An essay by Jason Sanford (some of you may recognize him from Story South) called “Dipping Their Toes in the Genre Pool: The U.S. Literary Establishment’s Need-Hate Relationship with Speculative Fiction” appeared in New York Review of Science Fiction recently and has touched off a bit of a firestorm. Unfortunately, the essay is not available online, but if you read Jason’s response to Matt Cheney’s post at The Mumpsimus as well as a considered post by science fiction author L.E. Modseitt, Jr (there is no permalink for the post so scroll down and look for “A Sideways View of F&SF and ‘The Literary Establishment’ ” posted 6/25/2007), you’ll get a good idea of the uproar. This coming on the heals of some not very nice posts by a blogger about Carl’s Once Upon a Time Challenge and Michael Dirda’s comments the other night about genre fiction going mainstream seem to indicate a whirlwind of issues going on about, specifically, speculative fiction.
I noticed the trend of speculative fiction, which is generally a spruced up way to say science fiction and fantasy, going mainstream a few years ago. But the mainstreaming of speculative fiction is happening mostly because authors who are considered literary fiction writers are writing what are essentially science fiction novels. Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, not to mention her Handmaid’s Tale, Katzuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and Jason’s example, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, are all basically speculative fiction. They get raved about in the big review journals and read and talked about by folks who would never in a million years even think about reading a science fiction novel. As someone who has read and loved science fiction and fantasy since I was a kid, I have to admit I am a bit sad that authors like Ursula LeGuin remain on the sidelines. It’s as though it is okay for literary writers to go slumming in speculative fiction while those who only write speculative fiction are ignored or made fun of.
Perhaps it will take literary authors willing to dip their toes into speculative fiction to make the genre more acceptable to the general reading public? Acceptable isn’t quite the right word. Interested? Willing? More open to ideas that are worked out in a fiction that is not realisitc but asks the reader to imagine that it is? Maybe part of the difficulty of speculative fiction going mainstream is a deep belief by a lot of readers that fiction has to be realistic? Maybe speculative fiction will help the general reading public’s imagination break free and run wild. This world could use more imagination. Might help us get ourselves out of some of the muck we’ve created.
I think it is exciting that speculative fiction is moving out of the “ghetto” and onto the regular fiction shelves. But I suppose growing pains are inevitable. As long as it’s a good book, I don’t care what section of the bookstore I find it in. I hope the trend helps readers who wouldn’t be caught dead in the science fiction section discover that they have been missing out on some excellent literature.
Nice post. I’ve had a different opinion of the same phenomenon you talk about though – I guess a half full/half empty perspective. But as the mainstream press redefines any of these “good” sff writers as no longer genre but fiction – doesn’t it reinforce the ghettoization of the genre? That is, all that remains in the genre are what are considered the worst of it as the cream of the crop (as identified by mainstream, of course) is skimmed out of the genre and gently placed into the literature section?
Felix, thanks and welcome. You make a good point and I think you are right. I hadn’t quite thought of it that way. Ideally, there would be no science fiction (or other genre fiction) section at the bookstore, it would all just be fiction. But there is the danger as you note, that only the “good” sff will make it into the fiction section leaving all the supposedly “bad” books behind. That would make the situation even worse. Maybe I am being too hopeful in imagining the possibilities of the end of genre distinctions. If it ever happens I don’t think it would be anytime soon, but wouldn’t it be cool to walk into a bookstore and find one big fiction section with Asimov and Atwood on the same shelf?
I actually don’t have a problem with there being a separate section for Science Fiction. I have a problem with authors who write a sci-fi book and then refuse to call it what it is, or other people in the industry refusing to call it what it is. Calling it speculative fiction is just another way for people to pretend it’s not sci-fi. I enjoy sci-fi and there are some great books out there, several that are better written than a lot of literature. I don’t know why I’m embarrassed to be seen on the train with a sci-fi book, I don’t want to be. I think it’s ironic that so many people read Harry Potter but many of those same people won’t touch a sci-fi or “fantasy” book…
Yes, it would be nice if fiction was just fiction, although, that isn’t a major issue for me. I’m with Matt and just annoyed that my wife will watch Heroes because it’s mainstream but won’t give battlestar galactica the time of day because it is sci-fi. *sigh*
I had posted a little rant on this on my blog which sparked a short discussion with John from sfsignal. I think there’s an economic incentive for authors to move out of being sci-fi because they’ll sell more, so I can’t really hold it against them (everyone’s gotta make a buck). But this system builds a vicious cycle and I don’t see how we break out of it.
I’ve always loved speculative fiction (though I wouldn’t define it as spruced up sci-fi or fantasy at all). I’d never think of Le Guin as on the sidelines, though. Anyway, I think that there’s a surge in popularity of this genre because the world seems unstable to us right now, and so people are more ready to read books that imagine some of the disasters that we fear.
Just last year I remember reading some similar issues but with regards to crime fiction, what with Kate Atkinson and John Banville writing more “literary” crime novels. Some of the more mainstream mystery writers were kind of put out with the way their books were seen as just mystery books. Like they weren’t good enough. I agree with Matt, why won’t they call the book what it is? What’s wrong with saying, “yeah, I wrote a mystery book or sci/fi book, etc.”. Anyway, very interesting stuff.
I’m not really sure why people look down on genre fiction. I love mysteries and I would like to try reading more SF and fantasy (I guess I have mostly only ever read those “cross over” sorts of authors like Atwood). Surely there are well written books (and not so well written books) in every corner of the bookstore.
I think George Saunders also could be considered a speculative writer…
Interesting. I didn’t think that spec fiction was looked down upon, with such stellar practicers as Atwood and LeGuin. (Also, would some of TC Boyle’s work fit in here? I’m thinking of Friends of the Earth in particular.)
Also, I think the rise of spec fiction is a gauge as to where the culture (as mirrored in its literature) is at: Much uncertainty about the future, especially concerning technology and ethics.
“speculative fiction” isn’t being mainstreamed. it’s always been there and always will be. and i’m not talking about those over-used examples of the odyssey and the iliad and cyrano de bergerac’s “voyage dans la lune”. it’s also there in balzac and villiers de lisle adam and shakespeare and goethe and kafka and bruno schulz and victor hugo and henry james and . . . really, though, i don’t think the right questions are being asked, although stefanie comes close when she asks why “a lot of readers [of non-genre fiction think] that fiction has to be realistic”. david edelman recently posted a question on his blog asking what science fiction books science fiction readers would recommend to non-science fiction readers to get them to read science fiction. a fair question, but again, i think it misses the point in the same way. eventually someone will write a book about this issue (maybe?), because it seems to really preoccupy readers of sf. and there are many questions, not one, that this discussion and the others need to address, i think, before any answers or solutions can be drafted. i started to ask them, but there were so many, i’ll limit myself to these: is it true that non-sf sells more than sf? where is the data that says so? does margaret atwood really sell more than, say, stephen king or robert jordan? and even if she does, whose books would you rather read? how many sf-readers make a sustained effort to read “mainstream” “literature”? how many sf-readers read john updike or anne tyler or william gass or patrick white or proust or william gaines or sybille bedford? why is the discussion always conducted in terms of the provocateurs (the mainstream critics) instead of in “our” terms? in the end, i have to admit that i don’t really know anymore what this discussion is about. it reminds me, though, of a similar one carried on about poetry and why “no one reads poetry anymore”. the two cases are not exactly the same (although rimbaud did have a couple of possibly relevant things to say about what we today would call genre literature — and you can’t get more literary than rimbaud. well, okay, you can), but i think some of the same questions are involved in both.
The whole story of “literary fiction” vs. “genre fiction” is fascinating and disturbing — we can see all kinds of anxieties and competitions and knee-jerk reactions getting played out in the debate. It makes you realize how much people’s identities are wrapped up in the things they read and the judgments they make about what they read.
Labels are there to help people find the type of book they like. Otherwise who cares what they are called.
So many excellent comments. Clearly the issues that surround genre fiction and mainstream fiction are deep and won’t be solved anytime soon. But I think so many people being interested in them will go a long way towards the postive.
Matt, you make a very good point about literary writers and those who review them calling the books what they really are. I don’t much like calling the genre speculative fiction, I prefer science fiction and fantasy. I think speculative fiction is an attempt to catch mainstream readers which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it turns into a sort of euphemism. Don’t be embarrassed about reading scifi on the train! Read proud!
Felix, yes, just like all those people who watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer but didn’t watch Firefly. Okay, maybe not as good an example as yours, but you know what I mean. It amounts to lots of frustration. I wonder what the economics of sff vs a mainstream or literary novel are? I don’t think I’ve ever seen any numbers but I can’t help but suspect a book without a sff label gets more attention.
Dew, you are right, there are some interesting characteristics that get included into the label speculative fiction that aren’t included in straight scifi/fantasy, though I’d be hard pressed to actually say what those are. I don’t think of LeGuin as on the sidelines either, but how many non-scifi readers do you know who have read her? I think her Guardian pieces make her more known as just a plain writer in the UK over how she is viewed in the States (I am willing to admit the possibility of being wrong on this). I think you have a point about one of the things making speculative fiction more popular these days. Pretty sad though that it’s our fear of future disater.
Iliana, thanks for bringing mysteries into the discussion. I noticed the trend showing up there too. I don’t follow the crime scene much, but I think it is interesting how there has been tussling there too.
Danielle, it is sad and interesting how the writers and readers of genre fiction get labled as somehow lesser isn’t it? I don’t know when or why that happened but it has brought us to a sorry state.
LK, now I’m going to have to read George Saunders! As for TC Boyle I suspect some of his stuff falls into speculative fiction, though I have only read a few of his short stories and his book Road to Wellville, though the book you mention looks really good. I think you are right that spec fiction getting more attention is a gauge of of culture. The issues that used to once only concern hard core scifi/fantasy writers are becoming interesting to everyone else now too.
Mitchell, you have a good point. Speculative fiction has always been there, the problem, if we can call it one, is that it hasn’t been recognized as such. There are lots of questions as you note. I’d love to read a book or even a collection of essays that delves into the questions and tries to answer them. There are so many facets that it is hard to look at them all. Your comment gives me much to think about. And I agree with you on the discussion sounding very much like the one about poetry. The very thought flitted across my mind as I was writing the post the other day but I couldn’t catch hold of it long enough to make sense enough of it to bring it into the discussion.
Dorothy, definitely fascinating and disturbing. It brings out assumptions and prejudices that we’d be appalled by if they appeared in a different context. I like what you say about people’d identities being too wrapped up in what they read. It is all too true.
Rod, labels do help, I completely agree. But they also hurt too especially when those who like to read and write books with one label start putting down those who like to read and write books with different labels.
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Stefanie – don’t get me started on firefly! grrr.. arrrrgghhhhh…
I never really thought of speculative fiction as a branding term – although, I guess they were trying to class up the joint. I always thought of it more as a new catchall for sci-fi and fantasy (I mean, sometimes it’s hard to say whether something one or the other).
I also agree with Rod, that grouping helps organize things. I think the problem is not with the label but with how anything good that would normally be classified with sf/f is now removed from the label, keeping the authors with the most mainstream appeal out of the genre and perpetuating the stereotype.
Sucks.
Sorry Felix. At least we got a fantastic movie out of it though
Maybe specualtive fiction didn’t start off as a branding term but as you say a catch all for both scifi and fantasy because sometimes it is hard to say if a book is one or the other so it is nice to have a general term that encomasses both. Maybe I’m a little too cynical. I agree with Rod too, and you. It’s not the labels in themselves that are bad, they can be very helpful, it’s some of the people who use, or don’t use, the labels that create some of the friction (eek! that sounds like an ad for the spec fic “NRA”)
As ever, I think people are talking past each other.
To be very general: It’s true that many readers of so-called “mainstream” literary fiction are ignorant of what has gone on in the genres, and so look down on what they don’t know about. But what they read isn’t especially rigorous, either. They also shy away from non-mainstream, “difficult” literary fiction. (William H. Gass isn’t selling a lot of books to these readers.)
I’ve read science fiction, not a ton of it, but enough to know that it’s widely varied, in both style and content, not to mention quality. I have no disrespect for it; I’ve liked plenty of it. But the partisans of sf who insist on claiming every book they can as necessarily sf confuse me. Of your original list mentioned above, I’ve read only The Road and Never Let Me Go. Neither of them strike me as science fiction, especially The Road. Your wording that they are “essentially science fiction novels” and “basically speculative fiction” is especially confusing. Is something “speculative” merely because it takes place in the/a future? I don’t think so, not at all. Here I imagine is a problem with the word choice itself. McCarthy is not “speculating”, nor is his book “essentially” anything other than the book he wrote, set in an inhospitable environment, about his father and son pair. Is a possible nuclear winter, something we can all be fearful of, only the province of science fiction? I don’t think so. If you think so, why?
Mitchell’s point that sf or speculative or whatever has always been there is valid, and I’d agree that there are probably readers who are aware of those older literatures that have, let’s say, supernatural elements, but who are unable to recognize that good fiction/real literature can and does still contain such elements. But that doesn’t make The Road science fiction. To insist on claiming it as such is bizarre to me. The tack taken in doing so seems to me to allow just about anything to be claimed as science fiction, just so long as it seems to tick a couple of boxes… I fail to see the value in that.
I have always felt that creation of a “ghetto” for genre fiction is more to blame on publishers and bookstores. Both are trying to create markets for specific books and writers. And there are no rules for what goes were. Connie Willis’ work spans the SFF, literature divide and I have seen some stores shelve her in the SFF section and others in the regular ‘fiction’ section. So there is a definite ambiguity. I work in a library and we have all hardcover fiction shelved together but we have created SFF and romance paperback sections in response to patron desires. They want the library to look more like a bookstore in the way items are arranged. We run into the same problem there. What is SFF and what is not?
Its mostly just a way to classify something and in alot of people eyes that classification declares if its acceptable to people or not. Read whatever you want, its for yourself to enjoy.
Richard, you make some good points. I disagree though that those who put down science fiction don’t often read difficult literary fiction. It’s my experience that those who read, or think they read, difficult literary fiction are the very ones who most often put down science fiction as trash. I do agree that not everything vaguely speculative in mainstream fiction can be claimed as science fiction or fantasy. I have not yet read The Road, it is the book used as the main example in the essay I cite in the post. I have, however, read Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go which is considered literary fiction by most critics but is solidly in the genre of science fiction since it posits an alternative world in which human cloning is the norm. I think part of the issue is that mainstream and literary fiction are borrowing ideas and themes that have been traditionally written about in science fiction and fantasy, where there is, in fact, a long tradition of books and authors developing and discussing ideas such as those I have heard are in The Road, but those who are doing the borrowing tend to refuse to acknowledge the debt or if they do, it is the critics who put down the genre from which the author borrowed.
Chris, publishers and bookstores are partly to blame, I agree. What is SFF and what is not is a good question and I think something Richard’s comment is getting at too and what Michael Dirda as I mentioned in my post is excited about. I think years ago there used to be a more definite divide, but the line is beginning to blur, making distinctions more difficult and in some ways pointless. Yet, in spite of the blurring, I think there are those who write about literature as wel as read it, who still want the line to be thick and clear.
Zaiaku, yes, read whatever you want! I wholeheartedly agree!
Stefanie, thanks for the reply.
I guess there’s no way to firmly establish the point about which readers are dismissing science fiction. My sense is that the key phrase is “read, or think they read, difficult literary fiction”. It is my experience that it’s the general reader of mainstream award-winning literary fiction that does indeed look down on science fiction. But most award-winning lit-fic is not terribly difficult or “literary”.
With respect to Never Let Me Go: it is exactly the idea that it “is solidly in the genre of science fiction since it posits an alternative world in which human cloning is the norm” that I am objecting to. What makes that “solidly science fiction”? I mean, I realize that science fiction has long dealt with clones and cloning, but it doesn’t take a reader of sf to be aware of cloning as an intellectual reader–it’s in the news. What I’m asking–of anyone who can answer–is what makes science fiction science fiction? Themes? Form? Style? Plots? Never Let Me Go doesn’t deal with its putative subject in what feels to me a science fictional way, if that makes sense. And feels is all we have, since no one seems to be able to define anything.
This line is my main problem, and is indeed the crux of the issue: “I think part of the issue is that mainstream and literary fiction are borrowing ideas and themes that have been traditionally written about in science fiction and fantasy”. Science Fiction partisans take it for granted that, because science fiction and fantasy writers have traditionally written about certain themes and ideas, that, not only are those themes and ideas necessarily “science fiction” but that “mainstream” (undefined) “literary” (also undefined) writers must necessarily be “borrowing” those themes and ideas from science fiction and fantasy, without credit (either by them or critics). This is the very point I was arguing against. It is apparently inconceivable that a writer might have come upon such themes merely by existing in this society and occasionally watching the news.
In many respects, science fiction is way too broad an area. In a mystery, in order to be properly in the genre of mystery, the book would, presumably, have to do certain things, not simply have a murder in it, or a detective, or whatever. But the analogous situation is apparently not the case in science fiction, where to many it’s the mere presence of an idea or theme that makes it part of the genre.
Anyway, I hope my point is clearer. Sorry for going on.
Stefanie!
I am now in love with this blog!
What a discussion this topic stirred! I’m overjoyed to see I’m not the only one contemplating it. Lots of good points made, and very sincere attitudes.
First, for you, Stefanie, AND felix, let me say, the whole Firefly/Serenity situation breaks my heart to this DAY. That said…
Some time ago, I posed a question for a literary journalist with whom I occasionally correspond. I don’t want to be too verbose, but I’ll paste the question and response here:
Dear Peter,
I’d like to ask about your thoughts on genre fiction and its impact (or possible lack thereof) on society and its relationships (if any) to “important” literature.
You mentioned in one of your column entries a savored debate you’d had years ago about “compulsively readable” literature not being literature at all. In a commentary, the writer Doug Wright (screenwriter for QUILLS) touched on “the roll of fiction and/or literature”–I guess centering on de Sade’s work was a terrific example for such a question. In most cases, of course, critics are disgusted, but some, as well as Wright, feel his extreme lengths are to be valued, if only because they are so extreme.
Should the popularity of a work of letters be considered in one’s (and I mean ANYONE’S) criticism? How guilty should we feel about reading Zane Grey or Stephen King or Larry Niven. Should we feel guilty at all?Should the genre for a story, its setting, predetermine how we approach it?
This subject is probably remedial for you by now, but I was curious as to how you felt.
Thank you.
Hi Reuben. No, I don’t think anybody should be embarrassed or ashamed of anything they read. If you’re seriously interested in this subject I can recommend a few books such as 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley; The Art of Fiction by David Lodge; How to Grow a Novel by Sol Stein; and then place them in counterpoint to critics like Barthes or Derrida. Hope that helps. PS – I love quite a few novelists who are not usually considered serious or literary, for example Arthur Hailey.
…The “savored debate” he’d had was with a college instructor of his who’d maintained that “page turners” had nothing to offer in terms of intellectual broadening and social commentary. I haven’t gotten a hold yet of any of the books he’s suggested, but I’m working on it. Here’s a couple of questions, though…Is his initial response just pandering out of a kind of bourgeois guilt, or is the sincerity in defending our so-called “guilty pleasures” enough to render (in a critic’s eyes–and aren’t we all critics?) it valid? What is “valid?” Am I a pretentious person for posing such a question? *shrug*
Again, the comments were diverse and wonderful. The suggestions about financial gain influencing some genre writers to “crossover” is harsh, but not completely unfounded, in my opinion. However, commodities may not be the sole reason, in such cases. Authors want their voices to be heard. Most every writer (am I being too naive?) wants to be taken seriously. Writing for oneself and PUBLISHING the work are two completely different things: the former is for (often private) catharsis, the latter to communicate, to connect.
It was genre giant Stephen King who made me desire not only to read words, but also produce them. However, it was never his monsters or supernatural phenomena that captivated me–though a lot of that stuff was pretty neat. It was his honesty, boldness, and mastery of phrase, dialog, and description that kept me riveted. The characters, my fellow readers! Oh, the characters! I’d never dreamed, before reading King, that emotions–such powerful emotions–could be evoked from cold print. For the length of time my eyes scanned the pages, those people were REAL. After that discovery, I treated books like they were delicate jewelry.
And ANY books! Next came Steinbeck, and then Bradbury. Hemingway and Camus and Faulkner and Harper Lee. I like Weis/Hickman, Brust, Walter M Miller Jr, and Asimov is one of my favorites. Richard Wright, John Fowles, Shakespeare…for goodness sake, you all know the list goes on. But…
I’m ambivalent about the suggestion that the question posed by the topic is moot. Yes, technically, genres have always mixed. (For those of you who may not be aware of it, check out a volume titled STRANGENESS, edited by Thomas M. Disch and Charles Naylor–terrific broaching of this subject and great read.) However, I feel that the attitudes that “segregate,” if you’ll forgive such melodrama, fiction are very real and substantial. I’m not a fool, and so recognize the inevitability, and even need, for SOME taxonomy, but because of the covers of certain of these books, I feel that great and relevant works can be, as Richard suggested, “dismissed.”
But that is the opinion of a reader who has NOT a Literary PhD, has no degree at all…is simply a reader. Does that viewpoint count? Do I reek of intellectual socialism for even asking such a question?
Ulysses, by James Joyce, was branded by the literary powers that be as “the greatest novel of the twentieth century.” *shrug* Even if I could force myself to actually say I “liked,” Joyce, I wouldn’t choose that novel as an example. But what do I know? I make my distinctions not even by the authors, but the individual works themselves. Let alone the genres.
My goodness, I’ve gone on, haven’t I?
Thank you all for your marvelous input.
And thanks again, Stefanie.
“…words, words, words…”
r b s
Thanks R.B.! The discussion this topic elicited was quite a pleasant surprise. Since I don’t know Peter I can’t say whether or not he is sincere in his answer. I do agree with him thought that no one should be embarrassed or ashamed about what they read. Though I am not quite certain what we are supposeed to glean from his book recommendations. As to the “savored debate,” if anyone told me a book was worthless because it didn’t offer social commentary or broaden intellectual understanding I’d say who gave that person the power and authority to decide what books were for and why people should read?
I don’t think you need a PhD to be able to analyze and comment on literature. One of the joys of books in my opinion is that everyone can and should have their own opinion. We can all read the same book but none of us will read and experience it the same way.
As for genre, we seem to have the same opinions. Of course there is cross-over, always has been. Of course some kind of taxonomy as you call it is necessary. But what isn’t necessary is for those critics in the “literary fiction” world to denigrate genre writing. But, one could say that “literary fiction” is its own genre. And now that I think of it, I wonder if a lot of the animosity occurs as an attempt to legitimize their own genre and also to defend it from other more popular genres. Because really, Stephen King does have some interesting things to say about culture and he does it in a much more exciting and accesible way than someone like Ishiguro. That doesn’t make one better than the other, only different and different is good because who wants to read the same book over and over again?