“Somewhere in its history,” Lev
Grossman writes, “reading novels has gotten all tangled up with
questions of social status, and accepting the kinds of pleasure that
genre novels offer us has become — how perverse are we? — a
source of shame”
( http://entertainment.time.com/2012/05/23/genre-fiction-is-disruptive-technology/ ).
He produces this “gem” in the middle of an essay on the ways in
which genre fiction acts disruptively towards modern literary
fiction. And while what Grossman says is undeniably true, it also
demonstrates a really frightening ignorance towards the origins of
the novel.
“Somewhere in its history?” Try
always. Try the prose romances written by women in the seventeenth
century that were obviously not literature because they weren't
poetry. Try Daniel Defoe and his uneasy relationship with
“real-life” crime literature. Try Samuel Richardson and Henry
Fielding sniping at one another about what, exactly, the novel was
supposed to be.
It's this last that's particularly
instructive. Both Richardson and Fielding were invested in inventing
“the modern novel,” despite the fact that neither of them really
did so. Richardson's novels were morally sententious, painfully
realistic (to the degree that Pamela
can be considered realistic, which is certainly arguable), and
(sorry) boring. So really, if Grossman wants someone to point his
finger at for the way we think of literary fiction: serious,
stylistically ambitious, and coded with a kind of moral valence, it's
Richardson who deserves to take the brunt of that blame.
Fielding,
on the other hand, wrote in a tradition that was much closer to the
romances that were the novel's true origins. His work had a
picaresque, postmodernist quality. Nonetheless, casting him as a
kind of anti-hero of the novel's development is stupid. He was just
as invested as Richardson in making himself the “father of the
novel” (which had so many forgotten mothers...), and therefore in
codifying literary genre.
What
does this mean for the novel today? It means that we are still doing
what we always do. We always want to ask ourselves, “But is it
art?” Maybe that's not a bad question. Grossman lists authors
like Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and Catherynne Valente to
demonstrate that art abounds in the genre fiction ghetto. And I'm
not inclined to disagree. Novels like American Gods or
Deathless are art,
whether they are slapped with a genre fiction label or not.
But I
do see a difference between literary and genre fiction. Practically,
there's a difference in the ways these things are produced and sold.
There's no MFA mill for genre fiction writers, which means that their
understanding of conventions and the creative process is
distinctively different from that of literary fiction writers.
For
the reader, however, I believe the main distinction is one of
investment. A reader who picks up a mystery, a sci fi romp, a
romance, has different expectations than a reader of literary
fiction. They aren't preparing themselves to seriously engage with
the prose in order to appreciate it, they're preparing for the
payoff. If the payoff takes too long, they put the book down.
And
literary fiction could absolutely benefit from a stronger “philosophy
of the payoff.” Too many modern writers seem to feel they need to
beat the audience with sticks and leave them bleeding in order to
demonstrate their “seriousness.” But there's still a value to
something that makes readers sit down and suspend their desire for
immediate gratification and comprehension. There's value to a novel
that demands study.*
And,
finally, I think that Grossman's article demands a greater
transparency. The reader has a right to ask whether he is responding
to the reception of his literary works, which could perhaps best be
classified as fantasy fiction, and demanding a larger share of the
“art” pie. Merely excising the personal from the critical does
not in itself equate distance. Grossman should be open and honest
about what the stakes are here for him personally.
*Please
don't point me towards the Tolkien scholars. The fact that a thing
can be studied does
not mean it needs to
be studied.
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