better practices, please
I get why they're doing it, and it makes more sense than most if not all comparisons to Harry Potter these days (50 Shades for Grey is "Harry Potter for adults"? Why would you even???), but I still find it deeply irritating when people compare a book or film to Downton Abbey. I mean, I guess if you're a fan who is *actually* only looking for a handy marker of other things set in the Edwardian period, that comparison might be useful, but it's like saying "fans of Jane Austen will love this!" just because it's a romance set in the Regency; the two things might share a couple of generic markers, but will likely be nothing alike in larger elements like tone and character, which are much more important to one's enjoyment of something. And again, it's a "genre" problem that literary fiction doesn't have. People don't compare one tedious novel about middle-class ennui and adultery to another one, at least not with nearly the same sloppy ubiquity, because each literary novel about middle-class adultery is assumed to be unique and special; because they are supposedly about "real" life, what matters is the writing, the characters, the author's point of view on the world. But historical fiction - or fantasy, or mystery, etc. - is assumed to be cookie-cutter, and the only thing that matters is the setting, so if you liked Downton Abbey you will love The Uninvited Guests. And, you know, you very well might; I'm completely sympathetic to the fact that there *are* certain elements of setting or subject or theme that contribute to enjoyment, which is why novels about time travel and changelings are going to get a look-in from me that other novels aren't automatically granted. But I love the Doctor Who episode "Silence in the Library," and yet want to thwack all the characters in The Time Traveller's Wife about the head with spoons, so genre doesn't mean that stories are interchangeable just because they have some similar elements. And I understand that there is only so much you can fit on a book jacket, so the comparison is meant to do a lot of work very quickly, in terms of "here, associate this book with that *other* thing you liked!" But it bugs me nonetheless, because it chimes so neatly with what people have to say about the genre (and other genres) in longer formats: all costume drama is the same, it's all soapy distraction from real life, there aren't any standards worth applying to it, because you either like it all or hate it all indiscriminately. (For example, Jenny Diski's recent article in - I think - the LRB about Downton Abbey. It began with that dreaded acknowledgment of assumed superiority: "well, I don't actually ever enjoy costume drama." Then why are you wasting my time writing about it for the LRB? Where are the reviewers beginning their reviews with, "well, I don't actually ever enjoy novels about suburban melancholy"? What I want is for someone who respects a genre to write reviews for it, because the mere presence of gorgeous costumes is not enough to make me enjoy something.)
And I forget what review I recently read of Bring Up the Bodies, but it was almost parodic in its unaware adoption of the other side of this coin, the "if it's good, it isn't genre" defense. Unlike, you know, *all* the other historical novels, because *they're* all the same, Mantel's novel was modern and interesting and could have been written about the halls of power today. (This is its own weird species of historical fiction bias: the idea that a novel that presents a specific period *as* specific is somehow less worthy than one that makes the sixteenth century seem just like the twenty-first. I haven't read either of Mantel's novels yet , so I don't know whether that claim is accurate, but it's certainly something the reviewer prized.) As I was writing this, I kept wanting to use Mantel's novels as a parallel situation - "If you liked The Tudors, you'll love Wolf Hall!" - but I can't remember if that line was taken with that novel. It's certainly taken with other Tudor-set fiction, but maybe if you win fancy literary prizes, you can escape that particular gravity.
As a person who wants to read more historical fiction, I find this practically frustrating as well as philosophically, because "If you liked The Tudors" is completely useless for me. If it were "if you liked the sexiness of The Tudors, you'll like this," or "actually, if you hated The Tudors for its clunky foreshadowing, narrative murkiness, and failure to make any of its female characters come to life, try this instead," then the comparisons would be helpful, but comparisons that amount to "people wear doublets and farthingales in this, too!" don't actually convey any information that I'm not already getting from the cover illustration. And I'm not automatically going to enjoy something just because I have enjoyed something set in a similar time period.
And I forget what review I recently read of Bring Up the Bodies, but it was almost parodic in its unaware adoption of the other side of this coin, the "if it's good, it isn't genre" defense. Unlike, you know, *all* the other historical novels, because *they're* all the same, Mantel's novel was modern and interesting and could have been written about the halls of power today. (This is its own weird species of historical fiction bias: the idea that a novel that presents a specific period *as* specific is somehow less worthy than one that makes the sixteenth century seem just like the twenty-first. I haven't read either of Mantel's novels yet , so I don't know whether that claim is accurate, but it's certainly something the reviewer prized.) As I was writing this, I kept wanting to use Mantel's novels as a parallel situation - "If you liked The Tudors, you'll love Wolf Hall!" - but I can't remember if that line was taken with that novel. It's certainly taken with other Tudor-set fiction, but maybe if you win fancy literary prizes, you can escape that particular gravity.
As a person who wants to read more historical fiction, I find this practically frustrating as well as philosophically, because "If you liked The Tudors" is completely useless for me. If it were "if you liked the sexiness of The Tudors, you'll like this," or "actually, if you hated The Tudors for its clunky foreshadowing, narrative murkiness, and failure to make any of its female characters come to life, try this instead," then the comparisons would be helpful, but comparisons that amount to "people wear doublets and farthingales in this, too!" don't actually convey any information that I'm not already getting from the cover illustration. And I'm not automatically going to enjoy something just because I have enjoyed something set in a similar time period.