Genre Lit Fic

[prusik]

avocadovpx had an interesting entry about Not Science Fiction. There's a favorable review in today's Washington Post of Soon I Will Be Invincible. The review says that it "takes the genre of the superheroic into the realm of literary fiction, where navel-gazing is an established art form." The review also references Michael Chabon and Jonathan Letham. So, my question is that is this Science Fiction, or is it Not Science Fiction?

Clearly, it's being marketed as Not Science Fiction. But review makes it sound like the more the book explores genre, the more literary it is. I'm left with this weird conclusion that exploring genre "within its traditional limits" is literary. Well, if the review insists. (But this makes me wonder is there any writing within genre then that isn't also literary?)

I feel like instead of categorizing books, we ought to be tagging them instead. If someone thinks of a book as literary fiction, that shouldn't mean it can't also be genre fiction at the same time. And the review shouldn't give the impression that this is taking something from the realm of children and making it appropriate for adults. *sigh*

Comments

[orogeny.livejournal.com]

You should have been at BCU this past residency. This type of discussion was everywhere.

My favorite line (paraphrased): If genre writers dabble in the literary, they're 'transcending genre'. If literary writers dabble in the fantastic, they're not 'transcending'. They're slumming. They're elevating the genre to new (ie, literary) heights.

As I learned a couple of weeks ago, there's a huge rift between 'mundane' fiction and 'genre fiction'.

[e-underwood.livejournal.com]

What she said.

[drumiller.livejournal.com]

yeah except "lit fic" still has the same kinds of genre twitches and conventions that any other genre (oooh, a dirty word, genre!) does, except the people in it tend to feel morally superior to everyone else.

good writers create the story in their heads, where anyone else puts it is marketing's department.

and any novel that has prolonged "navel gazing" in it is NOT transcendent in my book.

then again I didn't get the big hoopla over Cavalier and Clay either. Good book, but nothing exceptional. I think it must made traditionalists more comfortable with reading something about a genre.

"I don't read anything unless it's been written up in the NYTIMES Book Review and can only be found in trade paperback or hardback, with crushed pearls between the pages"

whoop. Sorry mini rant there.

[orogeny.livejournal.com]

I was surprised. I had no idea that we were loathed. The argument seems to be that "You people pound out crap about dragons. Our stuff, on the other hand, is character driven."

Say what? Believe me, my stuff is character driven. That's the point.

But the problem is that of course we genre writers will say that it's all the same toolkit. We get it. There's a faction of folks, though, who confuse 'genre fiction' with 'bad fiction'. And JPK said in a workshop on genre writing (which, by the way, was attended by only one lonely 'mundane' fiction writer) that if you're writing genre fiction, the bleak truth is that you're going to be looked down on.

How silly.

[drumiller.livejournal.com]

and to be fair, my characterization is rather mean spirited. but I just had an exchange with one of the aforementioned types, so I'm still blowing off steam.

an interesting challenge is to have have the lit fic fan grab the best seller/award winners lists of the past 5, 10, 20 and 30 years from the current year. then repeat the process for your genre of choice then hit the stacks at a major book seller and see how many of each you can find. My bet is as you go back, the more the two groups converge.

[orogeny.livejournal.com]

I use "Shakespeare was pop fic" as my argument. Not that I argue. I just nod and smile. Because if somebody doesn't get it, nothing a peon says is going to make them get it better. =D

[krylyr.livejournal.com]

I remember talking a little bit to JPK about this at VP. There is a huge sense of snobbery from literary fiction writers toward SF/F/Horror writers. He reckoned that's why genre writers became so tight with everyone else, because the other group wouldn't let us back in the day and so we said screw them. We'll start our own club.

The whole thing is silly. I bet people who say we "pound out crap about dragons" haven't read "Burn" or "American Gods." And even if they had read "Her Majesty's Dragon," hopefully they'd realize having fun isn't such a bad thing.

Alright, I'm channeling Dru's mini-rant. Sorry, the snobbery of the whole thing annoys me.

[orogeny.livejournal.com]

It was JPK who pointed about the bit about 'transcending genre'.

One of our poet friends was in a class with a lot of lit fic people, and one of them referred to us as "our dragon-loving brethren." When he found out the person next to him was in genre fic, he apparently blushed scarlet.

[prusik.livejournal.com]

I agree that it's silly. (I also agree drumiller that his characterization takes it a bit far.) However, the situation is that there really is a faction who want to consign genre to the ghetto, unless it's a good book. In that case, they want to claim the book for their own. (If nothing else, it allows them to maintain the pretense that 'genre fiction' is 'bad fiction' since they've claimed all the good books.)

I have no idea how to convince people that the CrossOverTitle they like so much is absolutely reeking with genre cooties, and that reeking with genre cooties is perfectly fine. I mean, if nothing else, realizing this would let them find more books they might like.

I wonder, sometimes, if the advent of online bookstores (which have no bookshelves) and computer generated recommendations based on customer buying habits will cause more crossover. I mean, if you're someone who "doesn't read" genre, but pays attention to Amazon recommendations and it keeps recommending strong, character-driven genre fiction to you... (Of course, this doesn't work for short fiction...)

[krylyr.livejournal.com]

So is Lethem slumming or transcending? I'm gonna guess he's transcending but Chabon is currently slumming. What bullshit. (No offense to you guys.)

[orogeny.livejournal.com]

Plus, it apparently is an older viewpoint that's fading with time. But I was surprised to see even the last shreds of it. It didn't occur to me that I was on the road to becoming a rich hack, since... you know... nobody buys anything I send them. ;D

[krylyr.livejournal.com]

That's good to hear, I guess. I think putting up boundaries about what we read are ridiculous. So is that fade due to people like Chabon and Lethem and Atwood or is it more the widespread success of Harry Potter and a generation raised on Star Wars?

[orogeny.livejournal.com]

I can only speak for the program I've seen first hand -- the little I've seen -- but I think it comes from people in administration who are trying to break down the barriers, and from people in literature (and in poetry and nonfiction) who are dabbling with genre tropes, and also from pragmatism in MFA programs. Your best advertising is widely read graduates. And "pop fic" people (god, I hate that term) have the capacity to reach more people than will ever pick up a straight literary mag.

[prusik.livejournal.com]

Chip Delany in his book about writing talks about one of his students whose goal in life was to be published in a few literary journals. From this he would make his name in academic circles and get a professorship where he could teach writing. I found this absolutely bizarre. (I think teaching is a fine profession. But at the university level, the teachers are also practitoners. He seemed to have no ambition to write other than to get to his professorship.) IIRC, he thought the way to get there was to write well constructed but lifeless stories. Well, you don't need an advanced degree to do that. Workshops are filled with well constructed but lifeless stories.

Anyways, I see your point that MFA programs are promoting themselves by developing writers who can really connect with the general public. (I'm all for connecting with the general public, BTW.) However, I think krylyr has a point too. That is, the reason those writers are able to connect with the general public by playing with genre tropes, is because they're becoming part of the standard vocabulary that all writers can count on.

Interestingly, the concurrent discussion in SF is about whether we have become too specialized. i.e., have we gotten to the point where an SF reader needs too much a priori knowledge just to understand a story. Barry Malzberg talks about picking up a recent issue of Asimov's and not finding a story which a 12 year old who doesn't know anything about SF could understand.

I don't agree with Malzberg, in part, because I think well-written stories (like those in Asimov's) will at least give the uninitiated reader a fighting chance. In part, I disagree with him because I don't think there is such a thing as a 12 year old who doesn't know anything about SF any more.

Still, it's an interesting discussion, especially so since we're simultaneously talking about the leaking of genre tropes into the mainstream and the increasing insularization of genre through the use of ever specialized tropes. It doesn't seem like those two things should be happening at the same time. (I can see how they could though. If they are, that's probably not a good thing.)

[avocadovpx.livejournal.com]

>> Barry Malzberg talks about picking up a recent issue of Asimov's and not finding a story which a 12 year old who doesn't know anything about SF could understand.

I agree with your two stated answers to this, but I'd also add that there are plenty of gateway texts.

Some of them are not-so-well written genre titles. From the reviews I've read, people who hadn't read Tolkien or even Terry Brooks, especially if they were youngsters, didn't mind the cliches in Eragon.

Some of the gateway texts are Not Science Fiction / Not Fantasy titles by writers who are using second or third-generation versions of the genre tropes, rather than the Peter Watts / Charlie Stross / Elizabeth Bear-type who is using the post-Singularity version. So, in this way, NSF/NF might actually bring readers into the genre, if they aren't already so prejudiced against books with rockets or dragons on the covers.

(Maybe we should talk about fixing the book covers, too.)

[avocadovpx.livejournal.com]

I think Atwood is one of the people who claims her books are Not Science Fiction. Chabon and Lethem seem more friendly toward the genre.

[prusik.livejournal.com]

Jonathan Lethem originated in SF and, as you know, Bob, will be one of the GoH at next year's ReaderCon!
I think he still considers himself one of us. (Likewise, Carol Joy Fowler, a GoH at this year's ReaderCon isn't afraid of the genre label.)

I don't know about Michael Chabon although there are a lot of fantasy or SF elements in his works. (I'm basing this on the reviews. I haven't read his work yet.)

[krylyr.livejournal.com]

Lethem's gonna be the GoH at next year's ReaderCon? Um, where and when is this!?!

Chabon didn't start writing SF fiction but based on some of his stuff I've read, it's pretty clear he's always been a geek. That or he really knows how to research. I could be wrong, but I don't think he seriously started dabbling in "genre" until post-Kavalier and Clay. He edited an excellent anthology for McSweeney's.

(I highly recommend his short story collection "Werewolves in their Youth" -- I give him a lot of credit for falling in love with short fiction a second time.)

[prusik.livejournal.com]

ReaderCon (http://www.readercon.org/) is in Burlington, MA (a.k.a the MetroWest Boston Area). It's usually around July 4th. However, ReaderCon 19 is July 17-20, 2008.

ReaderCon always has two GoH. For ReaderCon 19, one is Jonathan Lethem. The other is a certain James Patrick Kelly. (I suspect they moved ReaderCon to get him.)

Actually, I think Michael Chabon might have had a story on This American Life. But that would be my only contact with his work so far.

[krylyr.livejournal.com]

I heard that! They read an excerpt of the title story from "Werewolves in Their Youth" not too long ago on TAL.

JPK, too? Damn. You know, aside from the distance, I probably wouldn't be able to go to ReaderCon because that's right around our anniversary, but since the moved the date next time, I will have to consult the boss.

[garunya.livejournal.com]

Tagging would clearly be the best option. Which is fine for online categorisation, but as long as physical bookshops are still around, they're not going to want to put a copy in every section the book has a tag for.

Still, it would be a step in the right direction.

[drumiller.livejournal.com]

how about whatever's got the highest number of tags gets the most books. if you have 10, 6 of them put it in lit fic, 4 get put in sf. or if people are looking for a particular book that "crosses genres" , maybe have a placeholder object that says "looking for CrossOverTitle? Try Lit Fic"

of course that is what good book sellers should be able to do anyways, but most bookstores they're too busy making frappachinos to give you hints on a good book.