news…

I agree that it is NOW primarily a marketing ploy have the book categorized a particular way.

Historically the term “literature” was reserved for works that demostrated a written picture of society at a particular point and has stood the test of time. It is part of the definition that the books be well-written and express something that will not pass from the societal interest or they will be replaced by others as time passes. I used to be offended to find newly published books next to classical literature in the book stores. It sends the message that the newest of The Vampire Chronicles is as significant to the definition of my culture as the Illiad was to the ancient Greeks before society has had a chance to read, ruminate, compare and make that determination. We didn’t read fiction in school, we read English Literature; works by people who lived in England or wrote about English events, and defined for us (especially those who are not English) the fundamental precepts of what it is to be English.

But all things change, as do we.

The thing I think we are blurring- the definition-is really the source of the argument. A body of literature is supposed to define something. Vampire Literature, by definition, is the body of work that is about vampires; the entire body of work. It includes Stoker, Rice, Huff, the newest book by Mayra Calvani, along with any scientific research surrounding the subject. It is not wrong to define the body of literature you are reading. Fantasy Literature is an accurate label.

Beth

ATTN Mr. Murphy:

Thank you for the link to your poem. Writing the sestina is one of my favorite challenges. Especially in these oh so hot days of summer it was a joy to read. I will add it to my cache of Winter Literature and have put the envoi above my desk:

Hope still flutters, icons falling,
Six-vaned snowflakes, Heaven’s feathers,
Stars of whiteness lighting winter.

I am not very familiar with the American MFA phenomenon in prose, but certainly recognise what has happened to American poetry through the “professionalisation” of writing (an endless procession of practically identical, competent poets who publish in order to validate their MFAs and then get jobs teaching creative writing to yet more eager MFA students, etc etc). There are exceptions, of course, and I don’t want to blacken the whole idea of teaching creative writing. But the result does seem like so much white bread.

Not what I call literature, though. Recently I’ve been reading Ismael Kadare, Orhan Pamuk, John Berger, just to name three great writers who’ve been on my bedside table the past couple of weeks. To dismiss these people as lacking innovation because they are “literary” seems to me just…well, ignorant. Nor are any of them, for all their engagement with the “real world”, in the least realistic (possibly Berger, except that dead people keep appearing and talking to him). Oh, and Oscar Wilde as well. If you haven’t read his fairytales, as genre writers, you’re missing something…

And just to agree with Katherine Kerr above. Let’s not patronise the past, it just teaches us there is no such thing as progress in art!

There are blurred lines even here of course. Consider the AENEID, a very self-conscious production by a learned man of his time who deliberately went back to an archaic model for his style as well as his subject matter. Did Vergil believe in his gods the way “Homer” believed in his? Probably not. Is the work closer to modern fantasy then? Closer, maybe, but still not the same as — in my opinion.

Medieval Arthurian romance is very close to modern fantasy, on the other hand, being consciously composed for an educated leisured audience to amuse and entertain them whilst reminding them of chivalric ideals. I doubt very much if any of the courtly souls who devoured these romances honestly thought there were monsters in the Forest of Dean and the like.

We really cannot lump all the “stuff written before 1800″ together, in other words, just because much of it contains elements we think of as fantastic. The difference between Wolfram von Eschenbach and the anonymous composer(s) of the Chanson de Roland is as profound as that between the various parts of the Niebelunglied and The Lord of the Rings.

Footnote: I’ve read the bicameral theories of JJ and I really don’t think they hold up, though some of the details he uses to support them are fascinating. Just my opinion again.

Also interesting is that at the outset of the article, the writer gives this (arguable) description of the novel: “The novel usually seeks to re-create everyday experience, to represent the world as it is rather than to evoke, like the romance, a legendary world. Generally bound by fact and probability, the novel seeks to convince its readers that its world is real….”

I don’t see much room for SF there. But perhaps that is what many people think of as the literary novel.

I have no idea what the credentials are of the writer of the article.

In fact, I think I’ll edit the thing to add that.

But writers and readers of SF/F don’t have any consensus whatsoever as to what that is, as witness this entire website! Which is why we hastened to inform Others that Deep Genre is NOT a movement!

In the meantime how is ‘novel of incident’ deemed to differ from the ancient Mediterranean tradition that got labeled first in Spain as the “picaresque,” the adventures of the traditional Iberian figure known as the picaro?

Love, C.