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?

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

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.

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!