Go read this.
That might have irritated you something fierce. If it did, you’re not at all alone, since this got posted shortly after as a means of clarification. There are posts like this all over the place, exhibitions of this very curious tendency of bloggers and critics to go into “Highlander” mode and believe there can be only one form of fiction and only one type of author. I suspect this isn’t even the first time this particular argument has been tossed about. I suspect there are quite a few “literary snobs” sitting around and commenting on the status of The Black Prism as it compares to Jane Austen. I suspect right now, there’s some fantasy writer agonizing over how his book is going to provide commentary on the world that desperately needs to be heard.
But we’re not going to talk about those guys. We’re not going to talk about the Speculative Scotsman’s posts. We’re not going to discuss the state of the genre as it compares to mainstream literary fiction.
Why?
Because I seriously don’t give a shit.
And why don’t I give a shit…seriously?
Because this does not matter in the slightest.
This particular topic has been hashed and rehashed to death and every time I read it, I can’t help but think I’ve walked in on a conversation toward the end, when people have set aside their wine glasses and begin rolling up their sleeves. I always think I’ve missed something, because I sincerely can’t figure out why we’re discussing this in the first place.
One of my favorite reads of last year was The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, a story about an Indian cab driver and his reaction to the world’s attempts to destroy his dignity. I loved this book a lot and so did a lot of people. Enough that it won the Booker Award. I can’t say it didn’t deserve it; it was a fantastic read and a great insight into a world I’ve never seen.
One of my favorite reads of all time is The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, a story about a lying asshole who quests first for riches, then for revenge in a world that he understands all too well. I loved this book and so did a lot of people. Enough that it’s one of the first books that comes to mind when people think of “great fantasy.” I can’t say it didn’t deserve it; it’s a fantastic read and a great insight into a mind I’ve never seen.
They are two fantastic books.
I love them both.
To date, I have never asked myself “who would win in a fight between Aravind Adiga and Scott Lynch?”
Because there’s just no comparing the two.
“Yes, of course,” you might say, “there is no comparison, because one’s meant as a serious commentary and the other is intended for pure entertainment.”
“Or,” you other guys might say, upon reading that first ‘you’s’ comment, “there is no comparison, because one is a masterful insight into character in a glorious world and the other is stodgy mainstream.”
That’s not what I mean and I suspect you know that.
The White Tiger is no more stodgy mainstream for snobs than The Lies of Locke Lamora is pure entertainment. I don’t compare the two because they’re completely different beasts and I get completely different things out of them. They’re both entertaining, of course, and both well-written, but while I gather insight of one kind from one kind, I gather insight from another from the other. At no point did it ever occur to me, when reading (or re-reading) either, to compare the two.
And this, I feel, is a good place to be in. I can accept both books on their own merits, enjoy both their qualities for what they are.
Why can’t the rest of us?
If you’re at all familiar with this blog, you know I think the sheer amount of unfair comparisons in the genre is damaging to us all. Comparing one author to another when they’ve little in common with each other diminishes the value of both’s contributions. Applied to literature as a whole, it’s damaging to everything. Suddenly, the expectations twist violently from expecting a good book to expecting something from a book that the book will never be. Suddenly, the unfair criticism is no longer “this author isn’t George R.R. Martin,” so much as it is “this book isn’t Pride and Prejudice! I’ve been tricked!”
You can, in fact, enjoy both on their own merits. The comparisons are silly.
It’s ridiculous.
It’s unnecessary.
I want to punch you all in the face.
Love,
Sam Sykes xoxoxo
Can you give us something else to fight about then?
How about book covers?
I want to make a few points on this:
1. You are absolutely right. What you get from a book is completely subjective. One person’s life changing read can be another’s “worst book ever”.
2. Genre does not matter. If you think a book is good, it is good. -And I think most would agree it is better that people read what you think is crap than that they don’t read at all.
3. Reading in different genres is good for you. -A personal anecdote here: I read “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts, a great book, and it helped me enjoy “River of Gods” by Ian McDonald more by not getting “bogged down” in the “strangeness” of Indian society.
4. This discussion will not end until books are classified as just fiction or non-fiction. (That will be two days after the universe ends.) -But I think we all secretly love the discussion, don’t we?
5. You have to wait till your books are a resounding success to punch me, so I can sue you for more money :-p
You’re right – of course you’re right. It doesn’t matter at all.
I love reading. I love reading all my books. Any genre. They all give me something a little bit different. I wouldn’t argue the difference between crime or chick lit or historical or anything like that. I just enjoy them all for what they are.
Thank you for giving me some perspective.
Unfair comparisons is also due to genre expectations and formulaic structure.
The problem of “fantasy” (or every other discriminated genre, there are so many) is its public. The expectations of the public who demands certain canons and so consequently molds the genre into a formulaic market.
Few readers, in every genre, appreciate diversity. So if a book sits in a narrowly defined genre it means it builds strong canons, and every book that goes to sit in that genre will have to deal with pre-existing canons applied to it.
“Fantasy” only happens to be a very narrowly defined and specific genre, so with more strict canons than usual. Think for example how every review deals with a fantasy book by its performance in a few genre-defining categories: characters, plot, worldbuilding, magic system.
If a fantasy book doesn’t develop the worldbuilding aspect it will be considered a bad book. And those strict categories are what MAKE the genre a surrogate, by forcing canons and formulaic structures.
So the point is: we complain about the fences that surround our favorite genre. We complain because we are discriminated. Yet those fences are built by us. The flaw we see outside is the exact mirror of what we do, and that prejudice is our own.
There once was a hashtag going around twitter entitled “Dear Editor,” in which readers made requests and complaints of various publishers. The overwhelming trend was the phrase “I prefer new things to old things. Even if it’s bad, if it’s original, I’ll buy it.” It was tweeted, retweeted and rephrased dozens of times.
My editor responded with “Dear Reader, if you’d like new books, perhaps you should buy them when we put them out.”
We do build our fences. As a friend mine noted, fantasy fans tend to be a pretty conservative bunch, which is a little strange considering the genre. We tend to focus on what we know, what’s comfortable, and buy that. And when we’re presented with something new, we compare it to what we already have, even if they’re totally different.
I never said the genre (and readership as a whole) didn’t have problems. I just think this is one that doesn’t really need to be there.
Consider also that during my life I’ve been constantly exposed to this discrimination problem. And that’s the reason why it should be dealt on the general level to be correctly understood.
For example discrimination is a very familiar feeling if you read comics and aren’t anymore a teenager. “You STILL read comics?” It’s a so widespread commonplace and so those fans will be forced, over and over for the rest of their life, to justify themselves. Same if you are a fan of a specific genre. Manga, anime, fantasy books, computer games. Basically everything that isn’t directly “mainstream”. You’ll even be discriminated if you ARE mainstream, if you enjoy Eminem, or if you enjoy Britney Spears, if you watch reality shows.
And again, the more you fall deep into a category, the more you suffer discrimination. You are a big fantasy books reader and you will be discriminated. The same as if you are a punk and wear fancy clothes or dye your hair, or if you are emo and only wear black.
It’s a wider sociological phenomenon, and there’s nothing peculiar about “fantasy”, since I’ve read these types of discussion all my life, in completely different contexts, and yet always the same. It’s just this silly need that human beings have of building fences. Both to keep strangers outside and to create an identity. To only then complain that the world outside discriminates who’s behind the fence.
I’ll have you know I didn’t once set aside my glass of wine while I was writing that clarification. 😛
Anyway. Yes. Yes to all of this: the article itself, and the comments which have followed it. Which I don’t suppose is particularly synchronous with the points of view I was espousing over at TSS – and they’re points of view I stand behind, though I feel, given the startling reaction, I’ve been manouvered (my own doing as much as anyone’s) into a corner where I either have to stand behind them much more forcefully than I’d ever meant to or pussywillow my way in the opposite direction. I love fantasy, I love fiction, in all shapes and sizes. Non-fiction does it for me, even, from time to time, though I’d suggest, irregardless of that Conan Doyle quote, real life stories have a harder time matching up to stories constructed to satisfy our expectations of stories.
But that’s another damn tangent. The question I raised in the first place seems to have been a starting point a various discussions I think are important, whether or not my own iteration of it can ultimately be said to have been; this one, here on your blog, Sam, inasmuch as those Robert Jackson Bennett, Martin Lewis, Gav and Amanda have chaired.
Clearly I framed the debate completely wrongheadedly. Apples and oranges, all that. (Oranges are, *ahem*, clearly better.)
Now then. I’m going to have to read The White Tiger, aren’t I?
I think you can make the claim that Sci-Fi doesn’t come in at the top of the stack of well written novels without actually doing any compare and contrast of genres.
Throw out all the categories. Period. Its all just fiction. Nothing to compare except:
Was it well written?
If you then ranked all the fiction without regard to genre where are your favorite books? The fantasy books I like are squarely in the middle and upper middle class.
There are undoubtedly a great many I don’t like in the lower class, the slums and the gutters of hell. But there are lots of those books in the mainstream as well.
And it doesn’t mean that the greatest author of our time will not be a Fantasy author. It might happen. The genre is not limiting great authors.
There are lots of well written books that I put down and don’t pick up again. I can appreciate their form, but I don’t enjoy their company. And to the extent that you enjoy a book’s company it is fair to say that you cannot compare books. Because like all friends they are a diverse lot with lots of different traits that appeal differently.
Well, yes, you could make that claim, rather easily, too. But that just tends to be the way anything pans out, doesn’t it? The vast majority is usually not worth remarking upon.
The issue being made is that it’s frequently considered a problem of the genre. If a mainstream book is bad, it’s judged on its own merits. If a fantasy book is bad, it’s judged against the entire genre and vice versa.
A bad book is just a bad book.
I guess I didn’t take from Alexander’s original blog post that fantasy as a genre was inferior; only that the 90/10 nature of things led to rather fewer well written books.
I don’t doubt that people do throw away the whole genre with prejudice, but generally those people don’t like fantasy and just add in “badly written” as an uninformed comment. Based on the context of Alexander’s blog being about Speculative Fiction and on his exposition of the 90/10 rule I left blog with the impression that he was explaining the nature of the situation not equating bad books to fantasy.
You are right in saying that it is unfair to compare one author to another or even one genre to another in saying that these books are better.
But it is not unfair to compare good writing to a fairly general standard. That standard is applied to the whole of literature. While the standard itself is certainly subjective, there is no doubt we can all identify the crap and we can also identify the good. Within those broad definitions there are nuances that become personal, but we better make sure we still hold authors to the standards of good writing no matter what genre they choose.
Writing well written, original prose has no limitation in genre. Writing a fascinating plot, well developed characters, poignant themes and carefully crafted settings are just as doable in Fantasy.
Writing is writing.
Sorry change sci-fi to Fantasy in my comment. Next time I will re-read my comments before hitting enter.
There is a (in my own opinion) distressing lack of works thoroughly literary in nature within the Fantasy Genre. I feel it has such a potential be a fantastic medium for literary material, but it seems terribly underutilized in that regard. I mean, when you stop to consider it, Fantasy has all the potential of any work set in the “real” world, and none of its limitations.
On the whole, I see that the genre really has room to grow, whether it be in the mindset of the readers or the writers.
Pingback: Adrian Faulkner » Blog Archive » Why We Shouldn’t Worry That My Mother Hates Fantasy