In today's Salon, novelist J. Robert Lennon takes issue with the notion that young writers should immerse themselves in contemporary literary fiction. His argument isn't that they shouldn't read it at all, but rather that there's plenty of great material in other genres and other time periods to build a satisfying and varied literary diet. Only getting creative stimulus from a single group of people writing the same kind of thing at the same moment in time will lead to "hackneyed, insular, boring writing."
I couldn't agree more.*
The real WTF moment is that we're still having this conversation because there's still a prejudice in the literary establishment against work that doesn't fit the literary fiction formula. There are enough incisive, well-written genre fiction novels that we shouldn't be under the impression any more that important things can only be said by characters navigating their relationships over fair trade coffee in Greenwich Village.
Detractors define genre fiction by its cliches and its worst examples. Yet Lennon points out that cliches and bad writing exist in literary fiction, too. Somehow, however, writing about another disaffected thirtysomething who can't escape the ennui in his relationships and his job is a lesser sin than writing about another monosyllabic P.I. with a shady past, another repressed-yet-passionate Victorian noblewoman, or another space academy prodigy who's going to save the day.
But there's an aesthetic hierarchy at work here, and just as it's more acceptable in most circles to follow Monday Night Football than The Bachelor, people are more likely to get eye rolls if they reveal that the self-loathing and sybaritic protagonist of the book they're reading is also a werewolf (thank you, Glen Duncan).
*Of course, I wouldn't agree that "literary fiction is fucking boring," but then again, I tend to pick and choose my reading material across genres, so I'm probably not digging deep enough to get to the boring stuff.
I couldn't agree more.*
The real WTF moment is that we're still having this conversation because there's still a prejudice in the literary establishment against work that doesn't fit the literary fiction formula. There are enough incisive, well-written genre fiction novels that we shouldn't be under the impression any more that important things can only be said by characters navigating their relationships over fair trade coffee in Greenwich Village.
Detractors define genre fiction by its cliches and its worst examples. Yet Lennon points out that cliches and bad writing exist in literary fiction, too. Somehow, however, writing about another disaffected thirtysomething who can't escape the ennui in his relationships and his job is a lesser sin than writing about another monosyllabic P.I. with a shady past, another repressed-yet-passionate Victorian noblewoman, or another space academy prodigy who's going to save the day.
But there's an aesthetic hierarchy at work here, and just as it's more acceptable in most circles to follow Monday Night Football than The Bachelor, people are more likely to get eye rolls if they reveal that the self-loathing and sybaritic protagonist of the book they're reading is also a werewolf (thank you, Glen Duncan).
*Of course, I wouldn't agree that "literary fiction is fucking boring," but then again, I tend to pick and choose my reading material across genres, so I'm probably not digging deep enough to get to the boring stuff.