Margaret's Column

Genre labels are limiting, constricting writers (and film makers) into stylistic straitjackets. Slap such a label on a book, and automatically, the cliches, ahem, spring to mind. Fantasy: That’s wizards and elves, right? Mysteries: Where’s the wry detective with baggage? Science fiction: Cue the Star Trek theme and snide comments about large-breasted women wearing as little clothing as possible. Historical fiction: That’s just a bodice-ripper.

Not always.

How does something ‘transcend’ its genre?

The phrase is used mostly by reviewers who don’t normally read the genre in question, and liked the book anyway. Therefore, the book can’t possibly be a typical specimen of that genre. It was too thought-provoking; the characters are too fully realized. The book was just too darn good. It must be an exception.

How many exceptions must there be before we realize that the rule itself might be bogus?

Let’s take mysteries. These days nobody writes so well about class conflict as British writer Ruth Rendell. Her books frequently hinge on missed communications, misunderstandings, and savage class resentments (I recommend A Judgement in Stone). Yet her books are shelved as ‘mysteries’, not literature; she gets Edgars, not Bookers. After all, she’s just a genre writer.

The same is true of Walter Mosely, whose Easy Rawlins books are about the postwar, extra-Southern black experience. I knew nothing of this world before I read Mosely’s work, and I’m grateful to him for showing it to me. Yet Easy Rawlins is a detective, and people get murdered. Nothing serious here, just simple entertainment.

Ugh.

The same is true of Ursula LeGuin, (sci-fi) and Terry Pratchett, (fantasy). Their work is sociological and psychological; their invented worlds make us see things in our own we might have missed. (Pratchett also makes good use of satire to achieve this.) Yet they too, are seldom taken as seriously as they deserve. Le Guin has won a Pulitzer, but not for any of her brilliant science-fiction.

I think that everyone loses by this. Writers don’t get the credit they deserve. Readers who decide they ‘just don’t care for that genre’ cheat themselves of wonderful books and stunt their own imaginations.

In on-line discussion groups, the most interesting, insightful people read all across the spectrum and readers who limit themselves only to Serious Literature (stuff that wins National Book Awards) can be as dull witted as the worst sci-fi/fantasy-only fan boys-and-gurlz.

This is also true of writers; the best work comes from people who read everything. Science-fiction writer Dan Simmons taught high-school English for a number of years; he has a passion for Keats and Marcel Proust, which he weaves brilliantly into his books. I’ve read work by writers who read nothing but genre; it’s pallid and limp.

Wider interests-and respect for those interests-are to everyone’s benefit. The next time you feel like dissing ‘genre’ fiction, read some instead-you might find a whole new vista open up.

After reading Stephen King’s The Dark Tower and Peter Matthiessen’s brilliant Shadow Country back to back, I decided I needed something light. (after Shadow Country, something by Brian Moore or Cormac McCarthy would qualify). So I’m reading Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch.

Pratchett is light, and frequently hilarious, but he’s never frivolous; behind the funny exterior, he has a lot to say about power, and the uses and misuses thereof, corruption, and the daily struggle to just keep one’s feet in an uncertain world. When I read his books I keep a pencil handy to mark these little insights; I think he’s as profound as Swift. Why he never quite gets his due critically is beyond me. (Well, actually it’s not. He writes fantasy, doesn’t he? Thus his work is nothing but light escapism. Lord, I hate snobbery.)

Next, I will probably FINALLY get to Dan Simmons’s Rise of Endymion, which, like Night Watch, has been sitting on my shelf for some time. Simmons is another seriously underrated writer. This man wants readers to think. And his erudition floors me.

Since the Simmons I have is an omnibus of Endymion and Rise of Endymion, that will take me through most of February. I think Cold Mountain will be next; it seems more like winter read than something for sunny weather. I haven’t read this since it was new, so I’m looking forward to it.

Then what? Actually, I don’t know. Perhaps something new will appear, maybe in the book club circular, that I simply must read. I owe great thanks to the science fiction book club, which is where I discovered Simmons, Pratchett, Naomi Novik and Patrick Rothfuss.

So, I see that my ‘list’ takes me through February at the furthest. Perhaps that’s as it should be-this isn’t a list for class, after all. Perhaps after that I won’t even worry about it; I’ll just prowl around and see what looks good to me, or if my mother recommends something. Right now she's prodding me to read The Divine Comedy. I promised her I'll think about it. 

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions-at least not the way most people use that term. I don’t vow to lose weight (don’t really need to) or get more exercise (get plenty already). But the first week of the New Year is a good time to begin things I’ve been thinking about anyway.

Part of this is the combination of the weather and post -Christmas doldrums. January in Southern Oregon tends to be cold and foggy, with intermittent rain and snow. And all the bright lights and festive decorations are put away for another year. With no more holidays to look forward too, it’s pretty dreary. Setting goals and beginning new projects raises the energy level. If you feel gloomy and depressed, just clean out your closets-you’ll feel better.

Of course, this may also be the reason that so many don’t keep their resolutions; the cold gloom all around them just screams ‘what’s the point’? Perhaps we should move New Year’s to the spring equinox. Warmer weather, the return of growing things, baseball-people might have more incentive. Just a suggestion.

Part of it too, I suppose, is that I’m getting older; time no longer seems limitless, the way it did twenty or even fifteen years ago. I may seem a bit young to be facing down my mortality, but I have reached an age where I realize that every day counts, and that only elderly people call me a kid (little kids call me ‘ma’am).

So here’s what I hope to accomplish this year, in no particular order.

1. Get the second volume of the Lorrondon Cycle out. I actually have people who are waiting for it. Not many, but every little bit of encouragement tastes like Prime Rib. I also hope to finish the third book. The draft is about to go to my editor, a.k.a. Mom.

2. Organize my reading list. Sometimes I finish a book and then flail for a couple of days, deciding what to read next. All the while I feel I’m wasting time. So, when I finish Peter Matthiessen’s Shadow Country, I think I’ll start Dan Simmons’s Endymion, which has been sitting on my shelf for about eighteen months. I’ve already sworn to buy no more books until February. I’m drowning in them already.

3. Clean out my den. This room is full of boxes that are full of things I can probably do without, like issues of Entertainment Weekly from 2004. It’s one of my favorite magazines, but still!

4. Get better on the chores. Sometimes I let laundry sit in the basket for two days before I finally put it away. That’s just laziness.

Hmm. Not an overly ambitious list, but it should keep me busy through the winter. Perhaps in the spring I’ll revisit this, see where I am, and what more needs to be done.