The writer Matt Haig hates literary fiction, according to a recent blog entry; or, to be rather more precise, he hates “the idea (my italics) of literary fiction”, most particularly of it being thought of, or promoted as, a “category”, a “genre”. Well, I’ve news for Mr Haig. He’s far too late. It is a genre, and a well-established one at that, despite the outraged denials of a self-elected critical and academic literati which constantly attempts to raise their favoured writerly writing above everything else committed to paper.
All genres are, to an extent, mere marketing—labels aiding publishers (manufacturers) and bookshops (retailers) to create (manufacture) and present (display) books (product) in a manner that makes it easier for readers (customers) to find (and buy) what they’re looking for. They are the result of a honed commercial model that came to the fore during the 20th century: this may well be on the way out during the 21st, though I wouldn’t hold your breath if the rise and fall of the “misery memoirs” genre is anything to go by.
But, of course, people aren’t just talking about marketing labels when they refer to “genres”; they’re talking about definable parameters within the works when it comes to subject, content and style. And, yes, it would be naive to assume that the commercial concerns dominating the traditional book publishing industry have no influence on what people are reading. (If nothing else, some publishers and imprints deliberately focus on particular genres; indeed, they can gain an authoritative reputation as a result.) But are those pressures really influencing what’s being written, or just what’s being selected for publication?
I certainly agree with Mr Haig’s dislike of “literary fiction being synonymous with serious fiction”, but (alas) the snobbery he fears comes not from those trying to define it as a genre, but from those continuing to deny that their preferred writerly writing is a genre at all, for whom “genre” is an innately derogatory term. It’s a mindset comparable to that which insists on racial distinctions between “whites” and “coloureds”: when, of course, all humans are actually coloured. (It’s just that, for historical and cultural reasons, us pale pink people—well, pinkish-blue, given that I’m Scottish—for a time genuinely stood above and apart from the rest of humanity at least in terms of economic, political and cultural power.) When it comes to the ol’ chestnut battle between “literary” and “genre” fiction, it’s not so much about book fascism as book imperialism.
But, I’m afraid, it’s with the rest of Mr Haig’s post that I have real problems.
“Genres are straitjackets. Genres say this is what you can and can’t write about. A genre imprisons imagination.” Well, there are certainly commercial restraints on many authors, especially if they become known for writing a particular kind of novel—nowadays, Iain (M) Banks is almost unique in the range of books he’s written. Pity John Grisham, whose sales took a real hit when he tried to publish something other than the legal thrillers on which he’d made his name. Ultimately, though, genres are only straitjackets if you let them. I know of at least one contemporary thriller writer who successfully published a 19th century family saga set in the North of England; he just had to do so under a female-sounding pseudonym. The name-change symbolised the straitjacket of commercial publishing; it didn’t stop him from writing what he wanted to write.
It’s the simplistic binary thinking behind Mr Haig’s “genre makes for worse writing” comment that (having reviewed genre fictions for many years) I find so breathtaking in its combined ignorance and arrogance. Yes, genres create rules, but there are plenty of artists out there who would insist that their creativity flourishes precisely because of the parameters—be they of time, language or subject matter—they have to work within. As with most things, it’s not about the literary tools, Mr Haig, it’s about how you use them. “I don’t know how other writers work”—a surprising lack of writerly empathy there—“but I feel at my most creative when I am busting convention,” Mr Haig insists. Well, good for him; but, if he didn’t have those very conventions, those genres he so derides, would he be able to so spectacularly “bust” through them?
Several years ago, I was lucky to meet the late author Barrington J Bayley who, thanks to his friend and frequent collaborator Michael Moorcock, produced some of the most inventive and mind-blowing stories during and after the 1960s “New Wave”. Writers as diverse as M John Harrison, Bruce Sterling and Iain Banks have all called him a major influence on their work, but what I think important in this situation is that Bayley himself never wanted to be called anything other than “a science fiction writer”. He certainly didn’t find “the genre” limiting his imagination.
“People who put fences up between things damage culture,” Mr Haig adds. No, they make it more ordered, more neighbourly. Less anarchistic, certainly; possibly less conducive to the serendipitous discovery of the unexpected when two books are misfiled together on the same shelf, though the likes of Amazon’s “other customers also bought…” feature and the recommendations of GoodReads are potentially helping restore that balance in the world of book reading. But let’s be clear about one thing: genres don’t put off people from trying different things. People’s own prejudices and expectations do that.
I know of one person who bought and enjoyed Kim Stanley Robinson’s Antarctica because the particular paperback edition they’d picked up had been (deliberately, I’m guessing) styled as a literary novel, it’s cover all pastel blurs and lower-case serif fonts with not a futuristic machine in sight. They even admitted that they would never have picked up this “future history thriller” if they’d just seen its earlier, science fiction-branded original publication. (Not, of course, that they would have been found dead in the bookshop’s science fiction section.)
“Art and stories should be inclusive. We tell stories around campfires…. We shouldn’t leave people in the cold.” Well, of course not. But let’s not pretend that some people prefer to keep away when they don’t like the story being told.
