The Guardian's Blog, page 134

Genre fiction radiates from a literary centre

In the fourth of our series on literary definitions, novelist Anita Mason argues that while genre fiction tells specific kinds of story, the literary novel opens onto the universal


Gaynor Arnold: We don't think of Dickens as a historical novelist
Juliet McKenna: Science fiction travels farther than literary fiction
Elizabeth Emondson: 'Literary fiction' is just clever marketing

Go into a bookshop. You are surrounded by classifications. Crime fiction, romance, science fiction, fantasy These are the genres; they specialise. Crime fiction is a puzzle. Science fiction addresses philosophical questions in the form of an adventure story. Romantic fiction is about love, but there are restrictions on what kind of love it is otherwise the book belongs somewhere else.

There are limits and rules. Usually the book slots into its genre like a well-aimed dart. Sometimes there's a question. Maybe it's genre. Maybe it's "literary". "Literary" doesn't have a labelled shelf. There are reasons for this, one of which is that it's hard to define, but let's have a go. Literature is writing of high quality, sustained by intelligent structure and informed by original thought. It requires integration of all the elements into an intellectually and emotionally satisfying whole. Trickiest of all: it has to say something.

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Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading this week?

Your space to discuss the books you are reading and what you think of them

Welcome to this week's blog. Here's a roundup of your comments and photos from last week, including a number of open-ended questions coming from the community which sparked interesting conversations.

fat_hamster asked:

Here's one of those open ended questions I delight in. Has anyone read a book they feel should be made into a film one day? Mine is Room by Emma Donaghue.

I'd choose Manly Pursuits by Ann Harries. In her novel an aged and ailing Cecil Rhodes believes that the only thing that can save him is the mellifluous sound of English songbirds. Oxford ornithologist Thomas Wills is engaged for the task of delivering the birds to Cape Town. The Boer War looms. The book includes appearances by other real Victorian figures including Lewis Carrol, Oscar Wilde and Rudyard Kipling.

Okay, normally I ignore all movies-based-on but the temptation to design one to order, as it were, is too hard to resist. So I would like to see Gaiman's Graveyard book as a movie but very much like Greenaway did with The Tempest/Prospero's book. So it must be voluptious and weird, with one narrating voice (which would have to be provided by Gaiman himself.)

Batman: The Black Mirror a fantastic and (as you'd expect) dark and twisted story where the city of Gotham is a character in its own right and different Batman has to deal with foes old and new.

The Final Whistle brings to life the varied but always eventful lives of 15 Rosslyn Park rugby players who died during World War One. Haunting and heartfelt.

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By AbdullahM

16 April 2014, 0:23

I've just finished Silent Cry by Nobel Prize winner Kenzabur e, story of two brothers returning to their home village in Shikoku, a remote forested area of Japan. They are struggling with their own lives and with the myths of their family history. The book is a heavy tale of continuous descent with the ever-present rolling rumble of the futility of action in the light of insufficient knowledge, poor judgement and evitability.

This after finally finishing the extravagant and sumptuous feast that is Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec. W or the Memory of Childhood and Avoid duly purchased.

I finished reading Post Captain by Patrick O'Brien, and have already found HMS Surprise in an Oxfam bookshop so I won't have to wait so long to start the next in the series. After waiting patiently for one of the many copies to be returned to the public library, I finally chanced upon the next in the Jack Reacher series, Without Fail, and am now reading that has everything you'd expect in it so far so am not disappointed. Also just started re-reading Elephant by Raymond Carver, which is probably my favourite of all his books...

I've been reading A Perfect Spy by John Le Carré and I agree when people say it could be his best book. After the misstep of The Little Drummer Girl, a book which probably have been considered great were it written by anybody else, it's really good to see that he's returned to his familiar universe while going for something far more ambitious.

I'm not the kind of person who tends to think of 'hard' and 'easy' books and I'm definitely not one to confuse difficulty with quality but, aside from being great, it's also perhaps the most difficult books I've read: the Magnus chapters skip from first to third person, past to present tense, address usually two separate people and sometimes pull back even further out of his narration, often doing at least one of these per paragraph. It takes a while to get used to but when you get used to the rhythm, it's genius, and even with all this going on, it's still a thrilling page turner.

Just finished A Delicate Truth by le Carre. The final page was devastating, although how Toby could have avoided all the state's mechanisms is debatable. Where is Snowden now? And who else recently committed suicide rather conveniently?

Ethical medicine, Proustian detail, awkward ethnography of The English and Icelandic execution; attempting to squeeze it all in whilst playing with Mikey (and my son)

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By Jordan Murr

17 April 2014, 9:33

Finished All The Pretty Horses in a state of bliss but I've decided to take a break before The Crossing. I decided on a change of scene with The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru. Just started and not yet sure what the tone is meant to be. Seems like it might be picaresque and I'm not sure if the writer is achieving it. In all fairness it's too soon to say.

Normally I will only discuss books here I enjoyed and which I would recommend to others but I will make an exception for Isabel Allende's detective novel 'Ripper'. First the faint praise: it's not really bad but weighing in at almost 500 pages 'not really bad' turns into 'why-am-I-still-reading-this?' fairly quickly. The story isn't bad, the way it's presented is not bad, the setting and what there is in terms of back story: not bad... Well, you get my drift.

[...] She is slumming here. You can't help but feel she wrote this on a dare but without putting any real thinking or writing effort into it. So, if you really have nothing better to do or if you lost your suitcase with all of your holiday reading and this book is the only thing wit words in it you come upon in a night train, some faraway hostel et cetera, then it will do. Otherwise, really, don't bother.

In honour of the Bard's birthday on the 23rd, I am reading this play while listening to the magnificent radio production put on by Sir Kenneth Branagh and Alex Kingston on BBC Radio 3.

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By saadskhan

22 April 2014, 3:16

Reference books plus prized possession- a signed first edition of Laurie Lee book.

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By ID980815

14 April 2014, 17:27

Reading as part of my English exam. The more I read the more I enjoy it. Uplifting and recommend to anyone of any age.

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By csrees97

15 April 2014, 18:02

The Last Blue Sea by David Forrest. I've had two copies (it's a fairly rare paperback) both were passed to Vietnam Vets to give their wives a "feel" of jungle warfare. Neither was returned. I accept that.

Very Special Intelligence by Patrick Beesley. About the Admiralty's radio intelligence service. I got to dip into it (PQ-17 chapter). SKE picked it up. Said "This is my job". Bang. Into her Chador. Left me with the feeling I was in breach of the Official Secrets Act.

Good question. I have the opposite problem in that I can't give them away! I've bought 4 copies of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and three of Burgess's Earthly Pleasures , as gifts for people, and most ended up back on my shelves. I've stopped trying to make people read things now.

The only book I've had nicked was an annoyingly rare edition of Keats. The person who borrowed it denies memory of doing so. I'm trying to wangle an invitation to their house so I can casually pluck it off the shelf and point out my pencil notes on the inside.

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Poem of the week: Present Tense by Michael Schmidt

Recalling Donne's sermon on Job 19:26, with a bit of Ovidian metamorphosis thrown in, this modern meditation on memory and resurrection shifts between past, present and future

Resurrection takes various forms in this week's poem, Present Tense, from Stories of My Life by Michael Schmidt. In the opening lines, it's an organic recycling, begun by worms and helped by the digestive processes of other small industrious creatures. The geographical dimension of bodily decomposition ("north and south") recalls John Donne's sermon on Job 19:26: "Shall I imagine a difficulty in my body because I have lost an Arme in the East and a leg in the West some bloud in the North and some bones in the South?" But here there's nothing distressed or macabre in this. A calmly regular trimeter pulse helps the process seem natural and benign, while the verb "travels" lets light into underground darkness. As for Donne, the bodily dispersal complicates, but in no way cancels, the promise of personal resurrection: "Christ will have to raise/ An entire field "

There's also an Ovidian kind of metamorphosis that is central to the poem. The literalised concept of resurrection on judgment day ("an entire field") leads to the older, pagan image of woman as tree ("like Laura"). When Daphne was changed into a laurel tree in Metamorphosis, her first awareness began with finding "her feet benumb'd and fastened to the ground." So the woman in Schmidt's poem will "stand/ On trunks for feet and pray/ Like Laura turned to tree/ With bough and bloom " The simile: "like Laura," leads, of course, to Petrarch, Number 23 of the Canzoniere, as well as to Ovid. At Apollo's decree, laurel provided the wreath for acclaimed poets and military victors. Is either profession significant to the old man?

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The genre debate: 'Literary fiction' is just clever marketing

In the third of our series on literary definitions, Elizabeth Edmondson argues that Jane Austen never imagined she was writing Literature. Posterity made that decision for her


Gaynor Arnold: We don't think of Dickens as a historical novelist
Juliet McKenna: Science fiction travels farther than literary fiction

"Genre fiction" is a nasty phrase when did genre turn into an adjective? But I object to the term for a different reason. It's weasel wording, in that it conflates lit fic with literature. It was clever marketing by publishers to set certain contemporary fiction apart and declare it Literature and therefore Important, Art and somehow better than other writing.

The term sneaks back into the past in a strangely anachronistic way, so that, for example, Jane Austen's works are described as literary fiction. This is nonsense. Can anyone think for a moment that were she writing today she'd be published as lit fic? No, and not because she'd end up under romance or chick lit, but because she writes comedy, and lit fic, with a few rare exceptions, does not include comedy within its remit.

"Literary fiction emphasises meaning over entertainment." (Venture Galleries blog)

"Literary novels are prose poetry the subject of the work is engaged with something that might be called weighty " (Dactyl Foundation)

"Literary Fiction is experienced as an emotional journey through the symphony of words, leading to a stronger grasp of the universe and of ourselves." (Huffington Post)

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Shirley Jackson's dark powers are back at work from beyond the grave

Garlic in Fiction, a new collection from the late master of shocking but subtle horror, is due next year. I'll be watching out for it, and so should you

The sun is shining, the skies are clear, Easter eggs are melting on windowsills up and down the land but I'm going to be shutting myself inside the darker side of life this weekend, after learning that there's a new collection of works by the late Shirley Jackson in the pipeline. The New York Times tells us that the collection, Garlic in Fiction, has been edited by two of her children, and drawn mostly from Jackson's papers at the Library of Congress - ranges from stories to drawings, lectures and pieces of non-fiction.

According to the acquiring editor at Random House, "these pieces are just as strong as her well-known work". According to her children, they are "gems". "We believe the fiction is important, the lectures are inspiring, and the other writings and drawings show various aspects of her wit and humour," they said in a statement to the NYT.

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood ands tone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."

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The genre debate: We don't think of Dickens as a historical novelist

In the first of a series on literary definitions, novelist Gaynor Arnold wonders why have separate genres at all. For the convenience of booksellers? For lazy readers?'

I'm generally regarded as a writer of literary fiction but I have also chosen to write two novels which are set in the past, so I have a foot in the historical camp as well. This difficulty in deciding where I stand as an individual convinced me that the whole idea of "genre" is simply unhelpful. There is a huge overlap between literary and genre fiction to the point where the labels become meaningless.

To take a personal example: when I had written my novel Girl in a Blue Dress, I didn't initially think about sending it to our local Birmingham publisher. I didn't think it would fit in with the kind of cutting-edge contemporary fiction Tindal Street Press was generally accepting at the time.

My novel was set in the 19th century and not really their cup of tea (I thought). But they made it clear that their only criterion was: is it good writing? That consideration transcended any narrow view about genre. Without that encouragement, I might never have been published, and my writing career might never have taken off. A valuable lesson.

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What are your reading habits and quirks?

All of us here love books and love can induce some very eccentric and odd behaviour. Share your personal reading habits and quirks

I have this thing that really annoys my sister when I am reading a book. Whenever I visit home, we'll be sitting in the living room, and she'll suddenly yell at me to stop "flicking the page". I know exactly what she means, but I don't realise I'm doing it. I've always done it. I have this habit, see, of stroking it's definitely stroking, or crinkling, not flicking book and magazine pages as I'm reading them. I know, I know. It's weird. I just like the feel of paper, and it helps me concentrate. Um, this is what I mean:

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The 100 best novels: Help!

As our list reaches the 20th century, the field of landmark books gets ever broader, which will likely mean much more debate. Whom should I choose?

This week, with The Red Badge of Courage, my list of 100 great novels in the English language, in chronological order, is almost one third complete, with a growing weekly readership that's approaching 200,000.

Each week since we started the project last year, I've found that there's always a steady percentage of my readers who a) viscerally hate it (Sunburst, for instance), b) despise it (hertfordbridge), or c) misunderstand it. failsworthpole stands for many here.

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Female characters admired by men readers' stories

We joined a campaign against targeting children's books by gender and asked the boys and men in our audience to show and tell what female characters they liked. Here is a selection of your contributions

See all the entries and contribute your own on GuardianWitness

To show our support for a campaign to stop targeting books at girls or boys, Guardian Books asked our male readers about female characters they liked or admired, and we also put out a request for parents to let us know about girls their boys were enjoying reading about. The responses were varied, numerous and encouraging. Among the adjectives used to describe these characters were: imaginative, inspiring, brave, resourceful, funny, awesome, smart, smarmy, eccentric, independent, cunning, wild-spirited, fiery, genius, strong, inquisitive, driven, logical, thorough, obsessive, nerdy, intelligent, fearless, clever, rebel and curious.

If you want to contribute your own, feel free to add your entry to the GuardianWitness assignment or leave a comment in the thread below.

This is my son, Ben, with Harriet the Spy. He's only half way through so far but says "it's interesting and mysterious and I like any books that have adventure". He says "Boys can read books about anyone and I wouldn't like to read books that only had boys in". He also loves the Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence which have the central female characters of Flavia and Nubia, as well as Jonathan and Lupus.

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By Carol Carter

11 April 2014, 12:55

Dan (11yo) picked Tracy as his top female character. Her feistiness and imagination inspire him.

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By dansmum

15 April 2014, 8:07

Owen has adored the My Naughty Little Sister stories since before he could read them himself. And although he's moved on to enjoy "boy" books like Horrid Henry and Beast Quest, there's nothing like a few tales of that naughty little girl to provide an escape for an active 7-year old boy!

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By ID9694381

11 April 2014, 11:36

I read this book in my early teens and loved Scout, an adventurous girl with an active imagination. It wasn't until about half way through the book I realised she was a girl!

I am one of the co-creators of Cozy Classics, a series of board books for kids that re-tell beloved classics in 12 words and 12 needle-felted illustrations. Because of the series, my young son, Felix, is already well-versed in the exploits of literary heroines such as Lizzy Bennet, Jane Eyre, Emma Woodhouse, Natasha Rostova and others.

As for me, when I grew up I was a big fan of Harriet the Spy.

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By Holman Wang

15 April 2014, 17:12

As a child in primary school I loved Roald Dahl. I especially loved Matilda and read it maybe about 3 or 4 times back to back. I felt I could relate to her, not because I had a horrible family like hers (my family are lovely), but because of her feeling of isolation and she was so curious about the outside world and a dreamer. I was like that at school and always told off for 'day-dreaming' which would probably be put down to suffering from depression due to bullying. If children are given encouragement then they feel better about themselves and find happiness in their own interests rather than being forced to fit into a rigid structure of learning. [...] After feeling like I had no brains at school, I have now gone on to do a degree in Computing, wrote my first computer program two years ago, and I'm learning Swedish. I always think of Matilda when I feel that I'm not clever enough... and Roald ;)

When I was a kid, I was absolutely inspired by Roald Dahl's Matilda.

I wanted to be as smart and brilliant as she was. It never really occurred to me when I read it that it was a girl - of course I knew it was a girl, it just wasn't a thing I focused on. She was just an awesome human being.

Great book in fact '' Epic''

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By princemax

10 April 2014, 10:55

My 7 year old son really likes the girl character Nina in the book Nina and the Kung Fu Adventure. She's really smart and adventurous and he's always saying how he wishes she were his friend so that he could go on adventures with her!

Thóra Gudmundsdóttir

The Icelander Thóra Gudmundsdóttir (Þóra Guðmundsdóttir), in the series of books by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir. Brilliant character. Love the tangle in her domestic life, good humour, and she is a fighter - always comes out on top.

Too many to choose from but Dido Twite, the heroine of Joan Aitken's endlessly inventive James III series is brave, resourceful and funny and not even her family can hold her back :)

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By ostephens

10 April 2014, 19:31

Too many to choose from but I'll start with an obvious one: Lisbeth Salander in the Millennium trilogy. She's enigmatic, brilliant, tough, stoic and, deep down, very caring. How could one not root for her?

Rosie is a very fun character from The Rosie Project, which I've just read. As with Lisbeth, the exterior is at odds with the interior. And both are super-smart.

Spoiler Alert!!!! This was my favourite book as an 11 year old. Tyke Tiler inspired me so much that I started writing my own version (though I only got halfway through and the manuscript didn't survive to the best of my knowledge). In fact it shaped my adult reading to a great extent: I love to read about anyone who disregards what they're brought up to believe they should do, and I especially love to read stories about girls who are brave enough to

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By MajorLeeGasol

10 April 2014, 10:23

I read Edith Nesbit's Railway Children to my then 8 y.o. twins and again found that Bobbie (Roberta) was human, caring and resilient. My son (as well as my daughter) responded positively to her. She was also resourceful and a very good role model for respecting others. She is also not perfect and shallow like many characters. She builds friendships with the "old Gentleman" and gains his respect. She uses this respect to help her clear her father and bring home.

Over a century old the story still resonated with my children and Bobbie was relevant to a modern 8 year old boy.

Offred is the main character and the novel is written from her point of view. Although her circumstances are dire due to the theocratic state in which she lives, she manages to remain strong and resilient.

Behold the titular titian (& sometimes green) haired genius Anne (with an 'E') Shirley and her tragical and ultimately royally beautiful life, puffed sleeves and all. Too good for the likes of Gilbert Blythe IMHO.

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By MattKilleen

11 April 2014, 17:47

This is Serbian translation of Swedish chapter book "Hedvig and Max-Olov" by Frida Nilsson. Hedvig is just 7 and she wanted a horse to impress her friends, but her father bought her a donkey instead, and it was horrible for her to handle this, until she made this freaky animal a good friend of her. And she dared to confront a bully in her class who mocked her for this donkey. And not only she is brave, but also perfectly normal: as each healthy village child does, she also collects and burries dead animals she finds around, be it a dead pet or a snake overrun by truck.

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By Aleksandar Guba

15 April 2014, 13:19

This is a beautiful, beautiful book by Tove Jansson - a master of simple elegant storytelling. Sophia and Grandmother's relationship couldn't fail to inspire any dreamer.

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By PPS5transition

15 April 2014, 13:56

The indomitable, competent and magnanimous captain of the Amazon, what boy could fail to be inspired by Nancy Blackett in the Swallows and Amazons series. She was easily the equal of John Walker, captain of the Swallow! She and sister/first mate Peggy were a swashbuckling contrast to the rather more conventional walkers.

Everyone should pick up Y for an epic adventure, exciting action and the awesomeness that is Dr Alison Mann. She's smart, smarmy, sexy and probably a few more 's' words too. She might just be able to save the human race as we know it and oh my good golly gosh, it's a comic book!

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By James Story

10 April 2014, 21:36

I love the character Lyra Belacqua in the series 'His Dark Materials' by Philip Pullman. She doesn't fit any particular 'box' and is a wonderfully complex and well-developed character. She's adventurous, brave but also not afraid to be afraid, if that makes sense. There are many atypical female characters in the series but Lyra is the one that I find the most special. Not only that, the first word of the first book and the last word of the last book is 'Lyra'. Which you think Pullman must have done intentionally, and that's pretty cool.

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By Oldmanmackie

9 April 2014, 14:17

@GuardianBooks @GuardianWitness Better still, heres my flatmate. Lyra broke his heart 10 years ago. He's still not ok pic.twitter.com/6HnTgsIFDj

Our son loved the Pippi Longstocking stories as a child, superhuman, strong, independent and making up her own rules, what child boy or girl could not admire her?

@GuardianBooks @GuardianWitness greetings from Athens...me & Dagny pic.twitter.com/6gEgJvTNmf

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These books are made for walking: Shoes in literature

Footwear will be one of JK Rowling's topics when she guest edits Woman's Hour. And from Tess of the d'Urbervilles to Sex and the City, it's a fascinating literary subject

JK Rowling's list of what she wants to include when she guest-edits Woman's Hour includes "the myth and power of shoes": what a fantastic subject. Once you start looking, shoes shine out at you all over the place, from Cinderella's glass slipper to Dorothy's red shoes in the Wizard of Oz. (Though strangely they don't feature in Harry Potter much, apart from Hagrid, whose "feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins".)

While men have shoes, too think of Raskalnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment scrubbing the bloodstains from his boots and worrying about his socks it is women who wear the really important shoes in books, and you can track women's lives via the key items of footwear.

She took off her boots and stuffed them with flowers. She did the same with mine.
On the way home, "Rosie carried her boots, and smiled."

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