Babel Clash

Burne-Jones, "Beguiling of Merlin"

Hey Matt: I had some ideas about this mainstream/genre thing, which will hopefully show up on SF Signal next week when they unveil Part Two of this Mind Meld. (I raved about the same subject here, too.) But, like you, I have sometimes wondered why we keep asking ourselves this question. Also, I wonder who the “they” is that we’re sure is scorning us.

For one thing, academia doesn’t really canonize literary works anymore. For good or for evil, postmodernism changed all that. Now in academia anything can be studied (from Madonna’s costume over the years to the underwear of Homeric heroes) but nothing may be revered. In a way that’s certainly good: working at a university doesn’t give anyone the power of infallibility (literary or otherwise). In a way it’s bad: if profs can’t articulate the stuff in a work that makes it worthwhile, interesting to read not just study like a dead bug, they may find students drifting away from them and their subjects (which I think is sometimes certainly the case). I know little about the more rarified heights of nonacademic literary criticism, but I would be surprised if the same thing weren’t true: apparently it’s not easy to find an audience for new booklength literary fiction.

Another question is: what is the mainstream?

_____

Someone (Neal Stephenson? Hm…. Lord Google suggests I may be thinking of this) recently argued that genre is the mainstream, or anyway that the sort of fiction that used to be mainstream is now only one category of fiction among all the others. That may or may not be so, but it sort of begs the question of what makes us (genre) different from them (the artists formerly known as mainstream).

It may be a mere social difference, like who gets a slushy thrown in their face in high school and who doesn’t. But I think there are two real differences between genre fiction and the (artists formerly known as) mainstream.

One is what they concentrate on. It seems to me, and to others (but not everyone) that literary fiction de-emphasizes plot for other values. I think this is a mistake. Aristotle pointed out that the plot is the storyteller’s main intrument in effecting an emotional response from the audience, and he seems to have taken it from granted that the audience’s emotional response (and its attendant pleasure) was the point of art. Genre fiction—-whether we’re talking about mysteries, or sword-and-sorcery, or Tarzan pastiche or whatever—-tends to focus on what people do, their conduct (rather than their character). That alone won’t result in a satisfying plot, but it leads in the right direction. I’m not knocking good characterization, but the two things aren’t necessarily opposed. As John Hocking says, “Action is character.” You are what you do (or fail to do, or try to do).

I think that literary fiction is too fixated on meaning, also. This sounds bad, I guess. (”Stop using them big words! They hurt my head! Just tell me what happened to the Stripey Wizard of Frunklidardum!”) But I think it’s a fundamental mistake to suppose that literature is about conveying meaning. Language has to convey meaning, of course—-it’s hard to write a sentence that has no meaning at all (though many have come close). But the purpose of the meaning is to create an impact. Too much stuff seems to be constructed the other way around—-as if the intended meaning were the purpose, and the emotional impact is just there for a spice of added emphasis, like the CAPS LOCK button.

I’ll name a name, here. A couple years ago, I finally read Don DeLillo’s White Noise (which is already something of a modern classic, and so no longer cool). And I did enjoy it: parts of it were funny, and parts disturbing, and through lots of it I kept saying, “Yes, I see his point, here.” I thought I might read some more DeLillo sometime. But I never have, because, when push comes to shove, “I see the point he’s making here” isn’t exactly the highest praise I can give to a piece of fiction.

Literary fiction doesn’t have to be that way. It wasn’t always that way; perhaps it won’t always be that way, and it could be argued that it’s not really that way now: one aging book doesn’t really constitute a scientific sample of the field. But I do see this as a longstanding problem with how people interpret literature—-and, consequently, write it.

None of this is the reason why I write sword-and-sorcery, of course. I do that because I like impossible things. But maybe that’s a topic for another rant.

Related posts:

• Mainstream Space Squids
  Over at SF Signal, there’s a “Mind Meld” discussion about the perennial bugaboo of “mainstream approval” for literary science fiction and fantasy. Does literary genre fiction have the respect of the mainstream? Does it need such respect? The predominant response seems to be “no.” And whenever this topic comes up,...
• Engefluenza!
  Hey, Matt, I was fascinated by Earthsea, too. Still am, in fact. The original trilogy, especially the first two books, still rank among my all-time favorite fantasy novels: I love Ged’s confrontation with the gebbeth, and the conjuring scene, and the conversation with the dragon, and the final resolution of...
• Mix and Mash
  Hey Matt: I know what you mean about mash-ups, but I guess I’d draw a distinction between something like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (and similar projects, including unfortunately “Wyatt Earp Vs. Godzilla”) and genre-mixing in general. Mash-ups are gags that can quickly wear out their welcome, but genre-mixing is...
• Monster Cowboys In Space!
  Matt, I liked your piece on Dune and avoiding labels. When I first read the book I hadn’t formed a definite impression of what sf was yet, so Dune became part of my definition. It said “science fiction” right on the cover, but on the back was a quote from...
• Telling the Tale
  Bill’s and Matt’s posts about reading really struck home for me. I like to think of stories (anyone’s stories) as a script for a performance. And I’ve learned the most about storytelling by telling stories (without any script) to live audiences, starting with my kids. A live audience has a...