Thought du jour: so what's the difference between magic realism and fantasy anyway?
That is, why am I totally keen on Cloud Atlas, Oryx and Crake, Never Let Me Go, et al and turning my nose up at the perfectly good fantasy book anotherstraycat lent me?
Snobbery? Yes? Well, okay then!
I googled the question and that was, pretty much, the answer that popped up. It seems less a question of genre vs. literature and more a question of where Chapters is going to shelve your book. Are you going in with Beatrice & Virgil, to be breathlessly gushed over by the Globe's weekend Book section, or are you being tossed in with the steel bikini covers? Actually, since I'm writing a fucking comic book, I'm pretty much beneath even the pulp genre section in this particular literary caste system. And actually, I don't really much care. At least not right NOW, as I'm writing this. I think more: dude, if I actually get my fucking act together enough to do this thing, who gives a damn where they shelve it? I think of most art snobs as people who will NEEEVER ever ever like me anyway. And you know... that's kind of okay with me. Kind of like, why would you want the respect of that kind of snobbery anyway? Or else, I'm just so tired of status wank in art, worrying about popularity and shit, I just want to fucking MAKE stuff and not give a damn.
Anyway.
All that said, I am curious for my own purposes too. Because I'm finding, in research, I'm just not that drawn to genre. I don't want to watch the flashy Hollywood LeCarre movie or read the scifi novel about telepaths. My genre influences are mostly nostalgic- various X-men, X-files, Evangelion tropes that I picked up as a teenager, when I was in the mood for this material. These days? What I'm finding inspires me most IS the kind of thing that the Books section soundly pronounces LITERATURE. Capital L. Harrumph harruph. Etc.
And I wonder, WTF is with that? Wondering this in a vague, I'm on codeine, my surgery has been bumped from May 4th (today!) to May 25th (fuck) kind of way.
I do feel that while I am writing about lolpsychics, I do ultimately want to write about the human condition and jazz. The point of this series is the characters, their life experiences, their relationships with one another.
I seem to have picked up the idea that a genre story is ABOUT the psychic powerz. The psychic powerz are the point. And, in fact, when I was reading some X-men comics on scans_daily the other day, I found myself annoyed by this. By the center stage given to powers, use of powers, fights with supervillains, etc. As if the most interesting thing about Scott Summers was his optic blast and whether he can kick Magneto's ass with it, not his psychological issues re: Xavier, his political actions re: the mutant sociopolitical situation, his complicated relationship with Emma Frost. Etc. That's the stuff I wanted to read about. And there I was, boredly scrolling past the obligatory fight scene. Getting annoyed with it, even. Like, dude, do I look like I want to read about fucking superheros? NO! I'll put up with the superhero thing to get to the characters. The superhero thing can be there, but kind of in the background please. And I wonder at that. X-men is a superhero story, right? The movies sure are presented that way (incidentally! It was a great moment in my personal fan wank when I didn't really like the X-men movies. And actually just kept this to myself and didn't wank all over the internet about it.)
But what I take away from this? I don't wanna write genre. Nothing wrong with genre! I just don't want to write it.
But if it's all just a matter of snobbery anyway? What if that's really all it is, literary politics. Saying 'I don't want to write genre' is therefore basically just saying 'I don't want to write total low art trash like ______! sniff sniff.' And honestly, no wonder people get upset. Snobbery ain't pretty.
But I guess this stuff is not that cut and dried? I think of another one of my influences, NBC's show Homicide which aired during the 1990s. This was a show about homicide detectives. The Balitimore Homicide unit. But yet, it wasn't a police genre story. The genre elements were there, but they weren't the point, you know? The point was the people, the characters, what it was really like to be a homicide cop and live that life as opposed to decades of television cop show genre tropes, the relationships, the zomg human condition.
And that is the mix I want. The genre elements are there, but incidental. Subverted. And I wonder, is that literary pretension? In a fucking comic book, lolol? I don't know, and really, it's not going to matter in the end. I could do worse than being shelved next to stuff like Watchmen and Fun Home (lolol, fingers crossed that I'm this lucky.) I think at this point, I'm just trying to sort all these intangible structiural questions out in my head.
But the fact remains. I pick up the China Mieville book and I think 'whoa, check out the sheer imagination horsepower on THIS.'
But I still wanna read Don DeLillo and that Golden Mean lady waaaaay more. Internalized snobbery? Maybe.
I should probably go watch the Simpsons cast sing Tik Tok again and lol and enjoy the hell out of it, and totally lose ALL my art snob cred.