Let’s start with an axiom: What people choose to read is none of my business. Call me a literary libertarian. (Appropriately, as I write this on Independence Day.) Censorship has become fashionable again in recent years and I want nothing to do with it. I assume grownups are sufficiently mature to make their own decisions, literary and otherwise. And now a corollary: What I choose to read and not read is my business alone. I don’t intend that to sound harsh or defensive. In Saturday’s post I wrote: “While admitting that ‘realism’ is a slippery term, I happily detest entire genres – science fiction, ghost stories, horror, swords-and-dragons fantasy – rooted in its opposite.” One of my readers, Thomas Parker, who regularly leaves comments at Anecdotal Evidence, replied:
“Your blog will of course
reflect your sensibilities and your tastes and there’s no need to apologize or
justify, but simply as a matter of curiosity I would be interested to know just
why you despise (very strong word!) the mentioned ‘fantastic’ genres.”
I know Parker only through
his comments. We have never otherwise communicated. I don’t even know if that’s
his real name. The only reason I bother to reply is that he seems to be a
well-read decent sort, not one of the narcissistic maniacs who haunt the bookish
precincts of the blogosphere. He continues: “I myself love ghost stories, for
instance, and even if I didn’t, I might be willing to acknowledge some grain of
value in a form that has been thought worthwhile by Henry James, Edith Wharton,
L.P. Hartley, Walter de la Mare, Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, V.S.
Pritchett, W.S. Maugham, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc. etc.”
He’s right, of course.
That’s an impressive list, topped by James, though I’ve never read Hartley. If
pressed to distill my lack of interest in the “fantastic” to a single word, I
would say: tedium. Understand, please, I’m not a critic and don’t pretend to
be. Some books rank with the peak emotional and intellectual experiences of my
life. Most do not. I’m jealous of my reading time and try not to squander it on
shoddy goods. When I encounter “fantastic” elements in fiction, I make a
choice: continue reading or not. Does the story have “literary” worth? (I won’t here
attempt to define “literary.”) Two writers who regularly meet that criterion and
overcome the genre taint are Isaac Bashevis Singer and Jorge Luis Borges. The
same is true of Henry James, though I would argue that “The Jolly Corner” is
inferior to “The Beast in the Jungle,” in part, because of the supernatural
dabbling. Ghosts are an irresistible metaphor, not horror-movie leftovers.
Please don’t caricature me
as a dreary hardcore “realist” or “naturalist.” My favorite fiction writer, even more
than James, may be Nabokov, who once said, “I loathe science fiction with its
gals and goons, suspense and suspensories.” Science fiction in particular leaves
me feeling cheated. Its “anything-goes” assumptions seem lazy and adolescent. My
middle son recently postulated a useful literary taxonomy: some books are about
ideas and some are about people. Like any vast generalization, the exceptions
come immediately to mind, though the latter category will tend to have more
literary worth. Exhibit A is George Orwell: His most popular books are Animal
Farm and 1984. Both are idea-clotted. Both die of literary thrombosis.
I haven’t been able to reread them since junior-high school. Exhibit B is
probably Tolkien.
Thomas, thanks for reading
and thanks for moving me to question my assumptions. I’m no dogmatist of
anything. Time is short. Let’s enjoy it. As Joseph Epstein reminds us:
“Hell of course will have
a library, but one stocked exclusively with science fiction, six-hundred-odd
page novels by men whose first name is Jonathan, and books extolling the 1960s.”
6 comments:
First, thank you for your thoughtful answer to my question (an answer I really didn't expect), and second, Thomas Parker is indeed my real name, as in "make checks payable to."
Theodore Sturgeon (a science fiction writer, damn it all) once said that "ninety percent of everything is crap" and the only quarrel I have with Sturgeon's Law, as it has come to be called, is that sometimes it seems to me to be overly optimistic. As a lifetime reader of science fiction, fantasy, and horror (along with other more respectable genres) I admit the shoddiness of the vast majority of their products, but I also think it's only fair to judge anything by its best examples.
That being said, the best thing about being a reader is that you're an absolute monarch. Your word is law in your own domain and while you may lift an eyebrow at what goes on across the border, you cannot tell other readers that they do not in fact enjoy what they enjoy. That authority is not given to you, nor should it be.
I once showed Singing in the Rain to a friend who was ignorant of musicals. He didn't like it, which told me that he is just constitutionally immune to the charms of that particular genre - which isn't a moral or intellectual failing. We're still friends, and I expect to be a faithful - and grateful - reader of Anecdotal Evidence until the curtain comes down.
"Detest" is a strong, almost violent, word. Imagine someone saying "I detest you" and smiling with utter contempt. People tend to attach value to what they like to read, so almost-violently attacking their books could be taken personally, by some. It's not really rational but it's how people are. But maybe you're more or an ideas guy.
Incidentally, your detestation is very modern. The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Bible, the Eddas, some Ancient Greek plays, the Iliad and Odyssey, Aeneid, Divine Comedy, Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, A Midsummer Night's Dream (and others), Paradise Lost, some Dickens, The Master & Margarita, would all fall under the shadow of your detestation, for example.
But if you only read modern literature, I guess you could avoid anything with the whiff of the supernatural or extraordinary: after a certain point, books admitting anything non-mundane become mere "genre" fiction, to be sold with special covers, as if for special needs readers.
Incidentally, I don't like most genre fiction. But I also dislike most modern novels, for different reasons.
Those of us who prefer literary fiction above all other genres feel compelled to lash out, sometimes hyperbolically, against science fiction and fantasy, because they appear to have the overwhelming approbation popular media, while the literary canon we know and love is rapidly losing status, even in what was once its sturdiest bastion, academia. If it weren't for that, we care we if someone else prefers to read science fiction, cereal boxes, or whatever?
Good writing and bad writing— as you have said many times and, of course, you're right. Those are the only labels that matter to me. Give me good writing and I'll read on virtually any subject, I promise. A note on the literary canon: the modern conception of it was borne out of academia so it's no wonder it is dying out. Good riddance, I say. The only true cannon is the one that is chiseled out by good writers and good readers, who have and continue to recommend the best of the best, generation to generation, making discoveries along the way and never being afraid to pick up an unknown volume from time to time in hopes of unearthing something great.
I try to live and let live when it comes to what others read, or don't. When in the Navy, I did interest a couple of my shipmates in reading Eric Hoffer; but the Westerns that many read did not catch on with me, even though sales of Louis L'Amour's books rank high on the all-time bestseller list. To Mister Quigg: The Master and Margarita is one of my favorite novels.
Thanks to Thomas Parker for Sturgeon's Law. The ' narcissistic maniacs who haunt the bookish precincts of the blogosphere' tend to be the bloggers themselves, whose 90% garbage readers often can't be bothered to respond to. There are exceptions.
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