Genre geeking

[vinnie_tesla]

Readercon was fun and very intense. This isn't a report on that experience--it's an essay I started to prepare for the event. I was on one panel, entitled Traditional Genre Boundries are Melting, and I wanted to clarify my own thoughts on genre as preparation. I'm not sure I actually achieved all that much clarity, but I did manage to bring

Comments

[laurenpburka]

I had a similar experience reading AEgypt. Except that I learned long ago that book blurb has nothing to do with book innards. The blurb implied "traditional fantasy novel." On the other hand, I'd been tipped off by the attitude of Literature in general towards John Crowley. I've had the impression that his books were considered "too good to be fantasy." Thus when I figured out what was going on, maybe 1/3 of the way through the book, I knew exactly what kind of book it was

[vinnie_tesla]

What are those two different things? And what did you think of Little, Big?

[laurenpburka]

The two different things are here:

"It was a book that literary people call "fantasy," because they have no appreciation or understanding of the fantasy genre. People who are fans of the fantasy genre don't consider this fantasy genre book. Fantasy readers may appreciate the book, but will think it is too "literary" for their tastes and hesitate to recommend the books to another fan of the fantasy genre."

I loved Little, Big. I wanted to explain it to someone else, but the mark of "literary" fiction is that if you can't explain it to someone else. Palimpsest was like that too.

[dietrich]

A work that violates all the reader's expectations registers not as a story but as white noise--a random scattering of words on the page, or a roast beef sandwich, or a punch in the nose.

I just wanted to say that I heart this sentence. That is all, really.