My cluebat is shaped like 1984
Apr. 7th, 2012 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lokifanGRUMPY LOKIFAN IS GRUMPY.
Not enormously so, because I haz a kitty, and he makes all things better. But still. I am BATTLING with this fic. And it’s really, really late, and meant for someone I both admire and like a lot, and ARGH. I AM SO CLOSE I CAN TASTE IT. But I keep forcing more words and they’re just not good words. I am okay with forcing out a few hundred words if I’ll keep them mostly the same, and I’m okay with just splurging out a thousand words that will be mostly rewritten. Forcing stuff that’s no good anyway is just the worst of both worlds.
BUT I’M SO CLOSE I CAN TASTE IT.
Also, Eastercon is happening right now and I am not there. Which is a sad. Especially since there’d be no better place to discuss Christopher Priest’s HILARIOUS epic meltdown over this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist.
Speaking of literary snobbishness, I generally like the Guardian’s literary stuff. But OH MY GOD FUCK OFF.
That article is full of the worst kind of “genre = downmarket, bad literature, formulaic, doesn’t engage the brain, you can just finish one and leap into another which is a bad thing because you should SIT AND PONDER GRATE WORKS OF LITERATCHUR when you finish them.” It literally SAYS genre fiction can’t include ‘future classics’. YOU NEED TO BE HIT WITH A CLUEBAT. A CLUEBAT SHAPED LIKE 1984. AND PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. AND MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.
It’s not LAZY to read genre fiction and it wouldn’t matter if it was. “In digital, dross rises” indeed! The snobbery is incredible in its unabashedness.
UGH. I don’t make a great distinction between LITERATCHUR and trash anyway - I somehow escaped being contaminated with that distinction and worries about writing GREAT AND ORIGINAL WORKS as a kid/teenager, and I don’t intend to fall into that trap now. And even if I did, the idea that genre fiction is automatically not LITERATCHUR, the rampant classism and sexism, the whole idea of reading as a guilty pleasure, the ‘confession’ that sometimes the author does read something not-literary BUT HARDLY EVER BECAUSE IT IS NOT GOOD...
SHUT UP GUARDIAN.
AND ALSO SHUT UP “GROWN-UPS SHOULDN’T READ CHILDREN’S BOOKS” GUY, BEFORE I BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH TOM’S MIDNIGHT GARDEN. WANKER.
My rage in the face of literary snobs, it is mighty. And I am armed with the Bartmimaeus trilogy in hardback. Don’t mess.
Not enormously so, because I haz a kitty, and he makes all things better. But still. I am BATTLING with this fic. And it’s really, really late, and meant for someone I both admire and like a lot, and ARGH. I AM SO CLOSE I CAN TASTE IT. But I keep forcing more words and they’re just not good words. I am okay with forcing out a few hundred words if I’ll keep them mostly the same, and I’m okay with just splurging out a thousand words that will be mostly rewritten. Forcing stuff that’s no good anyway is just the worst of both worlds.
BUT I’M SO CLOSE I CAN TASTE IT.
Also, Eastercon is happening right now and I am not there. Which is a sad. Especially since there’d be no better place to discuss Christopher Priest’s HILARIOUS epic meltdown over this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist.
Speaking of literary snobbishness, I generally like the Guardian’s literary stuff. But OH MY GOD FUCK OFF.
That article is full of the worst kind of “genre = downmarket, bad literature, formulaic, doesn’t engage the brain, you can just finish one and leap into another which is a bad thing because you should SIT AND PONDER GRATE WORKS OF LITERATCHUR when you finish them.” It literally SAYS genre fiction can’t include ‘future classics’. YOU NEED TO BE HIT WITH A CLUEBAT. A CLUEBAT SHAPED LIKE 1984. AND PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. AND MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.
It’s not LAZY to read genre fiction and it wouldn’t matter if it was. “In digital, dross rises” indeed! The snobbery is incredible in its unabashedness.
UGH. I don’t make a great distinction between LITERATCHUR and trash anyway - I somehow escaped being contaminated with that distinction and worries about writing GREAT AND ORIGINAL WORKS as a kid/teenager, and I don’t intend to fall into that trap now. And even if I did, the idea that genre fiction is automatically not LITERATCHUR, the rampant classism and sexism, the whole idea of reading as a guilty pleasure, the ‘confession’ that sometimes the author does read something not-literary BUT HARDLY EVER BECAUSE IT IS NOT GOOD...
SHUT UP GUARDIAN.
AND ALSO SHUT UP “GROWN-UPS SHOULDN’T READ CHILDREN’S BOOKS” GUY, BEFORE I BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH TOM’S MIDNIGHT GARDEN. WANKER.
My rage in the face of literary snobs, it is mighty. And I am armed with the Bartmimaeus trilogy in hardback. Don’t mess.
Re: Um, I went off on a rant of my own. Sorry.
Date: 2012-04-09 07:19 pm (UTC)Oh I so understand your annoyance. Romance isn't my favourite thing, but I like it more than, for example, true crime or quite a bit of science fiction, and I DO tend to use it as a lighter thing to read between the heavy-going books I often gravitate to. But, and here's a big but, just because it might be marketed at girls and contain a somewhat inevitable endpoint (usually), it does not mean the WRITING IS BAD or not worthy of thoughtful reading. I have learned things from romance books: one involved a plot centring around the making of fireworks, another talked a lot about bridge building which are quite frankly things I'm not sure I've ever have gone looking for information on independently.
And you know, just the term genre fiction is so flipping annoying. How are you supposed to classify any book without it having a genre. Yes it may fit into several, but there are very few, I'd imagine, that don't fit any because it's kind of the point of genres. (I mean, I know the dismissive term genre fiction isn't geared towards that thought process, but it still pisses me off.)
Re: Um, I went off on a rant of my own. Sorry.
Date: 2012-04-14 09:43 am (UTC)just because it might be marketed at girls and contain a somewhat inevitable endpoint (usually), it does not mean the WRITING IS BAD or not worthy of thoughtful reading.
YES. EXACTLY. The scorn romance gets from fantasy fans is extra-annoying - we know the villain will be defeated in fantasy, after all. It's the how, not the what. But romance is 'girl books for girls' and thus silly and brainless and boring.
YES. QUITE. And I actually really like 'genre theory' as a form of lit-crit, and the thoughtful process... so it's annoying to have 'genre fiction' be this dismissive code for 'trash'.
Re: Um, I went off on a rant of my own. Sorry.
Date: 2012-04-16 03:02 pm (UTC)Yes the fantasy v. romance thing also ties into the boy books v. girl books thing which also makes me want to rage at everyone who tries to defend the separateness. It is marketing which books for women and books for men a thing, and stupid society not getting the fact that a book is a book and the fact that someone wants to read it is fantastic and they should NEVER be belittled or in any way because they chose to read something not traditionally marketed to them. For fuck's sake the fact people are reading is a good thing, let them do it in peace without policing what they choose to read because of its genre.