“Tell us how you feel about genre vs. literary,” says a reassuring voice with a light Viennese accent.
The lights are dim. The Persian rug on the floor is red with an elaborate pattern of what look like flowers. The chaise is oxblood leather.
The patient shifts on the chaise. “I feel fine.”
“Does it make you feel denigrated when someone calls your work genre?” The doctor strokes his pointed beard.
“I’m just happy when someone calls it anything at all. It has genre elements. People die mysteriously. Their murders are investigated and solved. Justice, alas, is complicated.”
“But,” says the doctor. “It is more than that. What about the writing? The voice? The historical background? The themes you try to convey?”
“It has all that too,” the patient says. “Why wouldn’t it?”
“Because it’s genre!” The Viennese voice sounds a little annoyed now.
“Genre doesn’t have to be reductionist.”
“Of course it does!”
“Why?” The patient sits up and adjusts her socks.
“Aren’t you supposed to by lying down where I put you? Answering the questions that I ask you?”
The patient stands and starts doing jumping jacks.
“You must calm down.” The Viennese doctor stands too. He strides behind his desk and watches her nervously. He looks at his telephone, undecided.
“I am calm. I can be calm and do jumping jacks. I can write things that are literary and genre.”
“You can’t.”
“Read it and weep.”
So, the Viennese doctor puts down his notebooks and pen, adjusts his horn-rimmed glasses and begins to read. He reads through that session and the one after. He reads all afternoon, book after book.
Because, reading can be fun. And unexpected. And anything you want it to be.
So, calm down, do some jumping jacks. Read what you want, call it what you want. The books and the story will endure regardless. Or not.
Follow
Some art is evolutionary and some is revolutionary. Does the artist know that when they are creating it? Does that mean the consumers of the art like it any more or less?
I hate meaningless categorization too.
Are jumping jacks good exercise? 🙂
Hi Jeff! Tough questions. I’m working on something now that feels like a big leap forward, but only the readers and time can judge it, right? It’s certainly not for me to go around denigrating other people’s art.
Jumping jacks are good exercise, but hard on your knees if you do too many. Not that I’ve ever done too many. 😉
The way I’ve heard it, literary is simply another genre.
I proudly call myself a genre writer and when I talk to writers that reach so hard to classify themselves as literary I have to wonder “Why?”
What does it matter what we call our work as long as we tell a good story that engages the reader? We may not all write to the same audience, but in no way does that lower the value or intelligence of one audience versus another.
Great post and I loved your example!
Hi Susan D. Literary could certainly be considered another genre, although I think splitting everything into genres to begin with is a slippery slope as it leads to ranking of the genres, as CJ points out.
Hi CJ. I agree: all that really matters is the writer and the reader and the story they share.