And I need those HEAs to counteract all the not-so-HEAs of the real world. I don’t understand how people who watch network and cable news all the time are not all suicidal!

BTW – Nora does write short stories, as part of multi-author anthologies.

For him, this meant “a time waster.” It wasn’t the type of novel or genre of novel — it was reading fiction at all that he disapproved of.

Disclaimer: I’m not Gary, nor even a friend of his; we might have emailed each other once or twice a few years ago, but I don’t think so. I just “know” him via his blog and from his comments at Obsidian Wings.

In my generation, I see women reading while men play video games, but these days, video games have EPIC storylines that are almost like movies. (And they all read like Tolkien or Clancy, to boot!)

I’m told this makes their work, no matter how award-winning, no matter how well-written, no matter how thoughtful, no matter how smart, no matter how insightful, no matter the depth of the character and themes, no matter how enjoyable, no matter how powerful, nothing more than “novels [which] are not ‘books’, as that word is normally used. They are either tools for relaxation or the female equivalent of porn. They should therefore be compared not to War and Peace, but to either Ultimate Sudoku or the Hustler centerfold.”

Works that people invest years of their life in creating are not to be allowed to be compared to Real Novels, but to “Hustler centerfolds.”

WOW. He’s SO right. Maybe instead of struggling to write conflicted characters, realistic settings, compelling plots and yet still find a happy ending — I should just paste an image of a naked man between a bookcover and call it a day!

Sad to see someone with a track record like hers go that way.

Of course not. Cats are furry, and sit on the bookshelves. Books are paper and sit on the floor.

Thank you for the reminder of the photo of one of my cats trying to be a bookend when he was a kitten. I’d forgotten all about that.

And I have to say, it’s been fascinating to follow this. It looks like the original discussion actually evolved into a fascinating thing rather than devolving horribly the way most internet discussions do. That’s an accomplishment.

I mean, seriously?

And I’d like to publicly apologize for calling Hilzoy an asshat. It was badly done and out of character. I can only blame my nicotine cravings. Or perhaps I’m cranky because it is tax season and I’m a CPA who’s too busy to ‘escape’ into the mindless porn drivel of a romance novel. If only Nora wrote short stories – I could get off in between 1040s.

This endless apologia to folks who will never ever respect genre fiction seems really pointless.

Let me just add my own period to that sentence, Ciar. Oh, and a footnote: All fiction is a form of escapist entertainment, no? If it weren’t, to one degree or another, it would be nonfiction.

But she got out of her comfort zone on this one without recognizing it. I think I understand what she's groping for, but she doesn't have the “subject-matter expertise” in either reading or publishing to refine the distinctions she senses without creating unrealistic and unfortunate generalizations.

Yup, and by the time it became evident that she had taken a mis-step, she fumbled for some way to save herself, digging deeper in. Had she come at the issue from an “inside the genre” perspective, I don’t think her statement about reader expectations in Romance would have been so fraught with problems. But by the time she tried to recast her original comments in that way, she couldn’t sell the assertion as anything approaching neutral.

But you know, even as I kept wanting her to just admit she took a wrong step, I appreciated the opportunity to keep the debate going, because I think it’s a good thing to demonstrate that Romance readers are smart, savvy, and educated, especially to those folks who may not be commenting but who have a view of Romance as truly inferior. And despite the wrong-headedness of Hilzoy’s position, IMO, she remained composed, which was very admirable.

On the subject of constraint in literary forms:

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth the prison, unto which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,
In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

-Wm. Wordsworth

Posted by: Julianna | March 05, 2008 at 10:40 AM

“My local B&N used to have the genre books right up front in the store because that's what most people wanted to buy. They got a new manager, however, who thought that was shameful and has brought the ‘quality’ books to the front of the store, pushing all genre into the extreme back end of the space. When I pointed out that he'd ghettoized his best-selling books, he pursed his lips and said, ‘This arrangement made more sense to me.’”

It’s actually not entirely loony for a manager to hope that, on the way towards the back to buy the popular books they’re there to buy, customers might pick up or investigate, or best of all, purchase, some of the less popular stuff they pass on the way to it.

The aim of bookstores is to sell books, after all.

Whether this theory works, or to what degree, or doesn’t, is another question, but someone might certainly believe this, without judgments about “shame” coming into play. But perhaps he made a direct statement to that effect that you didn’t mention.

Um, thanks for all the compliments, everyone. And second Nadezhda’s — a long time extremely smart writer at various political and other blogs, herself — comments about Hilzoy. This is an extremely rare and uncharacteristic event of Hilzoy going off the rails this far, honest, and it’s only because, as others have said, she went way out of her element without realizing it.

As a rule, she really is a brilliant and spot on writer, on matters of politics, philosophy, current events, and a variety of topics.

Pop culture, not so much. But she’s never said something remotely so regrettably thought-free before, in the couple of years I’ve read an accumulated maybe-close-to-a-hundred-thousand-words-or-more by her, for whatever that’s worth.

Also, while I’m posting tragically infrequently at my own blog these days — and thus instead have been posting a lot in comments at ObWi, and occasionally other blogs — I do hope to get back to more frequent blogging sooner, rather than later, so do feel free to drop by in future, and to browse the rather eclectic, and downright moody, archives, definitely skipping past the topics that bore you, if you like.

There’s no one I expect would share all my interests, and thus not be bored by at least some of my topics, but if you use your scroll buttons wisely, who knows, maybe I said something else amusing that wasn’t completely emphemeral?

Along with all the, you know, crap.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit I’m no romance reader, so it’s harder for me to provide concrete examples of writer-side disrespect there. Fantasy, though–that I can rant about.

I had a bit of a discussion on the subject with one of my professors the other day. The problem is, people can’t tell their definitions about. Literary fiction, as far as the English professors seem to be concerned, isn’t “It doesn’t fit in a genre”, though a lot of literary fiction doesn’t. The academic definition is that it’s the stories in which the artistic/technical elements, particularly setting, characterization, and word use, are more important than the plot. But then we get people who decide that genre fiction and literary fiction are mutually exclusive, and take that as license to skate when they’re writing in genre.

People like that were the reason why this professor required us to get to advanced fiction before she’d accept anything in genre; they seemed to think that just because they were writing fantasy, science fiction or romance, they could take it easy. If anything, I’d say the true readers of genre fiction are harder to please–the SBs regularly pick apart things I would never have noticed, and the fantasy neophyte reader’s truly ageless and thereby fascinating character is the old reader’s Immortal #947.

Our problem isn’t just the people who can’t tell the difference. It’s the people within the genres who write cliche and call it the epitome of said genre–and worse, when they’re the ones who suddenly become phenomena for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of their writing. I’m sure you all have your own examples; we fantasy-types have the ones who equate Paolini with Tolkien, or an amateur dark mindtwist with Lovecraft; mystery has its offenders, science fiction’s full of them. The question isn’t just what to do about the clueless outsiders. It’s what to do about our own.

Seems an interesting amusing sort.

You the other hand, are well-spoken and perfectly succinct in your observations. Thank you. I wish others would follow your example.

Great essay on Obsidian Wings. When folks post very long comments my eyes usually start glazing over even if I want to read them. Yours just flowed and kept my interest right through to the end. And what lovely well-phrased points you made!

This discussion was my first exposure to hilzoy and I cannot say I see much of what you describe of her abilities, but it may well be that she went outside her comfort zone.

Unfortunately, I have to say, it’s statements like the following which make me think rather less of her.

From Obsidian Wings tonight after many refutations by romance readers and writers on why readers read romance, Hilzoy wrote:
“I do think that many people read romance for different reasons, and in different ways, than they read other kinds of fiction.”

She may think that. That’s her right and it may even be true for her person, but multiple readers and writers in the genre have told her multiple times, in multiple ways that she’s plain wrong about this for them and still she persists.

I’m really curious what those distinctions may be. If you see what she’s getting at, please share, because I’m baffled and getting just a tad annoyed because she refuses to admit that she just may be wrong in telling regular romance readers why and how they read in their genre.

Thanks so much for the kind remarks about my comments on Obsidian Wings. Romance isn’t my main area of reading, and within the genre I limit myself mosty to “historical” since contemporary and paranormal etc doesn’t usually float my boat. But I am a big reader of genres generally, and “Dear Author” is a regular stop in my RSS reader. So I’m especially pleased that some of you thought I handled “your” genre appropriately.

As for hilzoy, she is indeed brilliant, and a terrific writer on policy, politics and foreign relations. And usually she’s got a great radar for elitist or sexist BS. But she got out of her comfort zone on this one without recognizing it. I think I understand what she’s groping for, but she doesn’t have the “subject-matter expertise” in either reading or publishing to refine the distinctions she senses without creating unrealistic and unfortunate generalizations.

And FYI, I’m a “she”.

Absolutely nothing. As long as someone doesn’t trot this out as the blanket reason that all romance readers choose the genre. Or tack on any comments that imply daydreaming romantics are braindead and unable to handle ‘real’ books.

And poor Hilzoy seemed to be doing just that, along with a lot of other weird-ass things. I especially liked the ‘a cat is not a book’ part of the thread.

Of course not. Cats are furry, and sit on the bookshelves. Books are paper and sit on the floor.