There is nothing like the genre fiction/literature divide to ruin friendships. ‘You’re an elitist bitch!’ ‘You read trash!’ ‘Your a slut for Proust!’ ‘You can’t spell!’ ‘I SED UR A SLUT.’ ‘I SAID YOU CAN’T SPELL!’
One of these arguments erupts around me every month or so, and I’m frequently involved, even when I try hard to stay away. It’s tiresome. Like getting your period.
There are various kinds of arguments (in the ‘fight’ sense of the word) related to genre/literature, but the most annoying kinds are with (a) people who refuse to even consider something generic as worth reading and (b) people who use all kinds of theories to say ‘genre fiction is better than literature.’
And there are all kinds of misconceptions about the ‘other’ kind of writing. Two incidents:
This happened a couple of years ago at a Reliance TimeOut book launch. My friends and I had gone to check out this new publisher and listen to readings from their new books. (I don’t remember the name of this publisher, and google is being useless.) We didn’t know what to expect because we didn’t know anyone there. Usually that’s a good thing, but this time, it was disastrous.
There was an obnoxious looking man (initial judgement based on the kind of shirt he was wearing: weird print) who starting talking. He asked the audience what they liked to read. I’d just bought Ishiguro‘s A Pale View of Hills (I used to be crazy about him once upon a time; I’ve since changed my mind), so I lifted the book up to show him.
He took this as a perfect segueway into his rant against
literature
‘literature’
Penguin
authors published by Penguin
creative writing courses
Ishiguro, of course
people who read Ishiguro
me
the Booker
craft
Yes, craft.
Let’s back up a little. This particular publishing company had (has?) as its focus crime and other genre fiction. The book they were plugging at this particular event was a sci-fi/thriller set in India. Now, I applaud what they were trying to do. India lacks good genre fiction in English. I’m all for variety.
Except, the guy in charge was an enemy of craft. I can understand people disliking literary fiction and writing that appeals to niche audiences — I don’t like it, but I understand it — but how does one comprehend a hatred of craft?
The guy’s theory is as follows: Craft is something that people who write litfic have and need. But this kind of writing appeals to only a very small number of people. Therefore craft is bad. People who appeal to the masses are wonderful and they don’t need craft. Craft will ruin their books.
Naturally I got angry. I like to think I’ve grown up a little, enough to ignore such obviously deficient people. But back then, I got angry and I gave expression to this anger and we got into good old — let’s not euphemise this, — fight.
Me: All writers need craft! Or rather, everyone has a craft of their own, but they need to develop it!
Him: You’re wrong!
Me: How am I wrong?
Him: Look, you read Ishiguro. Nobody reads Ishiguro.
Me: Er, loads of people read Ishiguro. He gets good royalty checks. He’s no Dan Brown, but they’ve made a movi–
Him: Dan Brown is the messiah.
It was an embarrassingly long exchange which ended with me getting self-righteous and saying, ‘I’m never going to buy your books! And it’s a shame, because India needs an Agatha Christie,’ and him being just as bad, saying, ‘I don’t need you to buy my books.’
There was a lot of hmph in the air. My friends were so ashamed. And why Agatha Christie, I don’t know.
I really want to know: do people actually believe that you can be a writer — any kind of writer — without working on your craft? And I mean people in the industry. There are loads of delusional people who think writing comes in dreams and in envelopes from god.
The second incident involved a well-known Indian playwright who was invited to a panel discussion on the adaptation of novels to film. I’ve no idea why he was invited, but since he was, he chose to appall us with his regressive ideas about cinema. While the other panelists focussed on what constituted a successful adaptation of novel to film, Mr Fancy Pants decided to crap on adaptations altogether. Apparently adaptation destroys the original. How? By lighting a fire, you say? No kidding!
The discussion moved almost inevitably towards popular writing and popular media, like comics and graphic novels. Someone suggested that having graphic novels reinterpret the classics meant that more people, and younger people, were engaging with the classics. But what a reprehensible idea this was! Mr Fancy Pants explained, ‘The essence of literature is lost.’
Me: <innocently> Excuse me, but what is the essence of literature?
FP: What do you mean what is the essence of literature? I mean, the essence of the book of course. What’s between the covers.
Me: <still innocent> So you mean paper and ink?
Unfortunately, they shut me down and I don’t think he heard my response.
_____
I almost forgot why I started this post. This is the nature of rants. I realise now that I might actually incite someone to start a tiresome argument with me, though it’s equally possible that we have an illuminating discussion, in which case, yay!
But I started this mainly to type up a passage from Paul Auster‘s The New York Trilogy, which I am currently reading. It’s an enjoyable book, but I’m being cautious with it. A year ago, I would have fallen for it instantly, but now I’m suspicious of postmodernist/metafictional fiction. Just a tad.
What [Quinn] liked about [mystery novels] was their sense of plenitude and economy. In the good mystery there is nothing wasted, no sentence, no word that is not significant. And even if it is not significant, it has the potential to be so — which amounts to the same thing. The world of the book comes to life, seething with possibilities, with secrets and contradictions. Since everything seen or said, even the slightest, most trivial thing, can bear a connection to the outcome of the story, nothing must be overlooked. Everything becomes essence, the centre of the book shifts with each event that propels it forward. The centre, then, is everywhere, and no circumference can be drawn until the book has come to its end.
The detective is the one who looks, who listens, who moves through this morass of objects and events in search of the thought, the idea that will pull all these things together and make sense of them. In effect, the writer and the detective are interchangeable. The reader sees the world through the detective’s eye, experiencing the proliferation of its details as if for the first time. He has become awake to the things around him, as if they might speak to him, as if, because of the attentiveness he now brings to them, they might begin to carry a meaning other than the simple fact of their existence. Private eye. The term held a triple meaning for Quinn. Not only was it the letter ‘i,’ standing for ‘investigator.’ it was ‘I’ in the upper case, the tiny life-bud buried in the body of the breathing self. At the same time, it was also the physical eye of the writer, the eye of the man who looks out from himself into the world and demands that the world reveal itself to him. For years now, Quinn had been living in the grip of this pun.
_____
Bought some new books today:
I kept telling myself I didn’t need to read any more Plath every time I saw this at Bookworm. Today I gave up and bought it. People were pawing at it! I had to erase their smudges!
I have no idea why I bought this. I read Sexus last year and hated it. Hated the way Miller writes. Tropic of Cancer is supposed to be better, but still.
I approve of every word you’ve written here. Also, Auster’s good people. If you can, try and get your hands on David Mazzuchelli and Paul Karasik’s comic-book adaptation of ‘City of Glass’. A masterpiece of adaptation, and of comics, no two bones about that, and sod Mr. Fancy Pants.
Yikes. Poor you. I agree that India needs more genre fiction but am very surprised that someone would think that writing crime or mystery would not require craft. Happy reading with the Bell Jar (though happy may not be the word). I used to be obsessed with Plath at one time so naturally, made it a point to stop reading her for a while and now I realize it’s been a few years! Oh, and I’m wickedly dying to know who this fancy-pants playwright is.
“do people actually believe that you can be a writer — any kind of writer — without working on your craft?”
Depends on what you mean by being a writer. Can you get published without working on your craft? Yes. Can you be a good writer – in any genre – without working on your craft? No.
I have to say I partially agree with Mr. Fancy Pants. Graphic novel versions of books come at the cost of what makes many books worth reading – language. Which is not to say, of course, that graphic novel / movie versions of great books are not welcome, only that they make for good complements but bad substitutes.
Oh, and why would you subject yourself to Miller?
‘I like to think I’ve grown up a little’. : ) I like the way you write. It’s got a lot of integrity and transparency in it. Enjoyed.
Assholes and idiots believe you can be a decent writer — or an artist of any kind, hell, a human being — without craft. I couldn’t agree with you more that everyone has a craft. I can understand why people of that guy’s stripe distrust it, of course. Too much style and not enough substance makes for books every bit as dry as pulp books are syrupy. I’d accept the argument that “literary” writers are arrogant, but that guy proves schlock writers can be just as bad. Anyone can be arrogant. Is that news? How can people not know this already? Dan Brown is the messiah indeed. I wouldn’t have been able to argue with him after that, if only because I’d be laughing too hard.
“No circumference can be drawn until the book has come to an end.”
He’s giving you a clue there, trust him. I should read it again. There are more hints throughout the text than I thought even when I’d finished it and skimmed back. His later work is much less ambitious but he does weave a few very cool meta threads into the fabric of his work as a whole.
I bet there was a camp of ancient Greeks who gave Homer a hard time for writing shit down. “You’re robbing the oral tradition of its essence.” Likewise radio die-hards vs. early television producers, silent movie directors vs. directors of talkies, etc. etc. An adaptation may be judged on its own or in comparison to the original, but it cannot make the original less valuable or meaningful. I get the impression this is what guys like that playwright fear. He’s afraid of being obsolete. His labors are loftier for being in a relatively obscure and less lucrative medium. A movie can’t be as soulful as a play because it makes more money. That sort of thing. I dunno, I prefer to judge art case by case, each piece on its own merits. Maybe that’s just the peasant in me.
these publishers – do they rhyme with ‘craft’?
(just asking).
and love that you lost your way in the rant.
@ Aditya
Nice to see you here! And I will look out for the comic. They’re always too expensive for me, but if it’s in my library, I can borrow it.
@ Anindita
I have this theory that all women interested in reading/writing poetry have a period, however long, however brief, of intense worship for Plath. Of course, it’s just a theory.
I wish I could remember his name. I’d recognise him though. Tall, balding.
@ Falstaff
‘Depends on what you mean by being a writer.’
This is true. I’m still curious to know what this particular publisher understood by ‘craft.’ My own understanding is that everyone who writes has craft, but it’s up to them to develop it because you’re not born with perfect skills. And craft includes a vast range of things: how to construct sentences, how to create and describe characters, how to plot a story, from basic to more complicated stuff.
So even someone like Chetan Bhagat, whose writing I detest, has some basic skills. But this publisher guy seemed to think ‘craft’ was a flavour you could add or subtract from writing.
Mr Fancy Pants. Well, I think there’s a distinction between what you say and what he said. He refused to even entertain the idea that they could complement the originals. And adaptations can’t be substitutes, how can they be?
Miller — I don’t know. I feel so stupid looking at that book. It was probably the font on the cover or something equally unimportant. I thought my days of impulsive buying were over.
Anyway, I’ve shacked him up with Nin. She’s a terrible writer, but I read her anyway. Plus they liked each other.
@ Jon
Dan Brown is the messiah. Well, uh, that’s me putting words in his mouth. *cough*
‘I bet there was a camp of ancient Greeks who gave Homer a hard time for writing shit down. “You’re robbing the oral tradition of its essence.”’
That’s true. I believe Socrates was very upset with the shift away from oral traditions. And it keeps happening. But you’d think we’d learnt a little from history by now.
@ Space Bar
The name of the publishers? I don’t remember at all. I remember that publisher’s wife writes soaps and the book they were launching was something about internet crime.
I wonder if there is such a thing as the art/craft of writing rants. Maybe I need to workshop my rants. : P
If I learned anything from George Carlin it’s that ranting is an art.
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Aditi: A definition of craft that basic makes the argument potentially tautological. I suspect the more interesting distinction is between trying to perfect your craft and having just enough craft to get by (the latter being something you could easily be born with and may therefore not need to work on).
What I find amusing is that anyone would target someone as ploddingly mainstream as Ishiguro for having limited appeal. Personally, I tend to think of Ishiguro as being, if anything, too popular. Not that this influences my opinion of his work – I would think him just as modestly gifted a writer if he sold a quarter as many copies as he does now. I think.
@ Jon
Hah, it is. But the chances of me being the next George Carlin are slim.
@ Falstaff
Is it that basic? In any case, you’re not born with the ability to write sentences, and it’s certainly not a flavour.
‘What I find amusing is that anyone would target someone as ploddingly mainstream as Ishiguro for having limited appeal.’
Hah, exactly. I bet the poor sod hadn’t ever read any Ishiguro. Either that or he’s seriously misguided.
Hm, craft: I don’t think that word means what he thinks it means. Craft does not refer only to style. Isn’t there a craft to writing an engaging story?
The essence of the book – paper and ink. I’m going to steal that…
I hate to be a hippie about this, but can’t we just let folk read what they want to read? Bruce chatwin said that the split between fiction and non-fiction was arbitrary and pretty much created by publishers. The same could be said about “genre” and “literature” – especially when you zoom forward a couple of hundred years and look backwards..
And as for craft – would this Dan Brown worshiping man object to buying, say, a chair that had been made by a carpenter who had spent 30 years perfecting how to make chairs? Or would he prefer one from a man who thought three planks of wood, a hammer, some nails and the desire to sell chairs was all that was required?
How can good craftsmanship ever be bad?