Pigeonholing and putting down those who don't share your reading taste is right up there on my hot button list. Doesn't matter if it's literary people putting down genre folk or, genre folk bad-mouthing literary people. So when I see those who refuse to let their own reading or influences be limited to these arbitrary pigeonholes, attention must be paid.
Case in point today is a wide-ranging interview of fabulous crime writer Don Winslow at the new Mulholand Books site ( http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/ ) -- a site to bookmark and an imprint to support. Winslow writes brutal, fascinating novels about corruption and drugs. They are not breezy reads but they are complex, serious, riveting and very rewarding. He's got a new one coming out, Savages, that I plan to obtain as soon as possible.
Among his influences? Victorian novelist George Eliot's masterpiece, Middlemarch. This is the ultimate British novel during the height of its influence. I think even more highly of it than anything by the other Victorians I revere most. Here's a link to the whole interview:
http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/2010/08/10/don-winslow-interviewed-by-shane-salerno/#more-51
Good writing is good writing. Good storytelling is good storytelling. And the best authors, no matter where their own works are shelved, know this.
I thought highly of Winslow before but he's definitely riding even higher now.
And check out the Mulholland Books site every day for a new author interview.
Showing posts with label Genre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Genre. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
'Only Connect'
In these ultra-plugged-in days, having a niche, being known for one thing, seems to be a key to being known.
Oh well.
I just can't do it. I can't read and write only about one kind of novel or even fiction. I read literary fiction, short stories, crime fiction and YA. I read history, biography, current events and lots of memoirs. I read science for non-scientists and books about the movies and cookbooks. My magazine and literary journal subscriptions are gifts that expand the world every time they arrive in the mail.
As for reviews, I've been writing them since the late 1970s while working for a small daily newspaper in southwest Washington, and for CompuServe for roughly 10 years. The latter started as romance reviews. I appreciated them for teaching me about the flow of story, how to balance interior and exterior conflict and how to see what works and what doesn't within the regularly defined confines of a genre.
But just as I don't eat fish or chicken or salad every night, so I don't read only one thing. And so this blog won't be about only one kind of reading.
While I understand that genre exists to provide a bit of guidance about what kind of story to expect, I cannot put down any to build up another. They all serve a reading purpose. And at different times in my life and reading experience, they have given me different treasures. They have made me more aware of other people's ideas and feelings, of their experiences, and of how we are truly connected.
As E.M. Forster wrote in Howards End: "Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer."
Oh well.
I just can't do it. I can't read and write only about one kind of novel or even fiction. I read literary fiction, short stories, crime fiction and YA. I read history, biography, current events and lots of memoirs. I read science for non-scientists and books about the movies and cookbooks. My magazine and literary journal subscriptions are gifts that expand the world every time they arrive in the mail.
As for reviews, I've been writing them since the late 1970s while working for a small daily newspaper in southwest Washington, and for CompuServe for roughly 10 years. The latter started as romance reviews. I appreciated them for teaching me about the flow of story, how to balance interior and exterior conflict and how to see what works and what doesn't within the regularly defined confines of a genre.
But just as I don't eat fish or chicken or salad every night, so I don't read only one thing. And so this blog won't be about only one kind of reading.
While I understand that genre exists to provide a bit of guidance about what kind of story to expect, I cannot put down any to build up another. They all serve a reading purpose. And at different times in my life and reading experience, they have given me different treasures. They have made me more aware of other people's ideas and feelings, of their experiences, and of how we are truly connected.
As E.M. Forster wrote in Howards End: "Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer."
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