Don't Change

A writer whose new novel was recently reviewed in a prominent book review pointed out to me in an e-mail the way in which his book was implicitly criticized for not being similar enough to his previous book. The writer was not angry or bitter about it, simply puzzled. Why would a reviewer, in effect, want to read the same book over again?

And it is rather puzzling, although the phenomenon is certainly widespread, and not just among book reviewers. Many readers as well no doubt cultivate an interest in the work of particular writers (perhaps out of admiration or enjoyment of a specific book), and expect these writers to continue producing fiction that doesn't depart too radically from what they've already written. This is true not just of genre fiction--for which an expectation of encountering more of the same, with slight variations, is probably inherent and unavoidable--but of "literary" fiction as well. How many second novels "disappoint" because they don't repeat the themes or the approach of the first? How many books get labeled as among a writer's "minor" works because they seem different from those with which that writer has become associated? Were all of Joseph Heller's novels after Catch-22 really that greatly inferior to it, or did they just not repeat its ultimately unique strategies? (The one that did, Closing Time, wasn't, after all, very good.)

Movie producers of course profit tidily from the assumption that the mass movie audience does want to see the same films over again (either directly through sequels or indirectly through the repetition of formula). One might expect more, however, from the audience for serious (or even sort of serious) fiction. Are reading tastes so impervious to change that we can't adjust to the possibilty that something different from a favored writer might still provide a worthwhile reading experience, even if it isn't the one we've come to expect this writer to provide? And it isn't just a resistance to experimentation on the part of individual writers. The history of "mainstream" fiction--loosely, realistic narrative with character development of a particular kind and some recognizable "subject"--has so accustomed us to more of the same that one could argue the antipathy frequently enough expressed toward avowedly experimental or idiosyncratic fiction also stems from this reluctance to allow for beneficial change in one's reading habits.

Is genre fiction--crime fiction, SF, horror, what have you--itself a product of this seemingly ingrained preference for reading (or viewing) only the sort of thing we've read and enjoyed before? On the one hand, these genres could be seen as challenges to the methods and assumptions of mainstream fiction, but on the other hand, doesn't the very notion of "genre" require a degree of repetition of established formulae? Certainly many genre writers struggle against and stretch these formulae, but ultimately there would have to be a point beyond which a writer has stretched the form so far that the form breaks and readers conclude the result no longer belongs to that genre--and is presumably no longer of interest to those readers. It also happens that mainstream writers attempt to explore the possibilities of genre, no doubt frustrating both the fans of what these writers have done before and devotees of the genre. An impediment to ambition and creative change from both sides.

I certainly do not exempt myself from this temptation to become a reading reactionary. I am a fan of experimental, innovative fiction, but I, too, surely balk at what I perceive as the "wrong" sort of innovation. Perhaps my recent rather negative review of Sorrentino's The Moon in Its Flight was partly an expression of disappointment that this book not just failed to live up to Sorrentino's other work but that it didn't "experiment" in precisely the way I've come to expect from this writer. And certainly my tendency to seek out the offbeat or experimental results in a neglect of perfectly good mainstream, conventional novels and stories--a resistance to change from the other direction. What really worthwhile books have I missed because they don't seem the sort of thing I'd want to read?

Comments

[Ray Davis]

Regarding the paradox of "genre": I found some of my own perplexities melted away once I recognized that by any of the many measures of that ambiguous term "genre" -- marketing category, writerly community, reader expectations (and outrage), historical contingency, and distribution routes among them -- "mainstream literary fiction" was simply another genre, and not one that reliably supplied much of what later became established as literature. Plowing through some 19th century volumes of Blackwood's or Harper's, or High-Modernist-era New York Times book reviews (or High-Hollywood-era movie reviews), would be, I think, a salutary exercise for most English and creative writing majors.

Author as reliable brand name is, as you indicate, a case of sub-genre at its narrowest, and common no matter what the book's encompassing genre. My list of genre markers also applies to formulae like "In the tradition of X" or "If you like Y, you'll love Z," and I know that science fiction and mystery pulps both began by relying heavily on them (let "X" be Jules Verne and "Y" be Arthur Conan Doyle).

We share a few prejudices, I think. At any rate, I share that guilty cognizance that I'm missing great work in the "normal" (although I feel even more guilty about having so neglected the romance genre). I try to compromise by spending a certain amount of time researching the forgotten normal of past publishing eras (it having since acquired the tang of novelty), but that's hardly a comfort to a living author looking over their royalty statements. (On the other hand, The Current Big Things would hardly benefit from another spoonful of word-of-mouth to the same extent as, say, Wendy Walker.) I'm not sure what to do about it other than to live a long time.

[Miriam]

It's almost as bad when publishers "claim" a novel for a tradition (invented or otherwise) to which it really doesn't belong. "Dickensian" is my own pet peeve--it's applied to anything written about the seamy side of nineteenth-century London. ("Kingsleyan" obviously doesn't have the same sort of ring, let alone "Reynoldsian.")

Reginald Hill, who is the most experimental genre writer I can think of offhand, has been known to get very irritated by the moniker "mystery novelist." But his publisher, HarperCollins, has nevertheless tried to turn him into an identifiable brand.

[Nick Mamatas]

On the one hand, these genres could be seen as challenges to the methods and assumptions of mainstream fiction, but on the other hand, doesn't the very notion of "genre" require a degree of repetition of established formulae?

Nope.

Read much genre fiction?

[Dan Green]

Nick: If genre writing does not involve some degree of adherence to genre conventions, then, as far as I can tell, "genre" is a meaningless word.

[Nick Mamatas]

I must point out that you don't answer my question but rather dodge it.

As far as whether genre as a word is meaningless, it may well be. However, it is trivial for me to think of a genre that is based on something other genre conventions. Hoped for reader affect, for example, is the common thread in the "horror" genre, and thus one can have a horror fiction that is also a Western, also contemporary American realism, also postmodern fiction, also science fiction, also romance, that is not fiction at all but is instead a "true crime" book, etc. But the affect of frightening the reader or instilling within him or her a sense of dread or disgust isn't a formula per se at all. This isn't exactly a new discovery; critic Doug Winter years ago raised the semi-polemical slogan, "Horror isn't a genre, it's an emotion." YMMV.

What are the genre conventions of, say, fantasy? Dragons and magic swords? I'd say not. Again, it's so much broader than that that we can dismiss the idea of "repetition of established formula" being not only a sufficient condition, but a necessary one. Fantasy simply requires that which is impossible to occur within the mimesis of the plot. John Crowley, traditional fairy tales, Borges, or the post-Tolkien paperbacks that do hold to a quest formula all count as fantasy. But do they have the same conventions? Certainly not.

And then there is science fiction. What common formulae can be found in the anthropological anarchism of Ursula K. LeGuin, the Boy's Adventures of Heinlein, and the technological determinist historical fictions of Neal Stephenson? Not even emphasis on technology can be found in common within the SF shelves.

And if we are able to tease out conventions, are they really any less broad than, say, the convention of exploring the personality of the petit-bourgeois protagonist, or the convention of exploring the nature of language and narrative by detourning their traditional uses? I'd be surprised if they were.

[Dan Green]

Nick: If your definition of genre is correct, then I read nothing but genre fiction. Since you essentially deny there is such a thing as genre, everything qualifies. You can define "genre" right out of existence if you wish, but to the extent it does exist, then I still maintain if you make a claim to be writing in a specific genre, doing so requires some adherence to its conventions. But if, say, "horror fiction" is potentially anything and everything, then it's actually nothing.

[Nick Mamatas]

I, of course, did not say that horror fiction is potentially anything and everything, I said that it is fiction written with an eye toward a particular reader affect. To that end, it can involve an infinite number of settings and plots. SF, as it tends to be about change (technological, historical, sociological) also can involve an infinite number of settings and plots. It's worth nothing that none of the authors I mentioned were marginal to the genre; in their own ways, all are essential to understanding it.

But then, knowing any of this about SF/F/H would require reading it, and that would get in the way of missives explaining how daring you are for reading what hoi polloi dare not.

Mystery/crime, I can't say I read much of. It may be formulaic, or it may have embedded within it some metatheme which itself allows for an infinite number of settings and plots. I don't know, so I won't express an opinion. Btw, feel free to take this as a guide to future behavior: if you haven't read something, you probably shouldn't express an opinion on it, and you certainly shouldn't defend it based on some abstract definitional schema that may have nothing to do with reality.

At any rate, since you're simply defending a rhetorical footstomp with a second rhetorical footstomp, there's little reason to continue the discussion. That, plus your dismissive claim that people enjoy genre fiction due to "seemingly ingrained preference" -- only the sterling elite *actually* enjoy their reading material by unconstrained choice, apparently -- is a clear signal to me that you begin with your conclusions and then cast about for anything that may support them, whether it is true or not. Intellectual dishonesty, pure and simple.

I'll just assume the answer to my question is "No Nick, I don't read genre fiction, but since this is the Internet, I claim divine right to espouse uninformed opinion about it. Now fetch me my slippers, boy! Chop chop!"

See, I can espouse uninformed opinions too. Whee!

[Michael Hemmingson]

Nick, Dan...you boys play nice, or you go to bed without your dinner!

[Dan Green]

I've read plenty of genre fiction, including all of the genres you mention. My post said nothing about sterling elites and hoi polloi. You're reading way more into it than I intended and your defensiveness on the subject is startling.

[Ray Davis]

Nick, I come from much your point of view, but you jumped to drastically wrong conclusions about Dan, who is *far* from being a comfortable know-nothing.

Dan, not to add fuel to any flames, but when you suggest that you "read nothing but genre fiction," I'd have to agree, inasmuch as everything you read was published in or influenced by some existing generic context. One aspect or another of genre is going to touch anything recognizable as fiction.

The chip that stretches from Nick's shoulder to his jerking knee is, I think, the frequent tendency to explicitly admit the influence of genre only in certain class-marked areas, treating other genres as somehow more pure. "Excretion is something the servants engage in."

[Dan Green]

Ray: Thanks for the intervention. I can't disagree that in a general sense all fiction exists in a "generic context," although we could have a discussion about the extent to which at such a broad level of generality it is still useful to identify this context with "genre." I would still say that genre can't be everything, or it becomes nothing. This is simply an issue of definition, not of the value of this or another "genre" as they're currently known.

[Ray Davis]

I hesitate to try your hospitality with more long comments, and so I've responded on my own dime here:

http://www.pseudopodium.org/ht-20040916.html#2004-09-27