Literary vs. Genre Books

A false dichotomy that many still take seriously

As seen with Twixt (2011) Coppola has a very difficult time with the idea of lowercase ‘G’ genre, that is to say, any genre that isn’t Drama. He’s the grandfather of every film student who intellectually understands the idea of “Horror” or “Fantasy” or “Magical Realism” and thinks to themselves as a laugh, “How hard could it be?” - Montilee Stormer

In 11^th grade, a particularly stupid teacher claimed that art suffered when the poors started making it and consuming it. I tried to argue based on Shakespeare but he dismissed me. Unfortunately, many literary academics agree with stupid Mr. Johnson. Creative Writing MFA programs don't teach Romance or Fantasy or Horror. People like to read Romance and Fantasy and Horror. No one is cosplaying characters from John Updike stories

We know what “serious writers” think about genre. Margaret Atwood writes science fiction but denies it. Academics coined “magical realism” so they could teach Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez without admitting that they were teaching fantasy. Beloved is a ghost story, yet it's never going to end up in the horror section. Glen Duncan declared that a literary author writing a genre book is like a college professor dating a porn star. If you read The Last Werewolf, you can see Duncan's condescension at work. It's a thoroughly mediocre book that expects accolades.

Unfortunately, this attitude isn't confined to condescending literary types. Stephen King's Danse Macabre is smart erudite discussion of the horror genre. Constantly, King has to tell the reader that he's just a regular guy, a schmuck, not one of those book learning types. The guy taught high school English and had an encyclopedic knowledge of horror, but he spent the entire book trying to convince readers that he was just a dumb guy who had some notions about why horror worked. The academic literary types had poisoned the well so much that Stephen King was too self-conscious to just talk about themes and psychology without assuring the reader that he wasn't an Ivy League professor.

“You want to read a good novel; it may describe how young boy and girl sit together and watch the rain falling. They talk about themselves and the pages of the book describe what their innermost little thoughts are. This is what is called literature. But you will never be able to appreciate that if in comic book fashion you expect that at ny minute someone will appear and pitch both of them out of the window.” - Frederic Wertham

In truth there is value in both genre and literary fiction. Charles Dickens wrote literary potboilers about orphans and schemers. He also wrote one of the most famous ghost stories in the Western canon. Genre can be formulaic but it can also be mind bending and original in ways that serious literature would never touch. Serious literature can be boring and too enamored with its tropes, but it can also be honest and beautiful.

Any survey of the literary classics will see very serious books about very serious people doing serious things like War and Peace or Moby Dick. Both books are amazing and yet, their reputations intimidate people. Repeat after me: “I'm reading War & Peace. I really like it.” Say it aloud. Say it to a friend. Try not to be embarrassed by how thati sounds. Moby Dick is gay autism. “Dick” was a euphemism for penis in the 19^th century so that title sounded just as dirty to 19^th century audiences as it sounds today.

Then we have all the classics like Wuthering Heights, Dracula, Macbeth and Lord of the Rings. These are all either horror or fantasy novels that have been read and loved by generations. As much as people like to dismiss anything enjoyed by millions as low class (or anything enjoyed by dozens of academics as boring snobbery), ultimately every genre has its value. Bad enough that school boards want to police what children read. We shouldn't police what we read and enjoy.

Of course, I'm not innocent here. As much as I love genre and literary works, I am woefully deficient when it comes to Romance. I didn't even know that Flowers in the Attic was about incest until I was an adult. That certainly colored my memories of middle school. While some 8^th grade girls thought that Forever was a dirty book, others were reading all the V.C. Andrews incest books, repeatedly it seems. As much as I like Rom-Coms when I go to the movies, I really don't have manay romance books in my collection. So if you have any recommendations, please comment.

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I publish books including Victorian murder mystery Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill.

This article was inspired by a previous John Cheever article where I compared his story to a Michael Moorcock story. Read it here.