Literary vs. genre

DoomBunny said:

I'm especially surprised by the suggestion that entertainment and enlightenment must be separate, and that entertainment is somehow less significant. Most of what I read does both, if not in equal amounts. And it's often the most entertaining books that teach me the most - or maybe it's just that I find learning entertaining?

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I agree. My favorites are those novels (and nonfiction for that matter) that both entertain and enlighten in some respect. Fiction can be literary and popular. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" comes to mind as one of those books that entertained and enlightened me. Lately it's been Haruki Murakami ("Kafka on the Shore," "After Dark"). And I do love a good hard-boiled mystery/detective story now and then (Michael Connelly, Jean-Claude Izzo). The list goes on.

DoomBunny said:

Here here. The suggestion that genre fiction is universally lowbrow, predictable, thematically lacking or containing poor or simple writing and shallow characters is just as ignorant as suggesting that all literary fiction is boring, snotty, stuffy and verbose. Both opinions are as ridiculous as assuming that one is better or more tasteful than the other. Watching both sides accuse the other of lacking in theme makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.

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Amen.

I'm doing a PhD in creative writing and there's nothing that vexes me more than the 'serious vs popular' literature distinction. No such thing. The distinction only serves those that like to flatter themselves with being an over-educated snobbish elite, while in reality they simply lack basic knowledge on writing (I'm not talking about anybody on this thread. I respect all opinions here). There are good books and bad books, period. To claim that a novel is of lesser quality to another, just because it happens to fall into a different thematic category is just unsubstantiated and unreasonable. Writing is not as much a matter of talent as it is of craft, and such craft is being demonstrated by the narrative itself.

As it happens, I write what is called mainstream/ literary. Yet some of my favourite works are genre. Here are a few examples of what I love:

Genre:

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz-Zafon
The Silence of the Lamps - Thomas Harris
Critique of Criminal Reason - Michael Gregorio
Almost everything by Gilber Sinoue, the best historical fiction author of the last two decades imho.

Also, let me mention Stephen King and Isaac Asimov.

Literary:

The Icestorm - Rick Moody
Almost everything by Marquez
Lolita - Nabokov
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Shrivel (bestseller)

And of course Rabbit, Run, which one could call literary, but then you have John Updike's saying who himself stated that he felt this term, when applied to his work, greatly limited him and his expectations of what might come of his writing, and so does not really like it. He said that all his works are literary simply because "they are written in words."

Finally, let me just add that I've received brilliant writing advice from people in this forum, a lot of them writing pure genre fiction. Since they are able to deliver such great advice, I'm sure they can apply it on their own works, too


PS. I like both chocolate and vanilla, with a slight preference for the former. And there were times that the chocolate tasted horribly mouldy, while the vanilla was deliciously fresh.

whimsical rabbit said:

The Silence of the Lamps - Thomas Harris

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Impossible! Mine haven't shut-up in decades. Or maybe it's the meds.

I agree with you 100%, though, regarding the foolishness of the literary and genre snobs. Nearly as bad as the "Show vs Tell" debate. Such simple truths, but they will always be a source of debate.

whimsical rabbit said:

The distinction only serves those that like to flatter themselves with being an over-educated snobbish elite, while in reality they simply lack basic knowledge on writing (I'm not talking about anybody on this thread. I respect all opinions here).

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Actually, you are. Literary fiction gets bashed on a regular basis on the AW forums, and snobbery is the first insult to be brought out. It's a smear, pure and simple, and I'm sick of hearing it.

Priene said:

Actually, you are. Literary fiction gets bashed on a regular basis on the AW forums, and snobbery is the first insult to be brought out. It's a smear, pure and simple, and I'm sick of hearing it.

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And I'm sick of people choosing to disregard whole passages of posts in order to make personal attacks, and take out their frustration on others.

As my post clearly states, I am writing literary/mainstream, not genre. Some, or perhaps most of my favourite novels are literary.

As far as the snobbery is concerned, I only mentioned it because as it happened, I recently read the work of a literary theorist that proudly (or foolishly?) claimed he belonged to a snobbish educational elite, the literati. I attacked those that are desperate to appear scholars while they lack basic writing knowledge. Not literary fiction itself, or its representatives for that matter. The same way I would attack anybody that called all literary fiction pretentious or illegible.

Now, when I say I'm not attacking anybody here it means I'm not attacking anybody here, and it's not my fault that you chose to read only half my post, and take things personally. Perhaps if we didn't rush to defend ourselves against people that never intended to attack us in the first place, and made an effort to truly understand what they're saying, there would be no real tension on forums. I am sorry you've been unfairly insulted before, but I'm not going to pay for someone else's indiscretion.

ADDITION: Look at the post I have quoted. Am I attacking literary fiction quoting such a post? I don't think so.

Oh. And by the way I referred to the terms 'serious' as opposed to 'popular'. The term 'literary' was not even mentioned in the paragraph you're quoting. Now, as we all writers in this forum know, words are chosen for a reason, aren't they?

Priene said:

Actually, you are. Literary fiction gets bashed on a regular basis on the AW forums, and snobbery is the first insult to be brought out. It's a smear, pure and simple, and I'm sick of hearing it.

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I note that there is no agreed upon definition for literary fiction.

I further note that it is a marketing terms for books that otherwise do not fit into a neatly pigeon-holed category.

It is not a qualitative term.

Finally, I'm not really seeing bashing, and I heartily encourage anyone who does feel there is bashing to report the post.

And speaking of bashing--this really is a rather idiotic conversation to be having, at all. I'm not sure why there are five or six threads about it every year--all of which end with squabbling and hurt feelings.

People write books. They write the best books they can. Other people may like them lots. Others still may not.

Life is like that.

I am not a fan of James Joyce, or Henry James or Djuna Barnes. I still read them because I have to teach them. But every time I do teach them, I notice one or more students falls madly, deeply in love with each of the author's works.

I like that.

Medievalist said:

I note that there is no agreed upon definition for literary fiction.

I further note that it is a marketing terms for books that otherwise do not fit into a neatly pigeon-holed category.

It is not a qualitative term.

Finally, I'm not really seeing bashing, and I heartily encourage anyone who does feel there is bashing to report the post.

And speaking of bashing--this really is a rather idiotic conversation to be having, at all. I'm not sure why there are five or six threads about it every year--all of which end with squabbling and hurt feelings.

People write books. They write the best books they can. Other people may like them lots. Others still may not.

Life is like that.

I am not a fan of James Joyce, or Henry James or Djuna Barnes. I still read them because I have to teach them. But every time I do teach them, I notice one or more students falls madly, deeply in love with each of the author's work.

I like that.

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I note that I 100% agree with everything noted in this statement.

Which is what I said in my initial post really, but for some reason it was impressively misinterpreted

blackink said:

Of course I'm not the center of the universe. And yet I simply can't grasp how those who appreciate literary, can stand the poor writing of genre.

I really want to know, no snark. If you love literary AND genre, does this mean you don't find the genre writing atrocious, or you don't care and read for something ese?

I haven't read genre widely at all, and I'm very open to reading more. So is there such thing as high / higher quality genre? I do want to know and try.

I'm not a literary snob "just because"--this just happened, after many unfortunate expriences.

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Hmm. How about...Shogun and the rest of the Far East series; The First Man in Rome series, The first Earth's Children book (The Clan of the Cave Bear); and Sold. The first three are historical fiction. The last young adult fiction.

Hmm. Memoirs of a Geisha was well-written too. Not sure what genre that was, a fiction novel written in the form of a memoir, but definitely mainstream.

I love literary too. Especially Woolf. But even more like to alternate.

Lately I read a lot of non-fiction.

I tend to look at literary as the plot happening (primarily) below the surface, and mainstream as the plot happening (primarily) above the surface. I read that on an agent's blog, so not my idea. But it's the only definition that is easy to apply to any type fiction. At least for me.

How do I love both? I choose books that are well-written, regardless of genre.

Try the First Americans series by Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear. Especially the first book, People of the Wolf. It's prehistoric fiction written by archeologists, which - in my mind - makes it very similar to science fiction.

Also try Mortal Suns by Tanith Lee, which is fantasy written in a literary style.

These are just a few examples, however. Honestly, I have no idea what you're reading and why genre fiction has such a bad rep among literary readers (just as I don't understand why literary fiction has such a bad rep among genre readers).

EDIT:

whimsical rabbit said:

Also, let me mention Stephen King and Isaac Asimov.

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Please, don't mention Asimov! As much as I love science fiction, and read all the way through I, Robot, he really could use more character development. I suppose, considering the purpose of I, Robot, character development might have just been unnecessary clutter, but I still prefer to identify with someone.

Just to clarify: The above statement is not meant to bash genre fiction, since I mainly read (and write) genre fiction. It's about personal taste. But I have read some literary fiction that I really enjoyed.

On the subject, here's a quote from one of my posts in another thread with a similar discusion:

It's just that there have also been a few posters on the genre fiction side who were equally as condescending of literary fiction. They said things like, "It's obscure, convoluted, and pompous." So we have people with little experience of one or the other spouting generalized preconceptions (or, at least, misconceptions based on works that are not good examples of either).

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DoomBunny said:

As for recommendations, Iain M. Banks is wildly successful in both sci-fi and literary fiction. The ratio of entertainment to enlightement tends to veer back and forth through both his SF and his lit, but I've never read a book of his I wouldn't recommend regardless of your preferred genre (or lack thereof). I would also have trouble classifying Neal Stephenson's Baroque trilogy (historical-esque although he calls it sci-fi) and love it all the same.

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Yep. Banks is great and the Stephenson books are pretty interesting.

Oh. I'm not sure why literary fiction is viewed so strangely from time to time or why ritual attacks on genre are still occuring.

It's really not an either/or thing for me. I like so-called literary fiction and so-called genre fiction, it all just depends on how I interact with the text. (I've been dying to use that phrase in public ever since I learned it in grad school almost 20 years ago).

I definitely lean toward the literary stuff: Just going by what's on my home bookshelves, I'd say that my interests are 70% literary and 30% genre. Most of the genre titles in my personal library are political thrillers, mysteries, and Westerns. I don't like science fiction (I recently read three sci-fi novels -- Clarke's 2001, Dick's Man in the High Castle, and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and I really didn't enjoy 'em all that much). I can't stand fantasy or horror fiction. Don't like romance novels, either -- mostly because those studly dudes on the front cover art make me feel totally inadequate.

But if I had to pick one or the other, which would I choose? When it all comes down to it I've gotta admit that I've never had a stimulating or memorable discussion of a "genre" novel, and my very favorite books -- the ones that intrigue me, inspire me, and, in the end, define me -- are the ones that most AW members would categorize as..."literary".

First, there's a difference between "literature" and "literary fiction." The latter is just a genre -- kind of a catch all when something doesn't fit in any other genre. It's different than "mainstream" which practically means something that has broad appeal regardless of genre.

Sheila Muirenn said:

Hmm. How about...Shogun and the rest of the Far East series; The First Man in Rome series, The first Earth's Children book (The Clan of the Cave Bear); and Sold. The first three are historical fiction. The last young adult fiction.

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Not having read most of them, I can only say Shogun would be considered Historical Fiction. No?

Hmm. Memoirs of a Geisha was well-written too. Not sure what genre that was, a fiction novel written in the form of a memoir, but definitely mainstream.

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Mainstream literary. Although I could say it's historical, too, depending on your time frame. I personally don't consider WWII historical...


I think the distinction using "plot-driven" vs. "character/theme-driven" is a poor one. Certainly there are literary fiction that are plot-driven, or genre that is character-driven. I'd rather go with the "well, if it's not X, Y, Z... then it's literary" definition.

... 'literary' is just one of those hard to define terms. Application of it is easier. Give twenty well-rounded readers a bunch of books and ask them to decide which lean literary and you'll get a fair degree of consensus.

You have your chevy fans and then you have your ford fans, to put it simply.

blackink said:

Of course I'm not the center of the universe. And yet I simply can't grasp how those who appreciate literary, can stand the poor writing of genre.

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I think the key point of understanding that one is not the center of the universe is understanding that different people have different and equally valid opinions of what constitutes good writing. It's fine if you dislike the type(s) of writing that are common and fashionable in genre fiction, but the fact that you don't like them doesn't make them bad on any kind of absolute scale. It's like that dork a few months ago who was ranting how horrified he was that everyone on his train was reading Dan Brown and wanted to call on people to put 'higer quality' literary fiction in these readers' hands instead. Literary prose is NOT higher quality than genre prose, it's a different style for the taste of a different type of reader.

sunandshadow said:

It's like that dork a few months ago who was ranting how horrified he was that everyone on his train was reading Dan Brown and wanted to call on people to put 'higer quality' literary fiction in these readers' hands instead. Literary prose is NOT higher quality than genre prose, it's a different style for the taste of a different type of reader.

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It wasn't Dan Brown they were reading. It was Stieg Larsson. He said that Larsson's writing is poor genre fiction, i.e. poor even by the standards of genre fiction, and tarred Dan Brown with the same brush, using specific examples to illustrate his point, while recognising that there are genre writers out there producing quality writing:

Readers, publishers and writers alike can agree that John Grisham, Robert Harris, Tom Clancy or Danielle Steel build up their massive readerships by knowing precisely what they are doing; they are master practitioners of their highly skilled craft. Conversely, Brown and Larsson – in their different ways – are mesmerisingly bad.

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He acknowledged that there is good and bad within genre and literary fiction. He made a case for why genre fiction is constrained by expectations in a way that literary fiction isn't. He also said that poor literary fiction is worse than poor genre fiction. He wanted to bring to the attention of the Larsson-reading public fiction of a higher standard.

The article is here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/12/genre-versus-literary-fiction-edward-docx

Whether you agree with his views or not, and clearly you don't -- although you don't seem to have read the article very closely -- I don't think it's fair to label him a dork. He's entitled to his opinion.

RobJ said:

It wasn't Dan Brown they were reading. It was Stieg Larsson. He said that Larsson's writing is poor genre fiction, i.e. poor even by the standards of genre fiction, and tarred Dan Brown with the same brush, using specific examples to illustrate his point, while recognising that there are genre writers out there producing quality writing:

He acknowledged that there is good and bad within genre and literary fiction. He made a case for why genre fiction is constrained by expectations in a way that literary fiction isn't. He also said that poor literary fiction is worse than poor genre fiction. He wanted to bring to the attention of the Larsson-reading public fiction of a higher standard.

The article is here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/12/genre-versus-literary-fiction-edward-docx

Whether you agree with his views or not, and clearly you don't -- although you don't seem to have read the article very closely -- I don't think it's fair to label him a dork. He's entitled to his opinion.

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He's entitled to his opinion that the best literary fiction is superior to the best genre fiction because literary fiction is gourmet food while genre fiction is hamburgers? I think I'm also untitled to my opinion that that's an utterly dorky way of thinking. I think he's making exactly the same mistake of thinking that there is some universal standard of 'quality fiction' when in fact it's his personal opinion. People constantly make the same error about physical attractiveness and it's even more annoying in that context because a lot more people are hurt by the idea of a universal standard of beauty than are hurt by the idea of a universal standard of good writing.

I did actually read the article closely more than a month ago when it came out, but I only wanted to make a passing reference to it so it didn't seem worth digging up again to fact-check. *shrug*

In conversation, someone saying that they like "literary fiction" is close to useless as a guide to what they're actually reading. When I think of literary fiction I think of the highly stylised slice-of-life text noodlings that English students produce. Other people often have a rather broader concept, particularly when it comes to novels. It also seems to me that those who claim to write literary fiction tend towards my narrower idea and those who claim to read it are far more inclusive.

If literary is a stylistic qualitative attribute then surely there's nothing stopping genre writing being literary. Is J.G. Ballard not somewhat literary? How about China Mieville? Is Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" not a bit SF and a bit literary?

sunandshadow said:

He's entitled to his opinion that the best literary fiction is superior to the best genre fiction because literary fiction is gourmet food while genre fiction is hamburgers? I think I'm also untitled to my opinion that that's an utterly dorky way of thinking. I think he's making exactly the same mistake of thinking that there is some universal standard of 'quality fiction' when in fact it's his personal opinion. People constantly make the same error about physical attractiveness and it's even more annoying in that context because a lot more people are hurt by the idea of a universal standard of beauty than are hurt by the idea of a universal standard of good writing.

I did actually read the article closely more than a month ago when it came out, but I only wanted to make a passing reference to it so it didn't seem worth digging up again to fact-check. *shrug*

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Gee, that raised the quality of the debate some.

blackink said:

I'm not a fan of genre, as whenever I try, I experience the same thing. If there ARE genre novels that don't make you cringe at every second sentence, please let me know, as I'm genuinely interested. I'd love to give it a try.

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Can you give an example of some of the genre novels you have read (particularly the ones you thought were like "reading excrement smeared on the wall")? It's hard to give a recommendation without knowing what you've already read and hated, since tastes are going to be somewhat subjective. Though I'd argue that they are actually not that subjective. For example:

Sheila Muirenn said:

Hmm. How about...Shogun and the rest of the Far East series; The First Man in Rome series, The first Earth's Children book (The Clan of the Cave Bear); and Sold. The first three are historical fiction. The last young adult fiction.

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See, Shogun was a great story, but it was also terribly schlocky and historically inaccurate, so I can't agree that it was "literary." I'd be more inclined to recommend David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Likewise, Earth's Children? Okay, maybe the first one was decent -- the rest of the series quickly descended into Mary Sue Paleolithic porn.


Also, Isaac Asimov was a great sci-fi writer, but literary? Not so much. Like Arthur C. Clarke. Great stories, brilliant worldbuilding, but their writing was not dazzling and they both wrote paper-thin characters.

blackink said:

Of course I'm not the center of the universe. And yet I simply can't grasp how those who appreciate literary, can stand the poor writing of genre. .

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1. What have you read?

2. What makes you qualified to judge the quality of prose?

Yes I'm serious in asking. I'm really tired of people asserting that genre prose is inferior as a blanket assertion.

You're dismissing an awful lot of novels--and this is an assertion that I mostly see being made by people who, frankly, aren't qualified to make an independent determination.

So are you really serious?

Do you in fact mean that "I have read a some genre novels whose prose doesn't appeal to me"?

Do you understand that your distinction between literary and genre is a flimsy and artificial distinction? That it is a distinction that is not made by those who spend their lives studying prose?

muddy_shoes said:

When I think of literary fiction I think of the highly stylised slice-of-life text noodlings that English students produce.

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This line of thinking is just as bad as that of "genres are just entertainment with no depth" or "genre is like hamburgers."

maestrowork said:

This line of thinking is just as bad as that of "genres are just entertainment with no depth" or "genre is like hamburgers."

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Nice quote mining for the purposes of picking an argument. It's my view of the category label, not a value judgement. Not only that but the rest of the post clearly states that I both understand that others don't share this categorisation and that I don't see the attribute of "literary" as a negative.

muddy_shoes said:

Nice quote mining for the purposes of picking an argument. It's my view of the category label, not a value judgement. Not only that but the rest of the post clearly states that I both understand that others don't share this categorisation and that I don't see the attribute of "literary" as a negative.

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Speaking as a former English student, I thought it was less than perceptive.

I am tired of this artificial genre-vs-literary fiction stalking horse.

It is a less than helpful distinction, and it is not at all accurate.

And I'm really tired about sneers regarding the prosody of Dan Brown et al.

Dan Brown isn't going to ever appear in the canon.

So what? People love his books. They genuinely enjoy them.

And that, to me, is the important thing.