In Defence of Genre

Agreed mostly.

I really think they need to branch the Sci-fi genre a little more though. The definition of it and books in it's scope have become too wide ranging. Many people aren't even being able to tell that certain novels even fit in the genre, such as Children of Men. This really does need to be fixed in my opinion.

lol cos most of it is cack.

We want genuine novels.

I agree in total.

I think the issue with this setting up of camps lies in using only the poorest examples of genre as the meter stick to define the entire concept.

nah, its subjective.
Also alot of cheap potboilers out there.

Its not about genre, its about writing.

And im sorry to burst your bubble, but science fiction is the most pretentious genre of them all lol

and its fun. I like some sci-fi. Tho I dnt limit myself to specific genres or tribes grrr

s.Knight, stop making sweeping generalizations regarding genres of literature that you contradict within the very posts that contain these ignorant statements.

It is a not a great way to make friends, talking about what you don't know.

Anyways, I agree with Banzai. Some of the best novels I've read are sci-fi: Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.

lol am i not allowed sab?

You wana control my thoughts and actions?

Is my opinion not valid merely because it doesnt adhere to your 'mindset', your way of doing things?

Thats fascism.

Haha. Yes, I'm a fascist. You caught me, man.

No, what I'm saying is that calling sci-fi the "most pretentious genre of them all" and not supporting that with evidence is an excellent example of sweeping idiocy.

And further more, you said earlier in that very same post that "Its not about the genre, its about the writing." Generalizations AND contradictions? I can't see this going anywhere intelligent.

s.knight, inflammatory posting WILL NOT be tolerated on this site.

Tone it down, or else.

This will not go well if people make blanket statements without evidence, especially without respect for the opinions of others. Banzai's entry is very respectful, emphasizes that his dislike of "literary" fiction is a matter of personal preference, and that there is good and bad in all types of writing.

One of the problems with people's perceptions of "genre fiction" could be the terminology, though. When I hear people talk about science fiction and literary fiction as two separate types of books, it sounds like science fiction doesn't have all the stuff that makes a literary novel literary. It still can have the character development, conflicts, detail, use of language, and definitely has lots of symbolism and comentary on society that make literary fiction literary. Every type of book can have that, regardless of the setting.

The Handmaid's Tale? Fahrenheit 451? Brave New World? Frankenstein? The Yiddish Policeman's Union?

I could keep going...

I probably don't need to tell you I'm pretty exclusively devoted to literary fiction, and I'm probably one of the people this post is targeted at, so let me offer my humble rebuttal.

For me, the best genre novels are those in which the 'genre' elements are used as a means to an end, rather than an end in and of themselves. Take Philip K Dick, arguably the most 'literary' modern sci-fi author. "Do Androids Dream...?" uses its sci-fi aspects not merely to entertain, but to ask fundamental questions about what it means to be human. Diana Wynn Jones' fantasy novels work in the same way, using fantastic characters, situations and events to direct readers to think about their own world. The same is obviously true of Orwell, Heinlein, Clark, so on.

That said, there are two main problems with genre fiction (as I see it). Firstly, following on from that above point, is that very little genre fiction actually seems to be fulfilling that criterion of 'good' genre fiction. Crime and romance should probably be singled out as the most derivative genres, although the same applies to a great deal of sci-fi and fantasy. Rather than using the conventions of the genres to examine life/humanity/"important" subject matter in a meaningful way, the writing becomes nothing more than self-referential rehashing of tired cliches with no grander purpose, or only incidental reference to important human concerns. I think if genre fiction is ever to be given the same (academic) credibility as literary fiction, it needs to reconnect on a wider scale with people's lives and realities rather than being mere escapism. And I do mean "mere" escapism--there is a place for books that do nothing more than entertain or encourage escapism, and despite the opinions of those who read such novels, they are not, and should not be considered, equal with 'good' works of genre OR literary fiction.

The other issue, and this is more a personal criterion than an academic one, is the issue of form. The vast majority of good works of literary fiction, and indeed, most good genre fiction, is reliant on the particular form in which it was written. They rely on some aspect on the form of the novel for their value--whether that quality is found in the writer's style, in the in-depth characterisation, in the insightful exposition--that cannot be translated to another form without something of the original being lost. I maintain that if a novel is merely an entertaining story, it doesn't matter whether it is a novel, a comic, or a movie or TV show, and it seems that much genre fiction doesn't meet this criteria, and, in my opinion, should not as a result be considered equal to literary fiction and 'good' genre fiction. It simply isn't enough to tell a fun story. If you return to that list of writers above, it's arguable that all of them do focus heavily on formal concerns, not merely the facet of entertainment.

Basically, to me, the general quality of genre fiction in terms of its formal concerns--the style of the writer, the innovation in terms of the medium, those things that have come to be associated with "literariness"--is lower than that of literary fiction. That is a generalisation based on best-seller lists, on the books that dominate bookstores. People like Lee Child, James Patterson, Stephen King, Stephanie Meyer. These people, and their equally successful contemporaries, are the most well-known and most widely read genre authors, so it's only natural that popular opinion is based on their works, and they probably don't represent the 'good' genre writing being done right now, and maybe we, genre lovers and haters, need to be a little more concerned about why that is. Rather than squabbling over genre or not, we should be united in a fight against the sh!t that's flying off the shelves these days...

Didn't we already say that generalization is a bad thing and part of the problem of people's perceptions? If you make your decisions based on bestseller lists, you're missing the vast majority of what is out there. In the books I read, I see no difference is "literariness" that is a direct result of the setting, use of magic, use of technology, or beings that don't exist (as far as we know).

And aren't all novels some form of escape, if that's what you're looking for? No matter how real the setting is, it's still not your life. I don't even consider it escaping, anyway. It's just interesting and entertaining.