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A lot of people got riled up over Stephen King’s article “What Ails the Short Story” in the New York Times. Here’s post one and two from Jeff VanderMeer’s blog, and here’s the original complaint I saw from Ellen Datlow’s blog.

There are several schools of thought. There are an unfortunate number of speculative fiction fans who think about genre in strictly oppositional terms to “literary” fiction, i.e. “ours is the best and therefore the rest is boring crap.” There are, of course, people from the “literary” side who think all genre is adolescent crap.

Of course, you might have noticed the quotes I put around the word “literary.” Personally, I don’t view this word as a value judgment but rather a style of writing, usually a style that concerns itself with use of language, and not necessarily at the expense of character, plot, etc. Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw” or Toni Morrison’s Beloved certainly fall into the “literary ghost story” category whereas I wouldn’t put Stephen King’s The Shining into that category.

I don’t think there’s much to be gained by trying to pin down a solid definition of what constitutes “literary” because doing so draws (unnecessary) attention to the distinction between the two—back to the genre/literary must be automatically good/bad. The real question is whether the work is any good. Which in turn is really an effort to answer other important questions: should this work be read, and by whom? And why? (which leads into the canonical works discussion which is both interesting and not on point here)

For instance, I’ve been griping about reading James Joyce. It’s just not my kind of writing. I wouldn’t recommend A Portrait or Ulysses to most people, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good. Nor does that mean that I deny Joyce was a genius. I’m quite glad I’m reading him, even though often it’s like having a root canal. While people might argue this point with me, in terms of plot almost nothing happens. Joyce is much more about burying clues in the text, layers upon layers of meaning, giving a character’s disjointed thoughts, etc.

Like I’ve said, this isn’t my bag. However, this most certainly is the bag of a lot of self-proclaimed “literary” types. A lot of “literary” short fiction is of this brand, where not much happens, but you sure can set up an excavation site around the words and get to work trying to extract some meaning(s) from the text. I don’t think this appeals to average person on the street who wants to kick back and read a story. It certainly doesn’t appeal to me. But neither does broccoli, if you get my meaning.

To get back to King and writing and short fiction, I read King as saying that there are too many excavation-type stories (or “domestic plate-throwing stories”) in literary mags and not enough page-turners. If this is indeed the case (and from my own limited experience I tend to agree with him) then it’s no wonder the literary magazines don’t push more copies. However, I think the “pick up the genre mags!” counter-point isn’t quite on topic either. This assumes that every reader will like genre for the sake of genre, which isn’t the case. Quite often, I find whole issues of the genre mags underwhelming. But then again there are enough gems that knock my socks off to keep me coming back.

I don’t know whether I’ve made a single original point in this post. It’s just that I’ve read a lot of criticism of King’s article from both the “literary” and “genre” camps and I’ve felt that both took it as a personal affront. Some of the critics from the so-called “literary” camp doth protest too much, methinks, and I do feel for the slight that the genre mags perceived.

But I think King’s point is that finding good stories for the general reader shouldn’t be so much work. It’s not hard for a general reader to walk into a bookstore and quickly find an appealing novel, but I do agree that it would take far more patience and persistence (not to mention cash) for that same reader to find a half-dozen short stories s/he enjoyed.

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