{"id":26902,"date":"2014-09-29T06:30:15","date_gmt":"2014-09-28T17:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=26902"},"modified":"2014-09-28T21:48:53","modified_gmt":"2014-09-28T08:48:53","slug":"literary-vs-genre-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/09\/29\/literary-vs-genre-seriously\/","title":{"rendered":"Literary vs Genre, Seriously?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years back, fellow speculative fiction author Daniel Abraham <\/a>posted a very witty and amusing ‘Private Letter From Genre To Literature’<\/a> (aka “literary fiction”) on SF Signal<\/a>. (It’s still worth a read if you havena done so already.)<\/p>\n

Like everyone else at the time I chuckled quite a bit as I read it—except that even way back then, in the midst of the vasty wilds of 2011, I couldn’t help thinking that even penning such a letter implied a certain cultural cringe from genre to literature. As if, even in jest, the implication is that a genre such as SFF somehow requires the approval of so-called “literary fiction.”<\/p>\n

The thing is, you see, to me “literary fiction” is just another genre with its own distinctive tropes, such as—to indulge in broad generalizations, which is what we do when we descend to categories and categorization—narrow plot scope or no plot at all; open, opaque, or ‘none-ending’ endings; an intensive-to-introverted focus on often unsympathetic characters; and the inclusion of gratuitous physical (usually sexual or urination\/defecation related) detail as a shorthand for “realism.”<\/p>\n

So from my point of view, given “SFF” (for example, although I could equally well discuss “crime” or other styles of literature) and “literary” are both genres with (broad-brush though not exclusive) distinctions of approach, subject matter and style, it seems pointless for one (or practitioners therein) to angst over the notice—or otherwise—of the other. To be honest, I think readers are smart enough to know good storytelling and good writing when they encounter it, regardless of labels and vested interests touting one style of literature or another as “superior.”<\/p>\n

But I think we only see the truly ridiculous nature of the genre vs literary debate if we take “all sorts and conditions” of storytelling and extend\u00a0the analogy out\u00a0 to the world of those who (potentially might) read the books\/stories. That world comprises all “sorts and conditions” of people: not just diverse nations, cultures, religions and ethnicities, but also fat people, thin people; tall people, short people; the fit and the unfit; the hirsute and the bald; the left-handed, the right-handed and the ambidextrous; the fair, the dark and the red-headed; as well as differences of sex and sexual preference… I think (hope!) we know the dangers inherent in trying to pick one element, or combination of elements, in all of this infinite human variety and say: “this is the exemplar, everything else the also-rans.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Because that would be nonsense, right, we all know it. So why on earth do we keep perpetuating exactly that sort of differentiation with books and the “genre vs literary” circumnavigation of the writing mulberry bush—it sure beats me!
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A few years back, fellow speculative fiction author Daniel Abraham posted a very witty and amusing ‘Private Letter From Genre To Literature’ (aka “literary fiction”) on SF Signal. (It’s still worth a read if you havena done so already.) Like everyone else at the time I chuckled quite a bit as I read it—except that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26902"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26912,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26902\/revisions\/26912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}