Literature vs. Genre=Devotion vs. Work

It might one of the last remaining genuine magical acts: writing. I've been reading (another magical act no one gets real credit for) interviews with authors and I realize finally the difference I think between literature and genre fiction. It's a line I may not ever get to cross over but at least I finally understand it and it's not just an abstract division between styles. It’s a way of life.

The genre writer, and lets just get this out of the way because it's the more boring of the two, writes for a stated purpose, has an obvious goal: the half drunk detective has to solve a case; the scientist-hero has to thwart the scientist fiend; the man has to prove his love to the girl in 19th century England amidst a backdrop of werewolves. These are familiar grounds for booksellers and the industry makes its bread and butter on them. Hell, I read them constantly. They can be utterly seductive--they have to be. They are designed to be. They hook you and won't let you go.

So what's literature? Look, before we go down this road, my innate distrust of authority is pointing fingers at me so the disclaimer: I'm probably wrong. Probably don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Probably am exercising my right to be asinine. End disclaimer. Literature is a book in which the author's motive is further reaching than the denouement, than the character's death, than entertainment. It is a mental reconstruction of the real the author is in when they write. Literature is a spell that transports the reader to another mind, lets them look out through another's eyes, and speaks another's words in their mouth. Literature uses the convention of genre as a lens to reveal a thing unobserved till then, a thing forgotten, a thing unknown.

Genre instructs. Literature reveals.

And so it comes as a challenge to the author to determine what he will do with his skill: will he instruct or will he reveal? Will he tell or show?

There is a second way to look at it by looking at the role of the author in either form.

In genre, the author's role is to produce books. In literature, the author's role is one of devotion. But devotion to what?

It seems easier, not being a musician and therefore not tripped up by details, that the devotion of a master violinist is easier to explain. It is not a mere matter of craft when they play: their job is to become a vessel through which the soul of the music is evoked. An author ought to reach for that as well, although, we practice and play simultaneously.

The author of literature must write a spell of such clarity and seductive brilliance that the reader is transported to the mind of the author--or better, the mind of the hero in the head of the author. And more, the reader ought to leave that mind, ejected by the end of the book, that they become somewhat infected by it, their own mind morphing into a version of the mind they visited, the way a tourist picks up a word or an accent abroad. Or a disease.

So while the genre author is cranking out vampire novels, the literaturist is working on one. Consider that Milan Kundera has written 10 novels since 1964 where Steven King has written 31 novels, 14 series, and countless chapbooks, collections, and short stories. King's books are usually pretty good airplane books but they only take the reader as deep as the printed page. Kundera--and all the others--go so much further, so much more completely.

There is a final and significant difference. Steven King probably read Kundera. I know he reads constantly. How many of the literaturist has King read? Ask him, I don't know. But I'll bet every one of the literaturists has read Steven King and comic books and westerns and Elmore Leonard and Anne Rice. Because genre books are fun. They're like popcorn or at best, decent pub food. While they'll never have the complexity of decent Bordeaux, they go down good and pass the time well. I feel guilty as hell every time I read Laura K Hamilton but Christ in a hat basket those novels go right through ya.

In the end, the individual author has to make their choice, obviously. It might not hurt to be two people-to slave over your work of literature while you knock out westerns between chapters. But ultimately, I think it would be more satisfying to be honest. Like our nasally poet laureate de generacion, B. Dylan, says: you gotta serve somebody.

So for me, I pick lit. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing half the time and I get sidetracked when I read books about writing "Damn Good Novels" or a book by Elmore Leonard and it affects me and I have to go back and burn 20 pages of crap. But I will keep trying so that when my book finally comes out, the six or seven people who read it will visit my head I'll leave vivid, well executed, colorful graffiti in theirs.
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