Roundtable: McCarthy, Chabon, and Franzen

Russell Letson

I am immediately struck by Guy’s seeing the acceptance of the science-fiction-y efforts of McCarthy et al. as depending on their being generally pre-acceptable–“Slack is cut, elasticity offered,” indeed. It would be interesting to see a situation in which one of these writers produces something that doesn’t get accepted because it’s gone too deep into some genre’s territory/readership. Some readerships dislike exogamy.

And to circle back to the start of the discussion, I took the initial question to be less concerned with marketing or writing-to-the-markets than with figuring what it is about SF that might limit its appeal to audiences that have not already bought into it and become familiar with its traditions and history–a kind of reader-reception question that might look at what is required for a convention-heavy form* to appeal to a broad readership. That’s why Shakespeare is one of my go-to guys for thinking about the intersection of genre and genius–what proportion of the longitudinal audience of Hamlet is familiar with the conventions of Elizabethan revenge tragedy? And if they’re a notch or three more experienced, how many have seen a production of The Duchess of Malfi and recognized Bosola’s character typology? And since this sticks my toes over a dark abysm of aesthetic philosophizing, I’d better curl ’em up and step back.

*As always, with the recognition that all genres and traditions and forms are rooted in systems of conventions and retooled tropes. Some conventions, though, are more conventional than others.

Rachel Swirsky

Karen asks: How hard is it for a writer from the outside to break through in the other direction?

I’ve been thinking about this a fair amount because some of my Iowa classmates have written books that are definitely based on SFnal content–future dystopias, talking chimps!–and I’ve talked to those writers about cross-pollination and it just seems to be very difficult. They’re interested, but whatever barriers are in place have so far been keeping them out. They’re one thing, and so not the other…

I’m sure there are marketing/practical/industry reasons for all of that which I am insufficiently exposed to.

But there’s definitely a reverse-snobbery vibe that I pick up sometimes at conventions… It grates. Sure, I guess there are more mainstream-pitched novels that deal with SF tropes in less sophisticated ways than SF novels have come to–but it’s not like every SF novel is at the cutting edge of new ideas. Everything borrows. But when novels marketed as lit do so, I feel like I hear people saying basically “they poached our content”… As if “we” have a right to riff on it, but “they” don’t.

My personal feeling, though, is that the line between genre and non-genre readerships is going to increasingly blur–in content, if not in marketing categories. It seems to me that most writers I meet who are about my age or a bit older basically see science fiction as a thing that is part of literature, not a separate bucket. We grew up with Star Wars being a fact of life rather than a revelation; we grew up with video games. Sometimes dragons and spaceships happen, and that’s cool. That’s part of our metaphorical construction for understanding the world. Which was part of the brilliance of Charles Yu’s How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe.

There’s got to be many a mainstream author out there who looks with envy on the sales of genre superstars like George R.R. Martin or J.K. Rowling or Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman.  Most don’t come anywhere near that level, and many don’t even come anywhere near the second-tier level reached by many working SF/fantasy professionals.

And all are basically convinced that if they wrote commercial novels, they’d totally break out, because they think that’s where the audience is.

Is there any genre in which everyone writing isn’t essentially worried about breaking out?

I think you could file the serial numbers off of this conversation and have a sort of generic shape that could be applied to most sub-genres of fiction, or even potentially to most forms of art. Everyone’s got their conversation going, their sophisticated content built on earlier sophisticated content, their concerns about lowest common denominators, their aspirations for what they consider the beautiful stuff to win out, their gnawing concern about what will break to be successful.

Which gets back to my initial question, I guess. What are we defining as the center of this conversation? What is the default to which SF is jazz? What’s pop fiction?

Cecelia Holland

Franzen’s moment in the sun, remember, came in a dustcloud of controversy when he made disparaging remarks about Oprah Winfrey’s book club–illustrating the clash between NY literary snobbery (wanting to be exclusive and discriminating) and the drive to commercial success (inclusive and mass-cult). I remember something Gay Talese (I think) said in the uproar around Franzen’s Connections–“best sellers are good books, and good books sell.”

Connections sold, but wasn’t (I thought) a good book. I would be more convinced if John Crowley’s Four Freedoms had done well, which was a terrific book.

Stefan Dziemianowicz

I’m probably way too cynical, but I remember the Oprah fandango for The Corrections and still feel that was a very calculated maneuver on Franzen’s part (though probably not one backed by his publisher). For him to have openly courted a popular audience and then dissed the forum that was giving some writers the biggest popular audience of their careers just didn’t make sense. But with everyone wanting to be ON Oprah, rejecting Oprah certainly brought him a lot of attention.

But I digress.

I could see Samuel Johnson giving “art” a big Bronx cheer (if the Bronx cheer had existed in his day) in contrast to a well-paying gig.

Cecelia Holland

OK, so the book is The Corrections, not The Connections, which may reflect my sense that Jonathan Franzen’s success was the result of his connections, not his art.

The best book I ever wrote was one I doubted I would ever sell. So I did just as I pleased. (It did sell, eventually, and had a profitable sale, not a breakout, but nice). I keep trying to get back to that now, but it’s amazing how the marketplace corrupts me.