Kevin's Watch

I'm a big fan of so-called literary fiction. Favorite book? Moby Dick. Favorite contemporary author? Probably Cormac McCarthy. And while I'm happy to point out that there are speculative fiction elements to The Road, I wouldn't call it genre fiction. But it could be, and it won a Pullitzer (though, I think, rightfully not a Nebula and other genre awards). And along that line of thinking, I'd say Wolfe's Book of the New Sun (perhaps any volume, but certainly the whole) was better, both as a story and in the written word. Short Sun was certainly tedious enough to qualify as literary (I kid, I kid).

Also, Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, while very good, wasn't as—ah, fuck, I hate this word, but it fits—impactful or well-written as the Second Chronicles. You could argue that some of the more stylistic elements broke new ground (the chapter in PowerPoint was amusing), but I'd argue that I'd seen many of those same elements in Philip K. Dick's writing (the world champion dishwasher, especially) and elsewhere in genre fiction.

Are all books sold in the SF/F aisle as good as those labeled fiction? No. As a whole, compared to the whole of the other? I'd say probably. Similarly, I think it's unfair to bemoan fans who think a work explores new boundaries of race, gender, theme, or sexuality while holding up, say, The Bluest Eye (a novel I could barely finish), for doing the same thing in mainstream fiction. Or deriding authors who retread Tolkien in similar ways but lauding those who retread Shakespeare (which would've been a decent book if the ending hadn't fallen apart so completely).

[Syl] wrote:I'm a big fan of so-called literary fiction. Favorite book? Moby Dick. Favorite contemporary author? Probably Cormac McCarthy. And while I'm happy to point out that there are speculative fiction elements to The Road, I wouldn't call it genre fiction. But it could be, and it won a Pullitzer (though, I think, rightfully not a Nebula and other genre awards). And along that line of thinking, I'd say Wolfe's Book of the New Sun (perhaps any volume, but certainly the whole) was better, both as a story and in the written word. Short Sun was certainly tedious enough to qualify as literary (I kid, I kid).

Have unfortunately not read Book of the New Sun, yet. I'm waiting until I have the last two books. But I think you hit it spot on with McCarthy's The Road. There is very much speculative (dare I say, science fiction?) elements in the Road... and yet, like you say, it is hardly genre fiction.

Also, Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, while very good, wasn't as—ah, fuck, I hate this word, but it fits—impactful or well-written as the Second Chronicles. You could argue that some of the more stylistic elements broke new ground (the chapter in PowerPoint was amusing), but I'd argue that I'd seen many of those same elements in Philip K. Dick's writing (the world champion dishwasher, especially) and elsewhere in genre fiction.

Yeah... I don't much like the word 'impactful' also... unfortunately, it's probably a better word then "meaningful" for what I wanted to describe.

Are all books sold in the SF/F aisle as good as those labeled fiction? No. As a whole, compared to the whole of the other? I'd say probably. Similarly, I think it's unfair to bemoan fans who think a work explores new boundaries of race, gender, theme, or sexuality while holding up, say, The Bluest Eye (a novel I could barely finish), for doing the same thing in mainstream fiction. Or deriding authors who retread Tolkien in similar ways but lauding those who retread Shakespeare (which would've been a decent book if the ending hadn't fallen apart so completely).

If we are going by just for the sake of the reading experience, one set of shelves is just as good as another in the bookstore. It all comes done to taste and mood. What about those that will become "true classics"? Well, that is for time to tell... and the critics. Think about it: without critics, we may not know about Mieville or Edgar Alan Poe or even Lovecraft, of all people!

I have nothing wrong with authors that want to explore new boundaries... my problem is when it is so often a mere gimmick. Toni Morrison was actually responding and pondering things that happened to her and people around her... even if Maya Angelou accomplished in a couple paragraphs what Morrison was trying to do for that entire book. It's the difference between exorcising one's own demon through art and thinking, "hey, you know what would be hot? A girl fighting vampires." And you know what? That's fine since books and TV shows have tended towards being sausage fests... we need to mix it up a little.

I also remember visiting home one day. My mother had picked up that book of Sawtelle because everyone was raving about how great and original it was, and whilst I was doing something else, heard her exclaim, "What is wrong with these people? It's Hamlet! It's just Hamlet! Don't people recognize Shakespeare anymore?"

I don't expect complete originality. That is impossible. But one does not need to do a shot for shot remake.

[Syl] wrote:retread Shakespeare (which would've been a decent book if the ending hadn't fallen apart so completely).

Haha, y'know, I never picked up on the Hamlet thing at all, despite ending up quite liking it in a weird way, (but being disappointed by the ending).

--A

Orlion wrote:But I think you hit it spot on with McCarthy's The Road. There is very much speculative (dare I say, science fiction?) elements in the Road... and yet, like you say, it is hardly genre fiction.

Well, "hardly" is a bit farther than I'd venture, more like 'close, but not quite.' After all, it's not so different from Colson Whitehead's Zone One. Both post apoc, both with a very bleak view on the future and true nature of humanity. Instead of nuclear winter or some kind of mass extinction event, you have zombies. Whitehead is also a mainstream, literary writer. But when you write a zombie novel... it's genre fiction (and on a mostly unrelated tangent, I kind of liked how you can go almost the whole way through the book without knowing that Spitz is black). And then there's Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. So sci-fi they made a bad movie out of it. And then Vonnegut...

And while I'm at it, the entire field of magical realism is a crock. Not that I don't like it. Other than 1Q84, Murakami can do no wrong in my book. It's just that it's a very convenient dodge for so-called literary writers to do genre fiction.

There's nothing wrong with writers writing however they want to write. What's wrong, and I think what gets people like Bakker upset, is that the literary set can slum it in genre fiction and the critics gush, but the vast majority of sci-fi and fantasy authors can't similarly receive accolades for the literary merit of their work if they strive for and/or achieve such.

Take this NYT quote for example:

When the venerable tradition of the pseudonym is discussed, it is often in reductive terms. The other day, someone said to me, “There are three reasons why authors use pen names, right?” and went on to cite them: Women writing as men. Writers with dirty secrets to hide. Highbrow writers slumming it in trashy genres. It’s true that each of those motives is historically common, but there are many others.

Personally, I don't care for China Mieville. That said, his writing is rather literary, and he's achieved some measure of respect for it. He's probably the closest thing genre fiction has to a cross-over (critical) success, but even then, he's still largely considered a sci-fi author. Martin might have had a shot if he hadn't pissed it away with the last couple of books (and pointing to the financial success of writers like Martin or Rowling is like pointing to the success of Bill Cosby or Barak Obama and saying racism isn't a problem—which isn't equating the two, btw).

If we are going by just for the sake of the reading experience, one set of shelves is just as good as another in the bookstore. It all comes done to taste and mood. What about those that will become "true classics"? Well, that is for time to tell... and the critics. Think about it: without critics, we may not know about Mieville or Edgar Alan Poe or even Lovecraft, of all people!

I thought you said "Melville" and was going to point out that critics broadly panned Moby Dick, having expected another nautical adventure story like Omoo or Typee, and that he died a bitter and fairly destitute man. I'll just pretend that you did, because then it allows me to drive home that critics often don't know shit (Plato thought Homer was crap, as I might've pointed out in a previous conversation). They're not the literary gatekeepers of future classics but, by and large, night club bouncers. And if Poe or Washington Irving were writing today, they'd probably be in the same crowd as King.

I have nothing wrong with authors that want to explore new boundaries... my problem is when it is so often a mere gimmick.

Such as? While not all gimmicks are praiseworthy, I think they're something like the starter yeast of paradigm shifts. One thing that any successful work has to have is innovation. No matter how well something is constructed, if there's not something new, most people are going to say 'What's the point?' (while an unhappy section of the fanbase will say 'Sell-outs!' and 'Give us the old stuff!').

And that really comes down to the crux of what Bakker was saying, I think.

All writers are post-posterity writers, nowadays, and if they truly want to walk their egalitarian, prosocial talk, then they need to reach out with their writing, self-consciously game the preference parsing algorithms that increasingly command our horizons of cultural exposure. In other words, they need to do the very opposite of what conservative apologists like Smith continually urge, which is to bury their heads in sand at the bottom of the hourglass.

* * *

The future of literature in the age of information technology lies with genre, plain and simple, with writers possessing the wherewithal to turn their backs on apologetic apparatchiks like Smith, and actually contribute to building the critical popular culture we will need to survive the strange, strange days ahead.

In a time where we are generating and disseminating so much information, limiting the scope of what is considered literary will lead us, as a society, to either reading only approved classics or reanimating their corpses to entertain us.

"What is wrong with these people? It's Hamlet! It's just Hamlet! Don't people recognize Shakespeare anymore?"

Nope. Try telling people that The Lion King or the first two seasons of Sons of Anarchy are MacBeth, and they'll look at you like you're crazy.

Orlion wrote:"...Don't people recognize Shakespeare anymore?"

Obviously not. And I can quote it. This would probably says more than I'd care to admit about my critical reading if I hadn't long ago admitted I tend not to read particularly critically. Or analytically anyway.

--A