Genre-lly speaking

[bluegargantua]

Hey,

So Sci-Fi and Fantasy often suffers from "genre ghetto" where the category gets dismissed as "trivial" or "light fluffy reading". It's not "serious" enough or it's "all the same". When there's really a lot of very interesting stuff that comes out in the genre that makes for very good reading.

In my head the conversations run like this:

"Oh, sci-fi. It's all just like Star Trek or Star Wars or whatever."
"Well, there's actually some really good stuff like [insert good stuff here*]."

Or

"Oh, fantasy. It's all Lord of the Rings or Conan or whatever."
"Not all of it, you might be surprised with [insert stuff here**] -- they're really good."

And then there are the times when sci-fi/fantasy break out into "literature" and people bend over backwards to deny it's genre roots (and most authors of these books giggle at the contortions).

That's not to say there isn't a lot of dross on the shelves, but there's some really good stuff in there too. But I've been wondering lately if there's other types of genre fiction that might be suffering from the same misunderstanding and if I was a devoted fan of them, could I turn around and answer the critics. Specifically, I'm wondering about:

• Romances
  
• Mysteries
  
• Westerns
  

And there are probably others, but those (along with SF/F) are the big classifications I see in bookstores. I feel like it might be very hard for Romance or Mystery novels to break their molds because their genre is heavily focused on their plots (people falling in love, a mystery solved) whereas SF/F can have any sort of plot, it's all the trappings (spaceships, elves, etc.) that consign it to the genre bin. But that could easily be my own myopia talking. And that's the point of this post. What kinds of responses would genre fans give for:

"Oh, Romances. It's all Jane Austen or Harlequin Bodice-Rippers where people spend 150 pages inventing reasons not to be together."

"Oh, Mysteries. It's all quirky investigators and their little clockwork puzzles or hard-boiled detectives punching things until a solution falls out."

"Oh, Westerns. It's all gun fights and bad guys and sex with dance hall girls."

What's hiding in other genre ghettos?
Tom

* How about Anathem, Courship Rites, and Blindsight (oh and Dhalgren if I'm feeling mean)?

** Trial of Flowers, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and Little, Big.

Comments

[kcatalyst.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure Jane Austen is not typically included in "Romance".

Of the genres, mystery is the only one I'd qualify remotely as a fan for and mostly I'd agree about the quirky detectives. I don't care for the hard-boiled ones. But if I wanted to indignantly push back I'd point to Dorothy L. Sayers, probably.

[metagnat.livejournal.com]

I agree on the count of Dorothy L. Sayers and on Jane Austen not being typical romance. Modern romance is written by mill process, from what I understand. I believe the publishers even hand out guidelines for what should happen in each chapter, depending on the type of romance.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

If the whole romance genre was Jane Austen, the world would be a much better place. I think romance as a whole suffers because, more than any other genre aimed at adults, the worst of it is churned off a production line according to standardized plots and rules.

For mysteries, Chandler and Hammett are both very good and well-respected. Indeed, I think if you haven't read Chandler, you're wasting your ability to read English.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite lines I've read in a book was, "she had more curves than a Raymond Chandler metaphor." :)

[asciikitty.livejournal.com]

If the whole romance genre was Jane Austen, the world would be a much better place. I think romance as a whole suffers because, more than any other genre aimed at adults, the worst of it is churned off a production line according to standardized plots and rules.

Ignoring for a bit our differences about Jane Austen: the key phrase here is "the worst of it."

And the best of the romance genre, like the "best" of SF and the "best" of mystery, isn't marketed as genre. The thing is, there are good and bad authors within any genre, and there are genre conventions that are what a reader of, say, mystery, expects when he picks up a mystery novel.

For romance, I personally recommend Jennifer Cruise. I suspect Lucy March will be worth watching when her next book comes out. Nora Roberts does a VERY good job of showing how much play there is in a formula. At least Cruise and Roberts are currently shelves in lit-fic rather than in romance.

Tessa Dare and Eloisa James have both written some nice smart snappy books that *are* marketed as romance - they aren't the next great american novel, but they're fun and well written, and yes, written to a formula.

If the whole romance genre would be in=mproved by being Jane Austen, would the whole SF genre be improved by being Huxley? Spenser?

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

I believe my hyperbole just bit me in the ass.

[asciikitty.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling more literal minded than usual today.

And maybe a little defensive of romance as a genre - it's like country music. People tend to be dismissive just because.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

And maybe a little defensive of romance as a genre

I can relate. I write roleplaying games. When I don't get "dismissive" I get "what's that?"

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Like!

[kadath.livejournal.com]

The one person I rec'ed Blindsight to hated it with such a fiery passion I'm gunshy about that one now. (Of course, he's a philosophy PhD, so maybe wrong audience, there.)

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

Oh, god! Jane Austen is NOT Romance. Her plots often revolve around who will marry whom, but that's just to give her something to talk about while she skewers all and sundry with her rapier wit. Jane comments on who people are and how they behave in groups, using their courtship rituals more as an anthropologist would than as a Romance author would.

Don't judge Jane Austen by movies that have been made of her work; you really have to read her to get Jane Austen. Many consider to be the English language's finest novelist.

There are a lot of really, really bad mysteries out there, but there's some good stuff, too. I'll have to think a bit before I come up with books that are great literature, though I could give you a list of fine mysteries with little effort.

When my husband was trying to teach himself to write, he read a book on writing that said that the first step was to READ good writing. There followed a list of recommended authors, most of them writers of classics. But one was a mystery author: Dorothy Sayers. I won't say her works are literature in the same way that the best science fiction is, but I will say that the lady can WRITE.