Alternate Title: I Just Finished My Senior Project Presentation and Need To Talk About This
Heya, loyal readers! I’m done with my Senior Project, finally, and I’d like to repeat my feelings about Genre and Literature. A lot of this post is going to be pasted from my essay, but trust me, at least 300 words will be all new — unique, even — made specifically for this blog.
What is genre fiction. The first things that probably spring to mind for you are probably the most accurate; works of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, humor and similar pieces outside of contemporary realistic fiction fit the bill. This is an accurate, if not wholly complete description. An interesting thing is that while this sort of genre fiction can be seen as popular (since many non-Oprah bestsellers seem to be some kind of genre fiction), its very popularity can cause it to be viewed with disdain, both by your average above-average English scholar and by many normal people. Why is this?
During his recovery from an operation, former U.S. poet laureate Donald Hall notes that “I recover more mental energy each day, and I need no longer read John Le Carré but return to Peeps, Montaigne, Browning, and St. Paul.” Samuel Peeps, was a diarist, Michel de Montaigne was an essayist and literary scholar, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were both poets, and St. Paul presumably wrote fourteen books of the Bible’s New Testament. What of John Le Carré? John Le Carré writes books about spies, fictional narratives based loosely, quite loosely, on his own experiences within the world of intrigue and espionage. Yet, renewed mental energy drives Hall from this world of intrigue to “great” writers, none of them novelists, by the way. So, the question arises: what’s wrong with John Le Carré?
There is nothing wrong with genre fiction. Work that is good is good, regardless of genre conventions. I’ll examine genre a bit further. As an explorative measure, let’s consider a story that could be considered genre-less, or, at least, contemporary fiction. Here is the basic story:
A doctor, after many years of research, develops a drug which, when administered to a patient, will grant that person an augmented immune system and, with proper exercise and nutrition, a significantly longer life. He brings a few people together- another doctor, a businessman and a politician -and offers them the drug. None of them can pay enough, so he keeps his drug, even though the others almost resort to taking the drug by force.
It’s a decent plot, to be fair, similar to, but different from “The Best We Were.” It has nothing too far out of the realm of possibility. A drug to improve the immune system makes sense, and the important part is the relations and actions of the characters. However, it is quite a simple task to turn this story into a work of science fiction. Watch:
A scientist, after many years of research, develops a serum which, when administered to a patient, will grant that person augmented strength and speed and, with proper care, immortality. He brings a few people together- another scientist, a corporate engineer, and a planetary governor -and offers them the serum. None of them can pay enough, so he keeps his drug, even though the others almost resort to taking the serum by force.
Before we begin to discuss what these changes entail, let’s take one more example, derived from a nominal, generic fantasy setting:
An alchemist, after many years of research, develops a potion which, when administered to a mortal, will grant that person the strength and vigor of heroes and, with proper care, immortality. He brings a few people together- another wizard, a wealthy merchant, and a king -and offers them the potion. None of them can pay enough, so he keeps his potion, even though the others almost resort to taking the potion by force.
How do we make this story a mystery? Take the basic version, have the doctor die at the end, and have someone try to figure out whether it was the other doctor, the businessman or the politician that killed him. How do we make this story a comedy? Take the basic version and add the clause “hilarity ensues” after each sentence. What have these examples shown? They have shown that the primary difference between genre fiction and non-genre fiction is as simple as an examination of the trappings, the world and terminology which the story’s author chooses to use.
Now some of you may be crying “foul! The original example was not, as you proposed, non-genre! Since the premise revolves around the invention of something beyond current science, it is science fiction!” The immuno-stimulant drug, the serum, and the immortality potion in my story are all examples of a device known as a MacGuffin, a phrase coined by the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock scholar Ken Mogg defines a MacGuffin as “something that sets the film’s plot revolving around it, [but] it’s really just an excuse and a diversion” (Mogg 101). In my story examples, the inventions are not really all that important. They’re conceits; The characters think that the items are important, however, and that brings us to the core of the stories, their commonality: the characters and their actions.
In all stories which are not exceptions to the rule (a tautological statement, I admit), it is the characters and/or the plot which drives the story, not the trappings. Thus, the first Star Wars film, A New Hope, was based (at least in part) on Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s film The Hidden Fortress (MacDonald). The trappings of the two movies cannot be more different: Star Wars is set in space with a light-saber-wielding hero blowing up a Death Star space station while The Hidden Fortress is set in historical Japan with a sword-wielding General escorting a princess. Yes, the plot are substantially different, but the transition from historical adventure to science fiction adventure is fairly simple. Trade one setting for the other and the films themselves, at their core, would not be significantly changed. The spaceships of science fiction and the dragons of fantasy are largely decorative, and could easily be replaced or done away with. Thus, at its core, each and every story is about the same. At some level, genre is irrelevant.
So why is genre relevant?
It’s time to reveal why creative genre fiction is so great. When I was a kid, I lived a “normal” life. Normal lives are, to be fair, rather tame, and I found that reading and writing genre fiction was rather engrossing. Fiction which introduces new topics, new ideas, or new interpretations of our reality or other possible realities expands the mind by giving it an outlet beyond the normal, an insight into something universal. This allows us to see something from outside, as an “other,” looking more clearly at things which otherwise we may have a stronger attachment to in our own world.
When we read J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the first things we notice are the little Hobbits, the noble Elves, the stalwart Dwarves (originally called dwarrow, even in the plural), and the bloodthirsty Orcs, Trolls, Black Riders, Spiders and other nasty folks. In the final summation, though, the book is mostly just an adventure tale about good people attempting to stop bad people from doing bad things, despite the overwhelming forces arrayed against them. If, however, Tolkien had not created Middle Earth for his fantasies, and had instead put together an epic about four Britons who had to transport a secret weapon behind enemy lines in WWI in order to destroy it in the foundries of Berlin from whence it came, it still may have been good, but it would not likely have been anything near what it was. Despite the first hand experience which Tolkien had with World War One, serving as a soldier during that conflict, it is the fictional world which he created which drives his work home. Lord of the Rings does not rely on the world- it relies on the actions of the characters- but it is the world which captures our imaginations and drives us to new thoughts and new ideas. By looking at Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee of the Shire, instead of Jack Smith and John Brown of London, we can come to new understandings from outside, without the connotations we would derive from any real-world locations or events. Genre trappings allow us to look at people, places, and things from a universal perspective. Instead of thinking, “oh, they’re in Amsterdam! I remember liking that one coffee shop there,” we can look at the world through the eyes of Middle Earth in a fresh way, maintaining wonder and the sense of the fantastic via new experiences and a mixture of cognitive resonance (from universality) and discordance (from the use of the new and different).
Genre fiction can do more than non-genre fiction because it looks at the world differently, showing the real world through the use of fictional worlds, forcing new perspectives by the use of the previously unknown and thus the previously undefined or unconnected.
If I have given the impression that all genre fiction is somehow better than all contemporary realistic fiction then I apologize, because that was not my intention. The quality of a work is dependant far, far more on the author’s diligence, plot and characters than to genre conventions. I have been merely attempting to explain why I think that genre can do more, in a theoretical sense.
Now, at my presentation, the objection was raised that the primary difference that is sometimes seen between genre fiction and literary fiction is that genre fiction is plot-based while literary fiction is character-based. I see this as a false dichotomy. I have read genre fiction which is character-based, and read “literature” which is plot-based. Since my definition of genre fiction revolves around the idea that the trappings are what makes something genre, then this can be shown in a few quick examples. Take Jane Eyre, definitely a work of literature (just as Dr. Crystal Downing at Messiah). Literature. I guess you could say it was character-driven. Now, put it in space. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? It isn’t, really. It’s the exact same story, still character-driven, but with different trappings. It is genre because it has space-ships, not because it is driven forward mostly by plot.
OK, I’m really interested in what comments you people have about this one. Let me know!
-AndrewTheory.
Also: All work here on AndrewTheory is © Andrew Heil, 2008.
Well, this is AndrewTheory’s final post. In total, this is the 24th, but if we count just the active, functional ones (the ones that dealt with Literary Criticism and not just announcements) then there are 20. Below, you’ll find a list of all of the blog posts here. The announcements, which are not counted for anything, are in italics; including this post there are four of them. The numbered posts are the functional ones, with their word counts in parenthesis for ease of use.
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