6 ms·

When Popular Fiction Isn’t Popular: Genre, Literary, and the Myths of Popularity

31 points by kawera 11y ago

dstyrb 11y ago
How esoterically meta.
- coldtea 11y ago
  Yeah, totally unlike discussions about Monads, or Haskell vs Idris, or the workings of YC, or FRP etc. on HN, which are completely non-esoteric and accessible to the general public...
carlob 11y ago
Iain Banks (who wrote both scifi and literary fiction) on this very subject: "An ex-neighbour of ours recalled (in an otherwise entirely kind and welcome comment) me telling him, years ago, that my SF novels effectively subsidised the mainstream works. I think he’s just misremembered, as this has never been the case. Until the last few years or so, when the SF novels started to achieve something approaching parity in sales, the mainstream always out-sold the SF – on average, if my memory isn’t letting me down, by a ratio of about three or four to one. I think a lot of people have assumed that the SF was the trashy but high-selling stuff I had to churn out in order to keep a roof over my head while I wrote the important, serious, non-genre literary novels. Never been the case, and I can’t imagine that I’d have lied about this sort of thing, least of all as some sort of joke. The SF novels have always mattered deeply to me – the Culture series in particular – and while it might not be what people want to hear (academics especially), the mainstream subsidised the SF, not the other way round. And… rant over."
lmm 11y ago
There may be no such thing as a fake reader - but most books bought aren't read. And the ratio of how many are read is different between "genre" and "literary" fiction. Mitchell may always have written genre but he wasn't marketed that way. Likewise e.g. Margaret Atwood writes science fiction but feels the need to pretend it isn't. I'm partway through The Chimes, which was nominated for the Booker prize - and again it's science fiction in literary drag (not even literary-influenced; it's straight up classic SF). But I doubt it would have got the nomination if it had worn its genre affiliation openly. If authors who have the choice overwhelmingly prefer to position their works as "literary" rather than "genre" when they could fit into either category, doesn't that say there's something asymmetric about how we treat the two? Honestly the Hugos were never about popularity. But they were a celebration of something deeply unliterary, and I'd like them to continue to represent that tradition, whether or not that means nominating books with higher or lower sales figures.
- o_nate 11y ago
  The idea that the Hugos were a "celebration of something deeply unliterary" seems bizarre to me. Looking at the winners over the years it seems pretty clear they are generally works with higher than average literary merit within the genre.
  - lmm 11y ago
    "Seems pretty clear"? Maybe you should give some examples of what you're talking about? The Hugos reflect some kind of merit (plot, worldbuilding, plausibility) but it's in areas that the literary establishment places very little value on, and winners IME often have less of the literary virtues - less characterization, much less exploration of characters' mental states, often even less polished prose - than other works of (nominal) SF, simply because there isn't time for both. Foundation's Edge is possibly the least literary book I've ever read; I don't think Asimov wrote a deeply-characterized human in his life. The same applies to most Heinlein, a lot of Dick, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and IME most Clarke (though it seems I haven't read either of his Hugo-winning works); it's true of David Brin and Kim Stanley Robinson and Vernor Vinge. I've heard Neuromancer described as an "obvious first novel", and while there's something distinct about the Ender series, I certainly wouldn't call it literary.
    - o_nate 11y ago
      I think you have a limited view of what counts as literary. Well-developed characters are not a rigid requirement. Many classics of literature don't feature them. Have you ever read Kafka or Borges?
      - lmm 11y ago
        I've read a little of both. Regardless of what we label it as, would you agree that some recent winners (specifically I'll say Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, The City & the City, Ancillary Justice, and The Three-Body Problem) are in some sense alike, that they form a different cluster from the list of older winners in my previous comment? That these newer winners are more similar to e.g. older Booker Prize winners (so that we don't get caught up trying to objectively define literary) than the older Hugo winners were? That there are qualities that the older Hugo winners have that the newer ones lack?

31 points by kawera 11y ago

How esoterically meta.

coldtea 11y ago
Yeah, totally unlike discussions about Monads, or Haskell vs Idris, or the workings of YC, or FRP etc. on HN, which are completely non-esoteric and accessible to the general public...

Iain Banks (who wrote both scifi and literary fiction) on this very subject: "An ex-neighbour of ours recalled (in an otherwise entirely kind and welcome comment) me telling him, years ago, that my SF novels effectively subsidised the mainstream works. I think he’s just misremembered, as this has never been the case. Until the last few years or so, when the SF novels started to achieve something approaching parity in sales, the mainstream always out-sold the SF – on average, if my memory isn’t letting me down, by a ratio of about three or four to one. I think a lot of people have assumed that the SF was the trashy but high-selling stuff I had to churn out in order to keep a roof over my head while I wrote the important, serious, non-genre literary novels. Never been the case, and I can’t imagine that I’d have lied about this sort of thing, least of all as some sort of joke. The SF novels have always mattered deeply to me – the Culture series in particular – and while it might not be what people want to hear (academics especially), the mainstream subsidised the SF, not the other way round. And… rant over."

lmm 11y ago

There may be no such thing as a fake reader - but most books bought aren't read. And the ratio of how many are read is different between "genre" and "literary" fiction. Mitchell may always have written genre but he wasn't marketed that way. Likewise e.g. Margaret Atwood writes science fiction but feels the need to pretend it isn't. I'm partway through The Chimes, which was nominated for the Booker prize - and again it's science fiction in literary drag (not even literary-influenced; it's straight up classic SF). But I doubt it would have got the nomination if it had worn its genre affiliation openly. If authors who have the choice overwhelmingly prefer to position their works as "literary" rather than "genre" when they could fit into either category, doesn't that say there's something asymmetric about how we treat the two? Honestly the Hugos were never about popularity. But they were a celebration of something deeply unliterary, and I'd like them to continue to represent that tradition, whether or not that means nominating books with higher or lower sales figures.

o_nate 11y ago
The idea that the Hugos were a "celebration of something deeply unliterary" seems bizarre to me. Looking at the winners over the years it seems pretty clear they are generally works with higher than average literary merit within the genre.
- lmm 11y ago
  "Seems pretty clear"? Maybe you should give some examples of what you're talking about? The Hugos reflect some kind of merit (plot, worldbuilding, plausibility) but it's in areas that the literary establishment places very little value on, and winners IME often have less of the literary virtues - less characterization, much less exploration of characters' mental states, often even less polished prose - than other works of (nominal) SF, simply because there isn't time for both. Foundation's Edge is possibly the least literary book I've ever read; I don't think Asimov wrote a deeply-characterized human in his life. The same applies to most Heinlein, a lot of Dick, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and IME most Clarke (though it seems I haven't read either of his Hugo-winning works); it's true of David Brin and Kim Stanley Robinson and Vernor Vinge. I've heard Neuromancer described as an "obvious first novel", and while there's something distinct about the Ender series, I certainly wouldn't call it literary.
  - o_nate 11y ago
    I think you have a limited view of what counts as literary. Well-developed characters are not a rigid requirement. Many classics of literature don't feature them. Have you ever read Kafka or Borges?
    - lmm 11y ago
      I've read a little of both. Regardless of what we label it as, would you agree that some recent winners (specifically I'll say Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, The City & the City, Ancillary Justice, and The Three-Body Problem) are in some sense alike, that they form a different cluster from the list of older winners in my previous comment? That these newer winners are more similar to e.g. older Booker Prize winners (so that we don't get caught up trying to objectively define literary) than the older Hugo winners were? That there are qualities that the older Hugo winners have that the newer ones lack?