My first instinct was: Yeah, maybe this is the case. Cause I can think of some literary books where the content was what-ev-er, but beautifully or interestingly expressed. And I can think of some genre books with interesting ideas, but run-of-the-mill narration.
What surprises me most about it is the conventionality of its style. It contains no postmodern self-referential cleverness, not even any of the compression and elision that marks so much contemporary fiction. It’s past-tense, third person, with a garrulous narrator who doesn’t mind stepping in for a little exposition now and then.
Why is it that futuristic fiction, informed by the most contemporary of discussions about the most recent of social trends, is usually so formally old-fashioned? These novels – from Ray Bradbury to William Gibson – are in structure and delivery not postmodern or even modern; they are premodern. This is generally, in fact, how we distinguish between genre and literary fiction: genre is wild in its imaginings, stodgy in its style; literary is stodgy in its imaginings, wild in its style. It is rare to see a collision of innovative social thinking and innovative technique.
But the more I thought about it, the more I began to feel that form and content don't separate so easily. Do we really want to be J Evans Pritchard PhD?
Does a book cease to be literary because it has a straightforward style? A Fine Balance reads like a classic novel, not unlike something from the 19th century; but I still think of it as literary.
And also, while I do think some genre writing could take things up a notch in terms of form, I don't want an English Patient experience every time I pick a book up. To everything there is a season. Ondaatje some days, Christie on others.
I think I'll have to stick to my earlier sense, that "literary" has more to do with the depth with which the content is treated. Form is only one possible element.
Enough for now, my brain is sleepy.
2 comments:
About this part: "It contains no postmodern self-referential cleverness, not even any of the compression and elision that marks so much contemporary fiction." Really? All I can think of is that I would SO not want to read stuff like this. When people start throwing such words and phrases around, I essentially turn off my interest and attention.
I want story, not "postmodern self-referential cleverness" (whatever the hell that is). I want story, not postmodern anything. Sure, some genre stuff (a lot, actually) is kind of stodgy or just plain poorly written because so many publishers seem to think that readers of genre fiction aren't that smart and don't need well-written fiction.
But if you read someone like Patricia McKillip, you find glorious language and storytelling. Her work is rich and lyrical. Someone like Tamora Pierce, who writes YA fiction, writes in a clean style with enough detail to make her world and characters come alive, but without blobs of exposition. So I think the writer of that passage just hasn't read enough genre fiction, or else too much of the same authors. It's a rich and glorious field.
As for postmodern, self-referantially clever literature? It sounds dull and pretentious and not at all something I'd like to read.
I think the self-referential / postmodern thing would mean where you're playing with the novel form. You might draw the reader's attention to the fact that this is a work of fiction in their hands, rather than allowing them to become totally lost in the book.
For example, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is full of footnotes obviously from a narrator, and halfway through the book you realize the narrator is one of the characters you've been reading about. It was weird and interesting cause it made it feel like the book was written by this character, and not by Junot Diaz. But it didn't detract from enjoyment of the book, not at all.
I would say Terry Pratchett falls under this category. He constantly makes references to things that are really from Earth culture and couldn't possibly make sense on an invented planet. (And he uses footnotes too.) It pulls you out of the story a bit, but for the sake of humor, and as commentary on our culture... all in all, it works. Douglas Adams was self-referential too, in that you were reading a book called HHG to the Galaxy, AND it was an actual book within the story.
Jasper Fforde's mysteries are very much in this vein, where the characters from literature can come alive, and refer to themselves etc.
While you wouldn't want all books to be like that, I would certainly like to see more of that kind of thing... more variation in how a story is narrated. I don't think I've ever read a romance novel that attempted something like that.
...So I don't think it need be pretentious.
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