Another Perspective On Genre & Respect
Constance Ash October 8th, 2006
From the U.K. Guardian; the author of this review article that examines a Very Big Literary Writer’s crime fiction published under a pseudonym, makes this concluding comment:
” …. Crime writers have been moaning for years that their stuff never gets considered for the big literary awards; the possibility of competition from the other direction has been less discussed. If there’s any justice, Banville should be able to add the CWA Gold Dagger to his heap of trophies, but I hope this doesn’t start a trend. Life is hard enough for those of us who labour away down in the potboiler room without the toffs from the penthouse suites showing up and acting like they own the place.”
Love, C.
What???!! As a genre writer, I would say if we don’t measure up to the “toffs” we ought to get off our butts and write better books, not complain about fine writers winning “our” awards!
Yes, life is hard for most writers. And yes, often there is little justice - how often do great writers have to sit back and watch not-so-good craftsmen/women become bestsellers? But the solution is not to complain about great writers writing in genre fiction!
Note that these are all done pseudonymously, to preserve the brand.
Ah well, Lois, If I ever write that great Australian mainstream novel, I shall do it under a pseudonym too. To preserve the brand, you understand.
Ansible repeated an amusing remark by crime writer Ian Rankin some months ago. He’d been complaining that crime writers don’t get no respect, then admitted that they had it good compared to SF writers.
In the Romance genre, publishers insist upon owning the pseudonyms of their writers. That way, if a writer gets uppity and wants bigger advances, she can be dismissed and another writer plugged into the brand. I suspect that this is the sort of thing Lois is referring to.
Really, Katherine? Ye gods, that’s horrible. Now I’m convinced we sff writers have it good compared to romance writers.
OTOTHERHAND, the sf/f world has been less than welcoming to some who are writing in the field, with true names rather than pseudos, like Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Lethem — MOTHERLESS IN BROOKLYN, FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, GUN, WITH ACCOMPANYING MUSIC, etc. — McArthur Grant and all (though, since he’s a guy, and — just check his website — mebbee some of our segments are happy to Well Kom the Kewel Guy into the fold?)
It’s such tricky stuff.
Which is business, right, not craft?
Love, C.
You know, I’ve been giving talks about this “lit’rary vs genre” thing for a few years now, and I’ve come to the conclusion that what is being missed–often on both sides–is how Premise is overlooked as a character unto itself. The best genre novels, that “rate” alongside literary mainstream, treat the wolrd-slash-problem of the story as if it were one of the cast, so to speak. The lesser works (on whose scale, though, really?) treat all that strictly as background that needs explication, which the literary critics find turgid, boring, and not to the point. But in genre, the “world” is absolutely essential for the purposes of the story. In SF it’s even more blatant, because the metaphors we use to depict our worlds–our premises–are foregrounded, whereas in more mainstream genres–mystery, romance, western, etc–the metaphors work in the background.
Mainstream critics who don’t “get” SF never read the universe of the story as character. If they did, they might start to have a clue. If, perhaps, more genre writers took the trouble to portray their worlds rather than just describe them–treating them as characters–it might elevate the prose to a less dismissable position. I think it would improve the work.
Because, after all, The World is a manifestation of character interaction, and becomes a living thing in consequence.
I just call it landscape.
That is the weave of story: interesting interaction among interesting people in an interesting landscape.
Thus, John Ford, for one instance.
Love, C.