Still trying to get my mind off this nausea...

[dc]

Here's an article by Ursula Le Guin, advocating the view that fantasy is not just for children, which is fair enough. A lot of her comments are very sensible (particularly the point about not talking down to children in writing). The bit I am not sure about is this:

As for "genre" fiction — mystery, horror, romance, science fiction — none of it is for children; they begin to read it as they approach their teens, but not before. The only kind of fiction that is read with equal (if differing) pleasure at eight, and at 16, and at 68, seems to be the fantasy and its close relation, the animal story.

I suppose her get-out-of-jail-free card here is the bit about approaching their teens: does that mean genre fiction read by a twelve-year-old does not break this rule since he or she is not a child but someone "approaching their teens"? What about someone who is eleven? Or ten? Nine?

The thing is, I remember the books that were being read when I was at primary school. There was a class library, a big bookcase at the front of the room, and we could borrow books from it. As well as some classics (Three Musketeers and the like), there was science fiction of a sort (though not much, which irritated me); there were Westerns (never much interested me, but a lot of my classmates loved them; there was a Lone Ranger book, I recall); definitely there were mystery stories, one of the most popular books was called Key To Danger which both I and my best friend at the time read several times; plus, naturally I suppose, the school genre (Billy Bunter, that sort of thing, and whatever the girls' equivalent was — the Chalet School?). Oh, yes, and war stories. In fact, lots and lots of genre fiction. The one genre which was not represented at all as far as I can recall was fantasy.

Then there was the kids' section of the public library. I still remember that place well, it had a marvellous smell of polished wood and books. Loved it from the first time my parents took me there. Again, the place was absolutely full of genre fiction of various sorts (but not a lot of fantasy; some, but not lots, and what there was was mainly the real classics like Alice in Wonderland). The stuff I focussed on was mostly the SF and mystery fiction, of which there was a lot, but there was a great deal of Western and war stuff, too.

OK, this was a while ago. But if kids were reading and enjoying genre fiction then, there is no reason why they should not be doing the same just now, apart, perhaps, from the fashions of the publishing industry.

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Meh. It's not working. I am going to have to try lying down to see if this nausea will pass. Getting waterbrash now...

Comments

[weofodthignen]

Yes, I don't know where she gets the idea pre-teens don't read "the genres." I wouldn't even have known about the concept if my father hadn't informed me of it--while recommending MR James to me! My parents handed me The Hobbit when I was about seven--I asked to read LOTR when I was 8, but didn't start on SF until a year later, starting with I, Robot. Until GCE time pressures came along, and then when I briefly resumed reading fiction long after I finished grad school, SF is what I read most of. Horror I started with at my father's suggestion, with MR James followed by Poe and Dracula, but rapidly ran out of stuff to read, so other than determinedly chasing down Lovecraft in grad school--and I have yet to read much of it, it's so depressing and so bad for one's writing style--I stopped reading that even earlier. I got into mysteries very late; I don't have the law and order orientation that usually leads to that addiction, and I'm not logical enough to appreciate the best plots, so I only read Conan Doyle in adulthood, and I think I read Sayers' books before that; I know I picked those up because of the radio dramatisations (truly peculiar--I usually hate radio drama). I know I read Chandler and Hammett pretty early in the process, and I went on to read some of the new female mystery authors, thinking at the time I might write about them or even follow suit--there's been an amazing explosion of female authorship in that genre, even more dramatic than in SF. Female 'tec stuff probably constitutes the last novels I read before I went online and lost the entirety of my spare time.

So for 2 out of the 3 genres, I'm the opposite of what LeGuin thinks is self-evidently normal, LOL. I think like many authors, she needs to realize how anomalous people who love reading truly are.

However, basically, and in accordance with things you say in some of your own comments here, I really think the separation of the "genres" from other fiction is a bit silly. Especially if you consider Westerns and Suspense as genres, too, you get left with pretentious, boring twaddle that very few people want to read as "mainstream fiction." No wonder so many readers give up, and start reading and writing their own online!

The public library I belonged to from 8 onwards did have a separate room for SF, and that and Gollancz yellow were damned useful in giving me ideas for possible good stuff. But the first public library I used had a vastly better children's section, with oodles of mythology; and the "classic children's literature" I have read I appear to have read at all the wrong ages, and mostly not from the library. I read Carroll far too early and loathed him, and I liked Billy Bunter stories moderately but loved the older boys' comics (who was that chap who fought Nazis with a cricket bat? He and Dan Dare . . . great stuff). I'm trying to remember the name of the series of books about a bad boy that I ripped through in a couple of years when I was 14, 15, something like that . . . I resisted reading Arthur Ransome for some time--the book my dad borrowed for me was so ugly--but loved those after I gave in and tried it. My mothers' old annuals with stories of boarding school were fun, far better than contemporary girls' annuals, which were all about how much better it was to know a lot about tv stars than to be good at maths. For a while I read career fiction for girls, until I realized all the plots were about getting a man so you could leave the career, but I think those books taught me a lot about life that school and Girl Guides didn't. And I read some historical fiction, but after exhausting the supply of Treece, Trease, and Garner I ran out of fodder for that taste, particularly since female authors in the field are notorious for the love obsession, and partly also because anything after 1066 tends to put me to sleep. Also I loathe adventure. I like hard SF, I like just about everything Van Vogt ever wrote, but stuff about goldmining, chasing spies, cowboys, or exploring makes me scream. It's a tribute to Ian Fleming's genius as a writer that I loved his stuff. But I only got into that after a friend did. Must have been 15 by then.

Mixed-up comments from a former bookworm . . .

M