More Genre Snobbery, or, Why I Still Don't Like YA
I received my copy of Catherynne M. Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making yesterday and devoured it in three hours. It was utterly delightful, but then I started thinking about how I wanted to review it, and found myself continually thinking some variant on "But I really can't say that about it, because I said that about and Fairyland just isn't as good."
Which made me then wonder why I didn't think Fairyland was as good. Lots of reviewers online seemed to think it was absolutely brilliant; but I kept resisting using that word in particular about this novel, while I have not hesitated to use it about Valente's work in the past.
And really, even though I spent a little time trying to convince myself differently, it boils down to the fact that Fairyland is YA, which none of Valente's other novels have been.
Don't get me wrong -- there are YA novels that are some of my favorites of all time, that I cite as touchstones for my whole identity. (Anne of Green Gables and Little Women specifically, though it's actually moments in Good Wives and Jo's Boys that define me.)(And for examples with slightly less literary credibility, there's also The Phantom Tollbooth and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and even The Boxcar Children.) I read these books over and over again, and recommend them to anyone and everyone. (Though for the most part everyone's already read all of my examples.) And I don't usually feel the need to preface my recommendations with something like "Well, as long as you like YA. . ."
Looking at things as objectively as I am able, I really think that Fairyland belongs in that company.
So again. . . why am I underwhelmed?
Because I read all those other books when I was a kid -- probably between the ages of 8 and 10 -- and I read Fairyland as an adult.
This is not to say that I cannot enjoy books with the same passion now as I did when I was younger; the number of times I've read Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy trilogy (7 times since 2004, I think, and three times in that first year) and Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga (only 3 times straight through, but I pick up the books to reread passages on at least a monthly basis) is a testament to my ability to fall head over heels in love with a story.
And again, I reread all those old favorites to this day, so it's not that I've somehow grown jaded by the concerns of YA fiction, or that I think that YA is thematically simplistic and therefore unworth of my respect. (I mean, some of it is, but that makes it just like every other genre, as I noted in my previous post.)
The difference lies, I think, in my reasons for reading today, versus what they were when I was younger. When I was younger I read purely for story. I could not tell you whether the book was well-written or not, or even who the author was. I didn't even make sure that I was reading the first book in a series -- I'd pick up the title with the most interesting jacket description even if it was #3 or #12. (This is why I randomly have Boxcar Children #1-8, #42, and #118.) And despite the fact that I love to brag about my dad reading me Romantic poetry and Shakespearean sonnets as I fell asleep, it wasn't the beauty of the prose that made those nights enjoyable, it was my dad's animated delivery and period voices. (Plus I probably requested The Funny Thing more often.)
Today, on the other hand, I read for all those other reasons -- for the beauty of the prose, the themes explored, the book's place within a larger context, even just because I've read everything else by that author and want to complete the collection. Story is just about the last thing I look at when choosing a book -- I mean, it's a plus, but I'm perfectly happy with a novel in which nothing happens at all. That's why I developed the system I use on my book review blog, of assessing the reasons a person should read a book: I kept encountering instances where I completely adored a book and recommended it to a friend whose tastes had been similar to mine in the past and then that friend found the book mind-numbingly boring, so I was forced to re-learn that a person could just read for story, and I wanted there to be a way for me to warn people that a book I was raving about wasn't that sort of book. (Those will be the ones where I say "Don't read this for: The plot.")
All of which would be fine -- if I still placed a high value on purely story-oriented novels.
But, try as I might. . . I don't. As I said, story is a plus; but if story is all a novel has going for it, my gut reaction is to say that the novel's pure candy, and therefore fun but not. . . worthwhile. . . in the same way a novel with other stuff happening is.
And I think the thing that characterizes YA fiction overall is a focus on story rather than (not necessarily at the expense of) all those other things.
I'm going to partly blame my father here. Both my parents are snobs in their own ways; my mother is the cultural snob, and my father is the intellectual snob. I do not think snobbery is a negative thing per se, but I like to be mindful of it, because it creates blind spots.
My father's particular brand of intellectual snobbery expresses itself in liking things difficult. This is obvious in his book tastes (have I mentioned the Shakespeare yet? but also in preferring SF to fantasy, and denigrating a steady diet of any genre literature) but the example I'm going to use is actually his taste in wine.
He got into wine before oenophile became a word most Californians know. He's half-Italian, so it was inevitably Italian wines that he taught himself about, and it is Italian wines that he proselytizes for to this day. And does proselytize for them; he has all the accoutrements (including several wine fridges) and has wine buddies that host tasting parties and loves nothing more than to show any person my sister and I bring over the proper way to appreciate a big red.
He also reads books about wine, and there was a passage in his most recent find, Reading Between the Wines, that perfectly encapsulated my dad's approach to both wine and books. I have to paraphrase, because I do not have a copy of the book myself and Amazon's "Look inside!" feature doesn't go far enough into the introduction.
The author is talking about why he prefers Old World (read: European) wines to New World (read: Californian) wines. He says, basically, that Old World wines invite you to waltz, while New World wines push you back onto the couch and perform a lap dance for you.
I love that image.
Now it just doesn't seem right to say that YA fiction is performing lap dances, but that's the general thrust of this whole post. That focus on story. . . as I said, it doesn't have to come at the expense of other things. There is YA that is beautifully written, that is filled with thematic freight, that contributes to a larger cultural gestalt. But what makes it YA is that its intended audience is young adults, who mostly focus on story (if I am at all typical, which I am assuming I am). And to focus on story. . . all those other things, the prose, the themes, the larger context. . . they have to be transparent. You have to be able to enjoy the novel even if you completely miss all those other things.
Because I am not entirely a snob (or at least because I'm a self-aware snob, I hope), I will never argue that transparency is a negative and obscurity is a positive. (I have seen those arguments. They appall me.) But I have to admit that I prefer obscurity. I prefer novels that invite me to dance with them, in a complicated tango where I might miss half the steps on the first (or second, or third) run-through, to novels that do all the dancing for me.
Valente's adult novels do this; they're difficult, and temperamental, and punishing if my attention slips. Fairyland, utterly delightful as it is, simply cannot hold a candle to them.
Which made me then wonder why I didn't think Fairyland was as good. Lots of reviewers online seemed to think it was absolutely brilliant; but I kept resisting using that word in particular about this novel, while I have not hesitated to use it about Valente's work in the past.
And really, even though I spent a little time trying to convince myself differently, it boils down to the fact that Fairyland is YA, which none of Valente's other novels have been.
Don't get me wrong -- there are YA novels that are some of my favorites of all time, that I cite as touchstones for my whole identity. (Anne of Green Gables and Little Women specifically, though it's actually moments in Good Wives and Jo's Boys that define me.)(And for examples with slightly less literary credibility, there's also The Phantom Tollbooth and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and even The Boxcar Children.) I read these books over and over again, and recommend them to anyone and everyone. (Though for the most part everyone's already read all of my examples.) And I don't usually feel the need to preface my recommendations with something like "Well, as long as you like YA. . ."
Looking at things as objectively as I am able, I really think that Fairyland belongs in that company.
So again. . . why am I underwhelmed?
Because I read all those other books when I was a kid -- probably between the ages of 8 and 10 -- and I read Fairyland as an adult.
This is not to say that I cannot enjoy books with the same passion now as I did when I was younger; the number of times I've read Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy trilogy (7 times since 2004, I think, and three times in that first year) and Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga (only 3 times straight through, but I pick up the books to reread passages on at least a monthly basis) is a testament to my ability to fall head over heels in love with a story.
And again, I reread all those old favorites to this day, so it's not that I've somehow grown jaded by the concerns of YA fiction, or that I think that YA is thematically simplistic and therefore unworth of my respect. (I mean, some of it is, but that makes it just like every other genre, as I noted in my previous post.)
The difference lies, I think, in my reasons for reading today, versus what they were when I was younger. When I was younger I read purely for story. I could not tell you whether the book was well-written or not, or even who the author was. I didn't even make sure that I was reading the first book in a series -- I'd pick up the title with the most interesting jacket description even if it was #3 or #12. (This is why I randomly have Boxcar Children #1-8, #42, and #118.) And despite the fact that I love to brag about my dad reading me Romantic poetry and Shakespearean sonnets as I fell asleep, it wasn't the beauty of the prose that made those nights enjoyable, it was my dad's animated delivery and period voices. (Plus I probably requested The Funny Thing more often.)
Today, on the other hand, I read for all those other reasons -- for the beauty of the prose, the themes explored, the book's place within a larger context, even just because I've read everything else by that author and want to complete the collection. Story is just about the last thing I look at when choosing a book -- I mean, it's a plus, but I'm perfectly happy with a novel in which nothing happens at all. That's why I developed the system I use on my book review blog, of assessing the reasons a person should read a book: I kept encountering instances where I completely adored a book and recommended it to a friend whose tastes had been similar to mine in the past and then that friend found the book mind-numbingly boring, so I was forced to re-learn that a person could just read for story, and I wanted there to be a way for me to warn people that a book I was raving about wasn't that sort of book. (Those will be the ones where I say "Don't read this for: The plot.")
All of which would be fine -- if I still placed a high value on purely story-oriented novels.
But, try as I might. . . I don't. As I said, story is a plus; but if story is all a novel has going for it, my gut reaction is to say that the novel's pure candy, and therefore fun but not. . . worthwhile. . . in the same way a novel with other stuff happening is.
And I think the thing that characterizes YA fiction overall is a focus on story rather than (not necessarily at the expense of) all those other things.
I'm going to partly blame my father here. Both my parents are snobs in their own ways; my mother is the cultural snob, and my father is the intellectual snob. I do not think snobbery is a negative thing per se, but I like to be mindful of it, because it creates blind spots.
My father's particular brand of intellectual snobbery expresses itself in liking things difficult. This is obvious in his book tastes (have I mentioned the Shakespeare yet? but also in preferring SF to fantasy, and denigrating a steady diet of any genre literature) but the example I'm going to use is actually his taste in wine.
He got into wine before oenophile became a word most Californians know. He's half-Italian, so it was inevitably Italian wines that he taught himself about, and it is Italian wines that he proselytizes for to this day. And does proselytize for them; he has all the accoutrements (including several wine fridges) and has wine buddies that host tasting parties and loves nothing more than to show any person my sister and I bring over the proper way to appreciate a big red.
He also reads books about wine, and there was a passage in his most recent find, Reading Between the Wines, that perfectly encapsulated my dad's approach to both wine and books. I have to paraphrase, because I do not have a copy of the book myself and Amazon's "Look inside!" feature doesn't go far enough into the introduction.
The author is talking about why he prefers Old World (read: European) wines to New World (read: Californian) wines. He says, basically, that Old World wines invite you to waltz, while New World wines push you back onto the couch and perform a lap dance for you.
I love that image.
Now it just doesn't seem right to say that YA fiction is performing lap dances, but that's the general thrust of this whole post. That focus on story. . . as I said, it doesn't have to come at the expense of other things. There is YA that is beautifully written, that is filled with thematic freight, that contributes to a larger cultural gestalt. But what makes it YA is that its intended audience is young adults, who mostly focus on story (if I am at all typical, which I am assuming I am). And to focus on story. . . all those other things, the prose, the themes, the larger context. . . they have to be transparent. You have to be able to enjoy the novel even if you completely miss all those other things.
Because I am not entirely a snob (or at least because I'm a self-aware snob, I hope), I will never argue that transparency is a negative and obscurity is a positive. (I have seen those arguments. They appall me.) But I have to admit that I prefer obscurity. I prefer novels that invite me to dance with them, in a complicated tango where I might miss half the steps on the first (or second, or third) run-through, to novels that do all the dancing for me.
Valente's adult novels do this; they're difficult, and temperamental, and punishing if my attention slips. Fairyland, utterly delightful as it is, simply cannot hold a candle to them.