Michael Chabon, and some thoughts on genre
Oct. 8th, 2010 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anthimeriaM and I and a friend of hers went to see Michael Chabon talk yesterday! I got home way too late to post about it then, but I shall now!
This was one of the most fun things--listening to him talk about the research he did into the early comic book industry, its place in society, the big names who were just a bunch of (mostly) poor Jewish guys trying to get by and get out, because comics were the lowest of the low. He threw around names and influences and my grin just got bigger every time because I know all this. In my profile I call myself an "amateur comics historian," and even though it's been a while since I indulged my love of the history of comics (and because, previous to my move, I'd read all the nonfiction books about comics that my libraries had), I still remembered most of it. I knew those names, and so did that guy up on stage who has a Pultizer.
I have geek historian solidarity with Michael Chabon!
Whose books, sadly, I have not read. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay has been on my to-read list for years, but I've never quite gotten around to it. Going to see him has definitely moved it up the list; I probably won't check it out of the library tomorrow, but it'll be checked out eventually for sure.
Michael Chabon was always the author my English professors recommended to me--usually with the undertone of "Here! I do have something in my reading that can cross over with yours!" I love Knox dearly but there's a reason the students started and run the genre magazines.
At one point last night, Chabon talked about genre literature and he said he took the coward's way out (I'm paraphrasing) by making sure he was established in the mainstream literary world before writing what could be considered genre work, like hard-boiled detective fiction. That way he gets the protection of the establishment and could still write what he wanted.
That he actually said it, that he took the coward's way out by becoming a literary success, really struck me. He said there's no way to get yourself dismissed by critics faster than to write and label yourself a sci-fi/mystery/romance/etc writer.
And it's true. Michael Chabon has a Pulitzer, and I doubt, say, Lois McMaster Bujold--an author widely and pretty much unanimously praised at cons I've been to, among readers of all kinds of spec-fic--is even on the radar of the people who award Putlizers. The local high school is reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and I doubt most high schoolers get any closer to spec-fic than that and Brave New World. We teach Fahrenheit 451 and The Odyssey but don't call them spec-fic because they're Literature. Patricia Briggs's books are put in the straight fiction section in libraries instead of the sci-fi/fantasy section because she makes the bestseller list.
I've railed about this more than once, and likely will again. On the other hand, personally, I really enjoy the spec-fic community--that we have a community. That I can tell I might be friends with someone if they use the word "shiny" in everyday conversation, that we have a common language (space opera, world building, Jossed). We have our own social structures, our own internal issues, politics that an outsider, that the mainstream, can only look on with bafflement. These are the people, my fellow geeks and outsiders, to whom I am writing.
Back in college, a professor once said to me that I'd have to make a choice with my writing: Which audience did I want? The smaller, spec-fic audience, the audience that got my in-jokes and with whom I could have metaconversations within the story about spec-fic itself, its history and uses and abuses? Or did I want to address a wider crowd, get my message out farther, find the common person and speak to them, even though they have no context for my story?
He was none-too-subtly pushing me toward the latter. For a moment I even considered it. At the end of the day, though, I am my own audience. I know too much about spec-fic, about the plurality and history of our community, about the stories we tell. If I chose to tell stories to the wider audience, I would be essentially selling myself short. I am a speculative fiction writer, and often a young adult writer, and I am proud of that.
Which is not to say that I don't want non-geeks to read my work! Far from it! I would love to open new doors to people who've never imagined riding on a dragon's back or changing into a wolf under the full moon.
Sometimes I feel like the spec-fic writer is kin to the travel writer. We are both saying, "There are whole worlds out there you've never seen, but I can take you there." The only difference is, of course, that spec-fic writers build our own worlds.
I want the de-ostracization of the geek; I want geeks to be proud that they're geeks. Or nerds, or fans, or whatever other word you choose to describe your love of spec-fic. Michael Chabon is definitely a geek, whether he calls himself one or not--the man might very well know more about the history of comics than I do, which is an impressive feat if I do say so myself.
Even though I've never read his books, it was a fun night for myself, M (who doesn't read or write spec-fic at all, but he did talk about writing in addition to geekery), and her friend. Thought-provoking less in that I came to new conclusions and more that it was interesting to hear many of the same conclusions from the so-called greener pasture, so to speak.
Also, I will forever and ever be envious of him, because he's spoken to Will Eisner. Eisner was the first person to believe in and advocate for comics as an art form. The comics industry awards are called Eisner Awards. And I'm never going to get to talk to him because he's dead. Deeply, deeply envious.
This was one of the most fun things--listening to him talk about the research he did into the early comic book industry, its place in society, the big names who were just a bunch of (mostly) poor Jewish guys trying to get by and get out, because comics were the lowest of the low. He threw around names and influences and my grin just got bigger every time because I know all this. In my profile I call myself an "amateur comics historian," and even though it's been a while since I indulged my love of the history of comics (and because, previous to my move, I'd read all the nonfiction books about comics that my libraries had), I still remembered most of it. I knew those names, and so did that guy up on stage who has a Pultizer.
I have geek historian solidarity with Michael Chabon!
Whose books, sadly, I have not read. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay has been on my to-read list for years, but I've never quite gotten around to it. Going to see him has definitely moved it up the list; I probably won't check it out of the library tomorrow, but it'll be checked out eventually for sure.
Michael Chabon was always the author my English professors recommended to me--usually with the undertone of "Here! I do have something in my reading that can cross over with yours!" I love Knox dearly but there's a reason the students started and run the genre magazines.
At one point last night, Chabon talked about genre literature and he said he took the coward's way out (I'm paraphrasing) by making sure he was established in the mainstream literary world before writing what could be considered genre work, like hard-boiled detective fiction. That way he gets the protection of the establishment and could still write what he wanted.
That he actually said it, that he took the coward's way out by becoming a literary success, really struck me. He said there's no way to get yourself dismissed by critics faster than to write and label yourself a sci-fi/mystery/romance/etc writer.
And it's true. Michael Chabon has a Pulitzer, and I doubt, say, Lois McMaster Bujold--an author widely and pretty much unanimously praised at cons I've been to, among readers of all kinds of spec-fic--is even on the radar of the people who award Putlizers. The local high school is reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and I doubt most high schoolers get any closer to spec-fic than that and Brave New World. We teach Fahrenheit 451 and The Odyssey but don't call them spec-fic because they're Literature. Patricia Briggs's books are put in the straight fiction section in libraries instead of the sci-fi/fantasy section because she makes the bestseller list.
I've railed about this more than once, and likely will again. On the other hand, personally, I really enjoy the spec-fic community--that we have a community. That I can tell I might be friends with someone if they use the word "shiny" in everyday conversation, that we have a common language (space opera, world building, Jossed). We have our own social structures, our own internal issues, politics that an outsider, that the mainstream, can only look on with bafflement. These are the people, my fellow geeks and outsiders, to whom I am writing.
Back in college, a professor once said to me that I'd have to make a choice with my writing: Which audience did I want? The smaller, spec-fic audience, the audience that got my in-jokes and with whom I could have metaconversations within the story about spec-fic itself, its history and uses and abuses? Or did I want to address a wider crowd, get my message out farther, find the common person and speak to them, even though they have no context for my story?
He was none-too-subtly pushing me toward the latter. For a moment I even considered it. At the end of the day, though, I am my own audience. I know too much about spec-fic, about the plurality and history of our community, about the stories we tell. If I chose to tell stories to the wider audience, I would be essentially selling myself short. I am a speculative fiction writer, and often a young adult writer, and I am proud of that.
Which is not to say that I don't want non-geeks to read my work! Far from it! I would love to open new doors to people who've never imagined riding on a dragon's back or changing into a wolf under the full moon.
Sometimes I feel like the spec-fic writer is kin to the travel writer. We are both saying, "There are whole worlds out there you've never seen, but I can take you there." The only difference is, of course, that spec-fic writers build our own worlds.
I want the de-ostracization of the geek; I want geeks to be proud that they're geeks. Or nerds, or fans, or whatever other word you choose to describe your love of spec-fic. Michael Chabon is definitely a geek, whether he calls himself one or not--the man might very well know more about the history of comics than I do, which is an impressive feat if I do say so myself.
Even though I've never read his books, it was a fun night for myself, M (who doesn't read or write spec-fic at all, but he did talk about writing in addition to geekery), and her friend. Thought-provoking less in that I came to new conclusions and more that it was interesting to hear many of the same conclusions from the so-called greener pasture, so to speak.
Also, I will forever and ever be envious of him, because he's spoken to Will Eisner. Eisner was the first person to believe in and advocate for comics as an art form. The comics industry awards are called Eisner Awards. And I'm never going to get to talk to him because he's dead. Deeply, deeply envious.
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-09 02:20 pm (UTC)Back in college, a professor once said to me that I'd have to make a choice with my writing...
I'm pretty sure I know which prof this was, and he said more or less the same thing to me, haha. Then he listed about five mainstream markets he thought would like the sort of stories I write, and when I went home and looked them up all but one of them explicitly forbade spec fic submissions. So yeah. I feel absolutely no urge to try to shove my way into a community that snubs my whole genre in a blanket "no science fiction or fantasy" statement.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-09 07:51 pm (UTC)That annoys me, too! Though often what annoys me more is when a "respectable mainstream" writer gets praised by critics for doing something "shockingly new and original, a thought-provoking exploration of humanity"--when what they've written has already been written a thousand times, picked to death and outgrown in the spec-fic community. Makes me see red.
It probably was the same professor! I suspect we are not the only genre writers he had this conversation with.
I feel absolutely no urge to try to shove my way into a community that snubs my whole genre
Right there with you.