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Genre Fiction: The Great Debate

KristoCat

New Member
Encouraged by Kookamoor, I'm starting a thread about genre fiction and the stigma that's often attached to it despite its simultanous raging popularity. People seem to have pretty strong opinions about genre fiction, whether it's "It's almost all crap" or "Sometimes you just need brain candy" or "It's really great!"*

Do genres trap writers into categories they don't necessarily belong to?

Are genres helpful for people who are trying to find something new to read?

Are genres restrictive and limiting?

Does the fact that an author writes in a genre make you avoid the author, thinking the book will be formulaic or boring or poorly written?

Are certain genres more stigmatized than others?

And, one of the great mysteries: why is genre fiction looked down upon when genre movies aren't? Or are they?

Have fun!!!

*Not actual quotes. These are paraphrases and in some cases just made up.
 
The Question of Genre

http://p214.ezboard.com/fheavenspenniescenotaphfictionforum.showMessage?topicID=1104.topic

I posted my story "The Noonday Siren" at the above forum for short stories/fiction.

The moderator's comments raised some interesting questions in my mind regarding genre.

Moderator said:
Feedback on "The Noonday Siren:"

There is a form that follows a pattern somewhat like this - it has a
name I have forgotten- where poetry and prose are interspersed.
Usually the theme is descriptive of nature. Is this meant to be such a
form?

At any rate, this does not easily fall into a category. Essay? Prologue
to a fiction piece? Memoir of sorts?

I do have comments, but until I know the intended length and type of
work we are looking at I am reluctant to jump in.

Sitaram replies:

I am anxious to read your comments/criticisms.

The psychologist Alfred Adler once remarked that one mistake many people make in life is not taking enough risks.

I take a risk every day by writing in my own fashion. I suppose the most risky undertaking is to sell ourselves to the world as we are. Hemingway, in "A Moveable Feast," is horrified when F. Scott Fitzgerald admits to "tweaking" his stories in a certain fashion so the magazines will accept them. Hemingway calls such "tweaking" harlotry (actually, he uses a different, stronger word.)

The question of genre is challenging. Some textbooks tell me that the very first novel was Lady Murasaki's "Tales of Genji."
I suppose when it first appeared, circa 1000 C.E., people were quite puzzled, expecting perhaps an heroic epic in dactylic hexameter.

People were horrified at first by Melville's "Moby Dick" and Joyce's "Ulysses" precisely because they didn't seem to fit existing models or genres.

The dance they call the "Minuet" was quite a scandal in its day, because men and women actually touched the tips of their fingers ever so briefly. Apparently, prior to that, dances involved the men staying on their side, in an orderly line, and the women staying on theirs (an no touching).

There was a certain point in the history of painting and drawing when some anonymous artist discovered perspective and a vanishing point. Prior to that, paintings and drawings were flat like those Eastern Orthodox Icons and the ancient Egyptian wall paintings. And whatever shall we do with someone like Escher?

Once upon a time, I imagine, all poetry was in dactylic hexameter and rhymed with a certain rhyme scheme. When e. e. cummings came along, he must certainly have been considered odd. But his oddity had a certain charm and it stuck. e. e. cummings was the first person clever enough to think of the simple "gimmick" of always writing his name in lower case. Jesus was fond of the virtue of humility, but the name is never written in lower case. I do not imagine that cummings did this from humility, though I cannot speak for cummings, but to this day, even encyclopedias honor his wish and style and write his name in lower case.


I am reminded of an amusing story, meant to be a joke but quite possibly a true story. I read it in a psychology text.

One day, the police found an individual walking about in the street, rapped in a sheet, mumbling to himself. They were quite naturally concerned for this person's safety and took him into protective custody. Soon, there arrived at the police station a group of one hundred such people, all clad in white sheets and mumbling. They had come to take their leader back to their church. One is a menace. One hundred is a congregation.


The textbooks tell me that Edgar Allen Poe was the first to write in the mystery genre. Was it "The Cask of Amantallado?" Anyway, before Poe, what might one make of such stories?

We now accept Melville and Joyce as great writers in their own style. Were I to attempt to imitate "Finnegans Wake" people would say "Oh look, that poor fellow is imitating Joyce! How boring!"

Were I to imitate e. e. cummings style, people would know right away.

The textbooks tell me that the word "Novel" comes from a word which means "New." We even say that something is a "novel ideal" when it is new and different.

Yet, people like Balzac could set up little factories of ghost writers to churn out thousands of pages based on a formulaic style. I recently read that the creator of the Nancy Drew childrens series had the same sort of successful formula and factory.

We always look for something new. St. Paul, when he visited the Hill of Mars, scolded all the Greeks because they are always looking "for some new thing." Yet sometimes, should we find something new, we are not quite certain what to make of it.

Dante's "Inferno," in the description of Limbo, describes all the ancient philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and others strolling about the perimeter, in peripatetic fashion, speaking in low voices about dark mysteries scarcely to be comprehended. My Greek professor from Heidelburg once said she would prefer to be in their company than in the highest heaven singing praises to the Almighty.

There is an old joke about one Supreme Court Justice, hearing a case on obscenity, who said, "I don't know a definition of pornography, but I know what I like."

Tolstoy has a charming story of a Bishop, sailing on a voyage, whose ship stops at a remote little island where the only residents are three religious hermits. The Bishop visits with them and, to his horror, discovers that, not only are they illiterate, but they do not even know the simplest of Church prayers. In reality, it is not the hermits who have a problem but the Bishop. The Bishop's problem is that he expects these hermits to fit into some recognizable monastic genre, but they fall short of his expectations.


The Bishop stays with them for some days teaching them the "Our Father" prayer which they learn only with the greatest difficulty.

When the Bishop is satisfied that they have made some progress, he boards his ship and begins to sail away. Just as the ship is leaving the harbor, he hears some voices and shouting just off the starboard side of the ship. He looks in amazement to see the three hermits running alongside the ship on the surface of the water. They were quite upset because they had forgotten the last sentence of the prayer and wanted to hear it one more time.


It may have been Abraham Maslow who said: "When the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem tends to become a nail."

Take a peek at "Melville's Quarrel with Fiction" by Nina Baym:

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/-people-/emeritus/baym/essays/melville_quarrel.htm

One sentence in Ms. Baym's essay stands out for me:

"We have seen that Melville found genre requirements an impediment to his imagination, and that this was so even when the genre elected was, supposedly, the one permitting the greatest freedom, the romance."

Take a look at this link on music genres:

http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/musical_genre

It may help us to strengthen our understanding of what genre means to see the term applied to music as well as literature.

Here is a great read on literary genre:

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenre/intgenre1.html

Here is an excerpt from the above link:

Jacques Derrida said:
proposed that 'a text cannot belong to no genre, it cannot be without... a genre. Every text participates in one or several genres, there is no genreless text' (Derrida 1981, 61).

Genres Within Genres Within Genres

And this exhaustive history of the Novel begins by pointing out that the Novel itself is but one of many genres of writing:

http://www.mizii.com/jesusi/inlight/art/lit4_6.htm#_Toc503617484
 
I'd rather see shops just shelving books alphabetically by author. Ditch romance, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and crime sections completely. Let fiction rise and fall on its own merit. The joy is in finding something new, no matter the subject matter or tone, and this is severely restricted as you can find yourself, if you frequent the genre cubbyholes in shops, severely restricted in reading material as the dominant authors in each area swamp the shelves.
 
Tha's probably more due to the time.

You know, I'd never thought of bookstores in that way, and that they might be a heck of a lot more interesting without all the separate cubicles for all the different genres.

In the bookstore I go to most often, thre is one large section called 'fiction', and a few smaller ones with 'horror', 'fantasy', etc. Aren't horror and fantasy novels fiction, also?
 
Martin said:
You know, I'd never thought of bookstores in that way, and that they might be a heck of a lot more interesting without all the separate cubicles for all the different genres.

I know I'd probably pick up different books. I never venture into any of those little cubbies. I'd probably read sci-fi, romance and even horror if I was more open minded.
 
mehastings said:
I know I'd probably pick up different books. I never venture into any of those little cubbies. I'd probably read sci-fi, romance and even horror if I was more open minded.

For my Adult Popular Fiction class, I had a textbook by librarian Joyce Saricks that was about how librarians can help people find fiction to read. One really neat feature of the book was a chart at the end of each genre's chapter that had specific suggestions for books that readers of a particular genre would enjoy if they wanted to venture into other genres. For example, in the Fantasy chapter, she said that if people normally read Fantasy but want to try some literary fiction, they should read something by Isabel Allende. Or if they want to try mysteries, they should pick up Eric Garcia. Expanding your horizons is great.

On the other hand, I think that lots of people are comfy with their genres and like to stay in them... it's like finding a dish at a restaurant that never fails to please. I think those people prefer to have genre labels in bookshops because then they can find what they like and want more quickly. Using the food metaphor again, it's like having pasta and tomato sauce in the same aisle of the supermarket, separate from taco shells and chili pepper.
 
I think you've got something going there, Stewart, with that alphabetical book store idea of yours.
 
Are genres helpful for people who are trying to find something new to read?

I don't believe so. I've avoided certain authors for the wrong reasons simply because of them being under a specific genre title. For me, that title was "fiction" for the longest time.

Are genres restrictive and limiting?

I would definitely say they are. For one, I have always looked down upon fiction writers, especially science fiction. The picture of the kid with tape in the middle of his glasses, as well as the overall "action" fiction, which I avoided simply due to the fact that I presumed that they were all like a cheesy action movie-predictable to a fault and just as schmaltzy. This may be true to a certain extent with some authors, though authors don't overdo it like directors IMHO.

Does the fact that an author writes in a genre make you avoid the author, thinking the book will be formulaic or boring or poorly written?

In terms of action fiction, it does. Unless the author is fairly well established and well-known in book circles, I won't risk buying their works. I'll just presume that it's another work bound to be in the bins of used-books stores and on the bookshelves of the nearby goodwill.

Are certain genres more stigmatized than others?

I have a deep personal bias against science fiction. I don't know why, I just haven't really given it a decent shot. I've heard people rant and rave about Asimov, but I just can't seem to develop the desire to go out and find anything along the sci-fi genre.

And, one of the great mysteries: why is genre fiction looked down upon when genre movies aren't? Or are they?
 
Stewart said:
I'd rather see shops just shelving books alphabetically by author.
Couldn't agree more, gives people more of a chance to discover new authors.
It would also stop you going to the wrong section when looking for a particular book.
 
But the current system in bookshops with genre sections seems to really work. Business is good and bookstores are crowded. Maybe the division of books into sections help people avoid information overload? Isn't it easier to browse a smaller collection than one consisting of thousands of books?
 
KristoCat said:
But the current system in bookshops with genre sections seems to really work. Business is good and bookstores are crowded. Maybe the division of books into sections help people avoid information overload? Isn't it easier to browse a smaller collection than one consisting of thousands of books?
I think it's very limiting and is a disservice to readers. I think bookstores do it because it helps them direct customers quickly and most easily to familiar books and authors. It's target-marketing. I really hate it. They can always set up promotional tables of genre books. Otherwise, let people roam around and find new authors and genres.

I've always been a fan of shelving alphabetically. I also like the stores (and libraries) that have little cards throughout their displays with the "If you like this, you might want to try these" notes.

My public library used to separate their fiction books by genre, then changed after some complaints. Now, they have a sticker system. Different coloured stickers are placed on the spine of the book indicating different genres. e.g. purple=science fiction, red=mysteries, etc. It seems similar to shelving by genre, but achieves something quite different. Readers don't go scouring the shelves for just purple or red stickers -- well maybe some do -- they browse the books first, then see what genre it falls into. Once they've picked up the book, they might decide to try it even if it's not what they usually read.

BTW, shelving alphabetically would solve the problem of authors who write in different genres.
 
I know that I find myself avoiding certain genres because I have, possibly incorrect preconcieved ideas about what they will be like. Sci-Fi and 'Fantasy' being the main two that I avoid at all costs.

On the other hand though, I do often venture into the unknown at times when I feel the need to broaden my horizons or if I just fancy a change. Commercial bookshops are pretty expensive so I wouldn't often take a chance on a brand new book. I'd rather get something I know to be safe if I'm paying £6 - £12. When in second hand bookshops though I come home with all sorts of different stuff.

It probably does make it easier for the majority of people when bookshops categorise that way, but I think really avid readers will always look around and hunt for new stuff anyway so it probably doesn't limit people too much.
 
KristoCat said:
For my Adult Popular Fiction class, I had a textbook by librarian Joyce Saricks that was about how librarians can help people find fiction to read. One really neat feature of the book was a chart at the end of each genre's chapter that had specific suggestions for books that readers of a particular genre would enjoy if they wanted to venture into other genres. For example, in the Fantasy chapter, she said that if people normally read Fantasy but want to try some literary fiction, they should read something by Isabel Allende. Or if they want to try mysteries, they should pick up Eric Garcia. Expanding your horizons is great.

On the other hand, I think that lots of people are comfy with their genres and like to stay in them... it's like finding a dish at a restaurant that never fails to please. I think those people prefer to have genre labels in bookshops because then they can find what they like and want more quickly. Using the food metaphor again, it's like having pasta and tomato sauce in the same aisle of the supermarket, separate from taco shells and chili pepper.

Should I be embarrassed to admit that I find good reading in all genres? Horror used to be an exception but today there are some quite amusing horror stories too. (give me some time and I will think of one!!)
Also, don't genres move in and out of popularity depending on the context in which they are written? I have no evidence, but I feel sure that the Space Odyssey type of thing was much more exciting in the 60s and 70s when space travel was new, than it is now.
In any case, I believe that catagorising into genres or whatever is primarily a means to keep librarians/bookshop managers etc happy as they have to catalogue the books somehow in order to direct people as quickly and efficiently as possible, especially if this means making a sale of course!
If people like a particular genre and decide to stick with this one for a time, does this automatically exclude them from ever changing their tastes in the future? I love the idea of the chart directing the reader to possible other books. This, of course, depends on how it is used doesn't it?
Basically, what I want to say is that seperating taco shells and chilis from pasta and tomato sauce is a marketing ploy. The same is true for seperating books by genre. There has to be some way of selling a book efficiently, I think it's up to the reader to assert him/herself.
 
I find good reading in all genres too, linda! I've even read westerns and romance novels, thinking they would be awful, but I actually found a couple I liked. It's possible that I'm just unusually easy to please but I like to think it's because there's merit in every genre.

What do you all think about genre movies? Do they have the same stigma as genre fiction? Especially science fiction movies, do you think that The Abyss, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or The Matrix are looked down upon in the same way?
 
merit in all genres

KristoCat, I think you are right about finding good in all genres. I don't think that, for me at least, it's about being easy to please. I think it's exactly about keeping an open mind and being prepared for pleasant surprises.
As to genre movies...
I think this is different entirely, isn't it? I may not be inclined to go out to watch e.g. Sci Fi in general but there is much more hype around films than there is around writing. For this reason, I believe, I may go to see a particular film despite the fact I know I won't like the plot, or suspect there isn't one. Maybe the technical side of the film, for example, special effects, is what attracts me. This is an advantage that film has over written fiction.
On this note... Do we think that Perdido Street Station by China Mieville should be made into a film? I mention this as a fine example of an excellent book in a genre that I would immediately claim to dislike if asked!! :D

KristoCat said:
I find good reading in all genres too, linda! I've even read westerns and romance novels, thinking they would be awful, but I actually found a couple I liked. It's possible that I'm just unusually easy to please but I like to think it's because there's merit in every genre.

What do you all think about genre movies? Do they have the same stigma as genre fiction? Especially science fiction movies, do you think that The Abyss, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or The Matrix are looked down upon in the same way?
 
lindaj07 said:
Do we think that Perdido Street Station by China Mieville should be made into a film?
Since I found the book to be so dull I think it would be better as a film; if you're into overglorified moth hunts.
 
Stewart said:
I'd rather see shops just shelving books alphabetically by author. Ditch romance, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and crime sections completely. Let fiction rise and fall on its own merit. The joy is in finding something new, no matter the subject matter or tone, and this is severely restricted as you can find yourself, if you frequent the genre cubbyholes in shops, severely restricted in reading material as the dominant authors in each area swamp the shelves.

I agree! I'm often looking for a certain author in my local Barnes & Noble and find the book I'm looking for in a totally different category than what I think it should be in.

Does this idea apply to all categories of books, or just fiction? It would be hard to find a travel book shelved by author's name, for instance. How would you arrange your fantasy bookshop?
 
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