On Genre

It all began after I spotted, as I wandered the local library, the paperback novelisation of a Dr Who episode – the television series being the most significant thing in my life at the time. I think I was six or seven; the librarian didn’t really think it was appropriate, but my beleaguered mother knew that whatever it could do to me would be far less unpleasant than what I’d do if I didn’t get my way. So home I went and started reading. It was the start of a love affair that, so far, has shown few signs of waning.

I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve read a lot of books. For many years I read at least two full-length novels a week; sometimes more. What it also means is that – out of both practicality and by virtue of my changing tastes - I’ve read books from a number of different genres. I’ve divided them into the following, with an explanation of where they fit into the bigger picture:

Sci-Fi

For a short time I was reading only sci-fi related to television – Dr Who and then The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Both have had a lasting impact on me, particularly the latter; I have no doubt my irreverent sense of humour was shaped to a significant degree by Douglas Adams, and use much of his writing as a benchmark against which everything is to be measured.

Most of the sci-fi I’ve read, though, has been of the ‘soft’ variety; I’ve never gone down the path of the more serious side – the Asimovs, Bradburys and Arthur C. Clarkes. One day, maybe.

Fantasy

Someone told me I should read The Lord of the Rings, so I did. From that point on the genre of fantasy became the dominant one. I read almost every book by every author I could get my hands on – Feist, Eddings, Weis & Hickman, Boyer, Alexander, Kerr, McCaffery to name a few. The Chronicles of Narnia and The Chronicles of Prydain retain special places in my heart; more recently I found myself a dedicated Harry Potter fan.

It’s probably not all that surprising, given my love of Douglas Adams, that I’d also have a soft spot for his fantasy equivalent, Terry Pratchett. I’ve read almost all of the Discworld novels. And despite my liking of Narnia, I’m also a fan of one of its biggest detractors, Philip Pullman, whose Northern Lights trilogy blazed new ground in the genre.

Overall, I’ve mixed feelings. Some of it I re-read while others I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot clown pole. Much of the genre is truly wretched, wooden, two-dimensional characters in laughably poorly-thought-out and unoriginal storylines; inane tripe, glossed over with a deus ex machina dependence on wildly inconsistent use of magic or the presence of gods and/or godlike beings.

That being said it’s not all bad. Quite a few are extrapolated from traditional folk tales – Celtic, Welsh, Scandinavian – and others are more contemporary and confronting rather than subscribing to the a Hayes code-esque fear of sexuality. And it’s not always impossible to find some decent prose nestled between the swords and the sorcery.

Horror

I started reading horror while still in my fantasy period; I believe the first was the short story collection Night Shift by Stephen King. Thus began my turning away towards the darker side of fiction. Everything of King’s got read; ditto Koontz, Little, Straub, Laymon, Rice, Masterton, Hutson, Herbert, Barker – you name a horror author and I’ve probably read them. Some cross over into other genres – one of my favourite horrors is Faerie Tale, by Ray Feist, who’s more well known for fantasy.

Like fantasy, some horror I’ll read again and some I won’t. I’m still very interested in horror from a historical perspective, particularly the early exponents like HP Lovecraft.

Truly awful pulp action/adventure

For a (fortunately) brief period I read some absolutely ghastly rubbish, the guns & ammo equivalent of Mills & Boon. The kind of rubbish that panders to the worst kind of gun-toting, right-wing fantasies. Let’s not dwell on it, shall we?

Thriller – assorted

This is where categorising gets really difficult. Here’s where various subgenres – crime, medical, legal etc. have to go because I don’t see them being significant enough to be standalone genres. This broad segment contains a lot of authors, many of them household names to even non-readers: Leonard, Clancy, Grisham, Crichton, McBain, Deaver, Cornwell, Lescroart and even – wait for it – Dan Brown.

Yes, I’ve read Dan Brown. Sure, there are parts when the execrable prose makes my gall bladder spasm, but it was never bad enough to make me want to toss the book aside. Stop and laugh - yes. But I still finished both The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.

The genre is broad; so too is the spectrum of quality within it. Standouts include James Ellroy, whose gritty crime stories pulse with energy and strip the idyllic gloss from 1950s America and James Lee Burke injects a literary sensibility to his stories of heroes trying to live quiet lives in contemporary small-towns south of the Mason-Dixon. Across the Atlantic Ian Rankin’s brooding, alcoholic anti-hero John Rebus stalks the streets of Edinburgh.

I probably read more from this genre than any other - it’s the meat and potatoes.

Historical and dramatic fiction

That’s another awkward categorisation, but again I’m not left with many options. This is where books like the epics of James Clavell (Tai-Pan, Shogun, Noble House) go, as well as the Earth’s Children series of Jean M Auel (Clan of the Cave Bear etc.) and the passé Africanophile Wilbur Smith. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I’ve read some Jeffery Archer, and that goes in here as well. There's a few hours of my life I wouldn't mind having back.

Humour

This is hard, because most humour is simply a story in another genre told in a funny way – like Pratchett’s Discworld (fantasy) or Adams’ Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (sci-fi). But there are some that are better suited here than anywhere else – Tom Sharpe, Sue Townsends’s Adrian Mole, John Birmingham (though he also writes thrillers these days), Ben Elton, Tom Holt. The Jeeves & Wooster stories of PG Wodehouse – which, by the way, is pronounced Woodhouse. Trust me.

I wish there was more humour out there, but most of what passes for comic writing these days is neither good nor funny.

Classics

I’ve read a few. I’ve started a lot more. Here lies Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas, Emily Bronte. One day I might finish those I’ve started – Don Quixote, Ulysses, The Way by Swann’s.

I did say might – I make no promises.

Contemporary fiction, modern literature and everything that doesn’t go anywhere else

If the others haven’t been broad enough, this is where I’m stuck putting books that often have so very little in common with the others in the genre beside the simple fact that they’re made out of paper and cardboard.

But it’s also the cream of the crop. Almost all the best books are here. My all-time favourite, Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides – only just beating out his other book, The Virgin Suicides. Then there’s John Irving, Louis de Bernières, Annie Proulx, Bret Easton Ellis, Nick Hornby, Gabriel García Márquez, Michael Chabon, Zadie Smith, Jonathon Franzen, Irvine Welsh, Chuck Palahniuk and Joyce Carol Oates.

Catch-22, Picture This, and everything else by Joseph Heller. In the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Nick Earls’ share-house stories, including Bachelor Kisses and Zigzag Street. The wacky genius of Kurt Vonnegut. The tragic John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces.

These are where true genius and the finest writing (in English at least; I’m not really equipped to compare them to books written in other languages) can be found. As much as I like the other kinds of books I read, it’s this that I crave – profound, insightful commentary on the human condition; prose to die for; wry, subtle humour contrasting with depth of emotion.

Sigh. I could, as usual, go on – but I’m running out of time and space. Let me know what you think. And if you’ve got any suggestions I’m always looking to try new things – though finding the time might be difficult.

'til next time.