Posted by Steven
on 20/6/2009, 22:48:09, in reply to "Re: Literary Fiction versus Genre Fiction"
76.187.110.226
I think the conventional use of the term "genre fiction" is based, as you say, on content alone. And any novel that is "none of the above," gets classified as "literary fiction" by default, no matter how inferior it may be to some of the better genre works. As some use them, the terms are mutually exclusive.
However, you and Amy Hungerford (and myself) are in agreement that works of science fiction can be literary fiction, etc. She defines The Crying of Lot 49, for example, as literary detective fiction, and Blood Meridian as literary historical fiction. So even though she doesn't phrase it this way, I think the distinction she actually makes is between "literary fiction of any genre" and "genre fiction ONLY". It's still an oversimplification, but these are, after all, just bullet points on a class presentation.
I was curious to see what she has published, and was pleased to note that in her book The Holocaust of Texts: Genocide, Literature, and Personification, she has given books like Fahrenheit 451 and A Canticle for Leibowitz serious treatment alongside the works of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. And her Yale colleague Harold Bloom has included some science fiction, fantasy, and detective fiction in his Western Canon. So perhaps the walls of the genre fiction ghetto are not impermeable.
--Previous Message--
: That's an interesting distinction, Steven. Perhaps I
: need to listen to the actual lecture before I comment.
: However, I'll forge ahead and provide my take on this
: issue.
:
: The distinction based on the relative primacy of plot
: may well be true of mediocre genre fiction. In
: practice, though, I think that most of us make the
: call based purely on content.
:
: Horses and six-shooters -- Western.
:
: Magic -- Fantasy.
:
: Space, rockets, time travel, the future -- Science
: Fiction
:
: Private eyes - Mystery or Crime Fiction
:
: and so on.
:
: Using this classification system, literary genre
: fiction is not an oxymoron. For example, who can read
: Raymond Chandler and not find his outrageous similes
: arresting? He wrote labyrinthine plots, but the plot
: is simply a frame on which he hangs his experiments
: with language. Or to consider someone more
: contemporary, the greatest pleasure from Elmore
: Leonard is his remarkable pitch-perfect dialogue, not
: his plots.
:
: Gene Wolfe writes science fiction/fantasy that is
: explicitly experimental. He is fascinated with
: unreliable narrators and other formalist techniques.
: He also possesses the remarkable vocabulary of a
: Nabokov or a Banville.
:
: John Crowley writes fantasy that is profoundly moving.
: He is capable of producing deep aesthetic
: satisfaction. I think that Little, Big is the most
: remarkable fantasy novel since Alice in Wonderland
: (especially if the magic realists are excluded).
:
: Of course, one may argue that these writers are
: exceptions -- and indeed they are. However, they have
: been dismissed to the ghetto of genre fiction not by
: their lack of literary merit but by their subject
: matter.
:
: That being said, can social realism be considered a
: genre? I think it can, if the author's primary intent
: is to produce propaganda rather than literary or
: aesthetic goals. Another key to genre is
: manipulation. This can be hard to define since all
: literature strives to have an effect on the reader.
: However, pornography is distinct from erotic
: literature in its single-minded attempt to produce
: arousal. Similarly, mediocre genre fiction attempts
: to produce uncompliacted and unreflective excitement,
: in the manner of an action movie. If the work intends
: to make me want to go organize a union or fight
: injustice, then its goals are extra-literary. I am
: not particularly fond of Steinbeck, by the way, but I
: would have to say that since scenes from The Grapes
: of Wrath remain vivid for me after all these years,
: there is more than propagandizing in that novel.
:
:
:
:
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