by Cindy Orr
Lev Grossman, book critic of Time magazine, says his new novel The Magicians, which is being marketed as literary fiction, wouldn’t have been possible without the publication of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. The fantasy genre seems to be migrating into literary fiction lately…or is it just that the best authors of each of the genres has been overlooked in the past merely because of their genre label?
What seems to make the difference is that if an author’s first works are marketed as literary, then it’s okay with critics when they “lapse” into genre. Take, for instance, Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, or Haruki Murakami, who have all won genre awards.
But while the genre community is quite willing to embrace literary works, excellent writers whose early titles were labelled “genre” get no respect in the literary world. Consider Ursula K. Le Guin, John Le Carre, or Raymond Chandler as examples of this phenomenon.
Is the fact that current “literary” writers are working in the genre arena changing the view of those who denigrate genre writing? That’s the hope, but too many of those who belittle genre fiction use unfair arguments such as the common trick of comparing bad genre authors to the best of literary authors.
So what we seem to need is for more “literary authors” like Michael Chabon, Cormac McCarthy and Margaret Atwood to continue their trend of experimentation in the genre world. And maybe, just maybe, some day critics will acknowledge that genres deserve some respect.
