosphere means that there is no difficulty fitting it into that universe.

u.

Murrin wrote:Found the review I was thinking of.

Mmm, I see what you mean. But it sounds to me, from a quick glance over the comments after this review, that there's some disagreement out there in the blogosphere over how central the cloning theme is to the plot. I think I am in the "yes, it is central" camp -- Ishiguro wouldn't have been able to do exactly what he did if he'd picked a more real-world basis for his novel. But that's just me.

He's right that the underlying theme of the novel is finding meaning in one's life, and coming to terms with the stuff you'll never be able to accomplish.

ussusimiel wrote:

Avatar wrote: recognised the allusions and easter eggs and whatnot scattered throughout his entire written universe.

This is definitely one of the things I enjoyed most about reading King, the growing awareness over the years that most (if not all) his books partake in his 'written universe'. IIRC, a book like 'Misery' doesn't overtly reference the wider universe but its atmosphere means that there is no difficulty fitting it into that universe.

u.

Hmmm, pretty sure there is a reference to Misery in one of the other books. Damned if I can remember where...maybe LuciMay knows...

--A