Tags
Even with the success of Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Game of Thrones and so many other genre books over the last years the genre wars are apparently still raging. The latest salvo has come from Kazuo Ishiguro. With the release of his book The Buried Giant (one of my favorite books last year), the criticism the book received for its fantasy elements came up in a recent interview.
Unfortunately, it seems this interview is behind a subscription firewall so I can only go by what the articles, mainly The Independent, report about the interview.
It seems what is getting folks up in arms is Ishiguro’s comments that educational systems have been for a long time focused on conformity and turning people into productive citizens to grow the economy:
Education’s task was to get pupils to abandon the fantasy that comes naturally to children and prepare them for the demands of the workforce.
Ishiguro suggests there is a reason why geeks, who as a group tend to read science fiction and fantasy, are in demand by big companies. The big companies are looking for creative thinkers and the geeks, not beholden to mimesis, are sought after people.
And perhaps that is true but I don’t think it is the whole story. I am inclined to agree with Charlie Anders’ thinking that Ishiguro has oversimplified just a bit because there is also the matter of math and coding skills to consider. I read SFF and have no problem thinking up all sorts of imaginative worlds and creatures, but Google is not going to hire me based on that and my mediocre html skills.
Still, the author of the Independent article gets a bit grouchy by declaring that while fantasy may be good to read, “life is more like bullshitty literary fiction” and he’ll put his trust in people who “think inside the box” to make decisions about how we live our lives.
Sigh.
Ishiguro doesn’t just talk about fantasy but all genre fiction and how it is not taken seriously, how it is just as valid a means of exploring human lives, feelings and relationships as “literary fiction” is. With that I am completely on board. That we even still argue over genre seems ridiculous to me. Good literature is good literature whether it is realist or fantastic, involves a murder mystery or a romance. It is convenient to use genre as a means to discuss books that partake of certain tropes and plot elements, but as a way to categorize readers or assess literary value? We really need to get over it.
So enormously agree. Genre fiction is always being called upon to justify its existence in a way that literary fiction never is, and I get tired of it. And I say that as someone who totally agrees that real life is more like bullshitty literary fiction — I don’t see that the corollary to that, though, is that literary fiction should be the only way to understand our lives.
LikeLike
Jenny, yeah, and it’s really sad when writers within a genre bicker. I love Ursula LeGuin but it seems sometimes like the woman has a huge chip on her shoulder. I suppose I can’t blame her considering how hard it must have been for her in the beginning but picking fights with Atwood and Ishiguro is rather silly. I’m rather glad my life is more like bullshitty lit fic than Game of Thrones but I’m with you, I don’t see how that elevates lit fic to be the only way to understand life.
LikeLike
Literary fiction is not the only way for us to understand our lives. I know people who claim that it is the only way for them to understand theirs. They expect a medal, but I suspect that pity is more appropriate.
LikeLike
Jeanne, I know people like that, one who refuse to read a book if there is any hint of a fantastical element in it. I just don’t understand them and I do feel a bit sorry for them.
LikeLike
My Minnesota gal loved Buried Giant!!!!! Sigh Hx
>
LikeLike
I completely agree. I feel like genre fiction is a way of exploring human lives in a more interesting way. Understanding how people would react if put in certain situations that while are impossible to ever happen (such as with fantasy books) can give us insight into people’s minds that we never had before.
LikeLike
Raney, exactly! The situations and settings don’t have to be realistic and the characters can be robots or elves or clever detectives, what matters is what the characters do and say and reveal about life.
LikeLike
And what we can learn about ourselves from reading it. What the overall message conveys to us. That’s whats important, not whether a book is more realistic or not.
LikeLike
Agreed! 🙂
LikeLike
Agree with you, Stefanie. This debate reminded of this quote from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Americanah’ — “Why did people ask “What is it about?” as if a novel had to be about only one thing.”
LikeLike
And of course the tragedy of literary fiction is that it has become itself a genre, or rather set of genres. There is a good case for saying that genre fictions can often do stuff that literary fiction won’t or can’t do, more probably there isn’t an impossible barrier between them. The Buried Giant itself is a fascinating mash up of genres.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ian, yes, you are right about literary fiction becoming a genre, though I think many who work in it and read it are reluctant to acknowledge it. Totally agree that genre fiction can do stuff literary fiction can’t or won’t do!
LikeLike
Deepkia, ah, a most excellent quote! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yep. SO bored of this discussion (which I swear is only perpetuated because newspapers and periodicals know it’ll get people to click.) Especially because some of the most interesting and incisive social commentary – and philosophical thinking – I’ve read over the past year has been sff: Ursula K Le Guin, China Mieville, Jeff VanderMeer, Neal Stephenson, Ann Leckie, et al. Drives me SPARE.
LikeLike
Elle, heh, yeah I suppose the argument is becoming click bait and I fell for it! It would be so much easier to brush it off if those who only read realistic fiction didn’t so often have a “better than you” attitude. Sigh. I must learn to turn the other cheek 🙂
LikeLike
It’s infuriating, I know! Still, “realistic” fiction is just as frequently trite and stilted as genre fic, so anyone who claims *inherent* superiority is just obviously a wrong, sad, small little person.
LikeLike
I know! I’ve read more crappy realism than I have genre fiction!
LikeLike
Great post Stefanie.
A great work is a great work.
With that maybe one issue is that some genre fiction that gets labeled great might not really be up to par with the best literature whether that literature is genre literature or not.
I am glad that Elle mentioned Jeff VanderMeer. I am reading him now and I find his work superb.
LikeLike
Thanks Brian! There is great within a genre and there is great literature in general and there is no reason great literature in general can’t also include genre fiction. It is heartening that it is being more recognized and accepted with writers like Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell, Michael Chabon and Ishisguro who write books that aren’t especially one thing or the other.
I really have to get around to reading Jeff VanderMeer!
LikeLike
Fantasy and science fiction both allow us to examine exactly the same human problems and complexities that any good literature does, but in a way that lets us kind put the dilemmas at a distance and lets us consider the problems from a different angle. We are not going to face a hungry zombie or get lost in a wormhole in space, but we recognize greed for power, corruption, and betrayal and can, at least in a book, hope for the best outcome. Is the interest in science fiction, fantasy, and dystopian books merely escape into a fantasy world, or are we truly fearful of the way politics, theology, nationalism, racism, and ecological disasters threaten our real lives where we feel helpless…
LikeLike
Jenclair, oh exactly! Power, greed, betrayal are all the same no matter where they take place or whether the characters are even human and so often those changes in place and character provide some really interesting illumination. Your question is a good one! I suspect the interest is more than an escape.
LikeLike
I never thought I was a SFF fan…until, of course, Harry Potter. I agree with you 100% Stefanie. I really don’t give a damn about labels. If it is literary fiction, fine. Fantasy? Okay by me. Vampires? I’ll sink my teeth into that too. (Clever pun, right?) And there is always a mystery or two waiting in the wings. I have only one criteria…please do not bore me. If a book does, I’ll drop it like a bad habit. I can’t abide snobs of any sort, literary or otherwise. (And The Buried Giant was one of my faves last year as well).
LikeLike
Oh Grad, you gave me a giggle. You are too clever by half 🙂 I wholeheartedly agree with your criteria! I’m also with you regarding the snobs.
LikeLike
Thought provoking — I agree that if it’s good, it’s good! 😉 Thank you for sharing!
LikeLike
and thank you for commenting bikurgurl 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh this paragraph made me laugh so much: “Still, the author of the Independent article gets a bit grouchy by declaring that while fantasy may be good to read, “life is more like bullshitty literary fiction” and he’ll put his trust in people who “think inside the box” to make decisions about how we live our lives.”
He’ll trust people who think inside the box! That makes me feel so good since unfortunately I’m a bit too much that way!
But, I agree re genre. One of the big goals of our Stella Awards is to open a literary award to all types of writing. Not much genre gets longlisted but there’s always one or two. Such books tend to be the ones that play with form or introduce new ideas or tropes to the genre.
LikeLike
whisperinggums, I am sure you don’t give yourself enough credit for outside the box thinking! And even if you aren’t especially that sort of thinker, I am certain you don’t disparage those who are! That Stella award. I’m liking it more and more 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like you faith in me – but I can reassure you at least that I don’t disparage those who are. I admire them immensely.
LikeLike
Isn’t it click-bait because false oppositions usually are? Falling for a position in either camp against the other seems dictatorial. Writers like Ishiguro might be feeling that the unstoppable success of fantasy genres is squeezing them out.
LikeLike
Jeff, it isn’t really a false opposition, there are people who still think genre fiction is worthless pulp and escapism, I just thought there weren’t many of those people left!
LikeLike
Escape can perform worthwhile functions.
LikeLike
I don’t know, maybe I’m naive, but I think genre lines are blurring quite a bit. With the success of Station Eleven by Mandel, and Atwood’s sci-fi-ish work, not to mention the multi-talented Kate Atkinson, who excels at mysteries and alt-history, it seems that more and more people are reading a bit outside of their literary comfort zone.
LikeLike
Laila, oh yes, genre lines are definitely getting fuzzy but apparently while writers are enjoying playing with the boundaries, critics like the guy at the Independent don’t like it much at all. Good thing we don’t listen to the critics 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
There were a number of statements in that Independent article I can take issue with including this one: “Firms such as Microsoft are actively recruiting people who have not lost the capacity for fantastic thinking, who see the world as a place of adventure and possibility. ” Yes but they also expect those people to go beyond imagination and to a) be able to explain their ideas coherently and b) execute them. There is no appetite in even the most adventurous of enterprises to have people sitting on their thumbs all day just dreaming.
LikeLike
BookerTalk, no reason fantastic thinking and practical skills have to be mutually exclusive though sometime people who are way out there are lacking in a number of human skills 😉
LikeLike
I’ve always struggled with the ‘realism is better’ argument, even when I didn’t read much fantasy, because all fiction is fantasy really, that Hampstead kitchen sink doesn’t exist any more than that talking unicorn. I wonder if this disdain is an English-language thing? I mean, there seems to be a stronger tradition of fantasy within, say, Russian, classic literature than there is within ours (or at least our literature from the past 200-300 years). Nobody puts Bulgakov in the corner.
LikeLike
Helen, oh good question! I wonder if it is an English-language thing because I can think of lots of non-English literature that have fantastic elements in it. Perhaps it isn’t language though so much as culture? Something to mull over. You Bulgakov comment made me laugh! 😀
LikeLike
Well, I suspect really popular genre writers are not feeling too bad–as they take their money to the bank! I love genre fiction and read what I like, but I do get tired, too, of hearing how it is just a ‘guilty pleasure’ like you should be embarrassed to admit to reading it. I know I do it myself–feeling my reading choices are somehow less worthy than others who are only reading ‘literary’ fiction. I need to catch up on this discussion–and I have Ishiguro’s book on my reading pile, too!
LikeLike