Call It "Genre Fiction" One More Time, and I WILL Punch You In the Face

From Wikipedia:

"Literary fiction is a term that has come into common usage since around 1970, principally to distinguish serious fiction (that is, work with claims to literary merit) from the many types of genre fiction and popular fiction (i.e., paraliterature). In broad terms, literary fiction focuses more on style, psychological depth, and character, whereas mainstream commercial fiction (the page-turner) focuses more on narrative and plot."

Two words: FUCK and YOU.

Let's be clear once and for all, shall we? "Literary Fiction" is a genre like any other. These are some of it's conventions:

1) A focus on character and psychology instead of narrative and plot. Fair enough.

2) A use of language and literary allusions that rewards English Lit geeks and makes them feel smart. Just because your in-jokes are about James Joyce instead of Han Solo doesn't mean they're not in-jokes.

3) A stringent avoidance of the conventions of any other genre, unless it is to use them ironically or "for effect". At no point can anyone fly a spaceship, unless the destination is their own heart.

Exceptions are occasionally made for number 3, of course. There's Magical Realism (which always reads to me like fantasy written by a twelve-year-old girl with a Liberal Arts doctorate), and there's "Genre Fiction" that "transcends" its genre. It's a kind of co-opting -- if it's good, it must be ours -- that makes people try to claim with a straight face that MAUS isn't a comic book.

Quick! Someone invent the term "Graphic Novel" so we can maintain our self-respect!

This is also the kind of thing that made Katee Sackhoff claim in an interview that Battlestar Galactica wasn't SciFi, because it had, you know, deep characters and stuff.

"This is not a robot. It is a veiled representation of man's inhumanity to man. Please move along."

I only ever heard that out of her during the first season, so hopefully they tied her to a chair and beat her with a rolled-up copy of Entertainment Weekly until she got that "Good" + "SciFi" = "Good SciFi", not "Drama" or whatever the fuck else you want to call it.

The idea of Literary Fiction is above all about status, about saying to the world, "we are the only ones with taste". I won't deny the obvious skill that goes into a great deal of Literary Fiction - it is, after all, the genre that huge numbers of talented young writers want to succeed in, because it's their favorite genre. But right there is the basic fact that folks who follow the Booker Prize are so loathe to admit: Literary Fiction is simply Fiction for English Lit Geeks.

It shares the characteristics of other genres that cater to a geek audience: it's prickly and challenging to outsiders, rewards repeated reading and obsessive analysis, and relies on in-jokes and allusions to other works within the genre. In other words, it's just like The Green Lantern.

"In brightest day, in blackest night,
Ulysses still makes no goddamn sense!"

When people ask me what kind of music I like, I say "good". I like Fleetwood Mac, My Chemical Romance, Allison Krauss, Britney Spears, Mozart and everything in between. If it's well-conceived and skillfully executed, I will probably enjoy it, no matter what the musical genre. At the same time, I DON'T claim that Britney Spears is actually late Eighties Prog Rock because I think she's pretty good. She's Pop -- and well-executed Pop, at that. And I like it.

Of course, I often like SciFi and Fantasy that is absolutely, objectively godawful, because I enjoy the genre conventions. And that's okay too.

Look, there's no question that Stephen King can't write like Tom Wolfe. But you know what? Tom Wolfe can't write like Stephen King. And there aren't many of us that can write like either. Trust me -- you're not doing yourself any favors turning your nose up at either of them.

So, to my friends in the LitFic community: Get over yourself, get over the fact that you're Genre Fiction-lovin' geeks just like us, and get well the fuck over the idea that your genre is inherently artistically superior to any other.

Except this one.

Oh, and the next time you call anything I read "paraliterature"? You will find a size-9 lightsaber up your ass faster than you can say the word "oeuvre".

-- The Prolix Wag
The things I like are inherently superior, but I don't have to make up a whole genre to prove it.