Trashy Reading
Because heaven forbid that you be caught in public reading anything but great literature. (Fourth paragraph; I’d link directly to the Kate Spade website, except there’s no permalinks and there’s no wording there that implies that reading anything but great literature is best done in private, where no one can see.) [via]
Edited to add: Obviously, I’m primarily a genre fiction reader. I also earn money by reviewing genre fiction. The implication that genre fiction is less literature and something to be ashamed of offends my sensibilities. Then again, I’m not a fan of sticking books in little genre ghettos and then saying things like, “Lois McMaster Bujold’s work transcends genre.” Backhanded compliments FTW.
July 20th, 2007 in
Books
What gets me, too, is that there’s little or no reverse process regarding things like placement in bookstores– when a “respectable” author (like Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and Cormac McCarthy, to name but a few) writes something with sci-fi/fantasy characteristics, there’s NO WAY their book will be relegated solely to the sci-fi section.
There are times I think the category of “magical realism” exists just so snobs can read about witches and ghosts without having to stand near the icky Dragonlance books for a second. Yeesh.
Oh, don’t you know that Margaret Atwood has specifically said that she’s not writing science fiction and/or fantasy. I’ve only read The Handmaids’ Tale, which is at least as dystopian (and downright depressing and disturbing) as Jo Walton’s Farthing–they’re certainly the same type of novel, in my mind–but because Atwood is a “literary” writer, she gets shelved in literature and because Walton’s a “fantasy” writer, she gets shelved in SF/F.
Also, the first paragraph of this biography pulls the “transcends the genre” card: “Several of Atwood’s novels can be classified as science fiction, although her writing is above the normal formulae of the genre.” In other words, her writing is just too good to be science fiction, because science fiction writers don’t care about good writing.
That sound you hear is my head hitting the desk. Repeatedly.