djones - 17 April 2007 02:21 PM
It seems clear from the Wired article about sci-fi writers (and from other remarks made on this thread) that this genre/literary business boils down to just a marketing strategy.
I think a couple of things are getting thrown together here. “Literary” isn’t the same as “academic,” although academics sure act like they own it. Something can only be categorized by academics in retrospect because that’s what they do, they study what went before. So, when a writer is writing and publishing, it’s one thing and later, when they finally catch up, the academics can say, ‘oh right, that’s not just whatever that anybody can understand… it’s literary, and it’s in our domain. And they’re wrong a lot.
The problem is that there’s nothing measurable or quantifiable (I don’t know if those are words) in art. That’s what leads to all this public masturbation. Thankfully, only a couple of us are even remotely interested.
Now, of course, it’s a marketing strategy, what with so many books being published a day, no one can be expected to look at everything. People seem to naturally categorize to narrow down the decision making.
I think it’s interesting that no genre description ever appears on the cover of an Elmore Leonard novel. At least not the ones I’m looking at right now. I don’t know if this was the case earlier in his career when he didn’t have as much input in the final product.
But, if you’re suggesting that Elmore Leonard novels have become so popular by some kind of Cumulative Advantage, as the article says, I’d have to say that the slow and steady increase in popularity over forty novels is entirely different than a manufactured pop music “sensation.” Even if that manufacturing is hit and miss, the intention is always the same - instant success. That’s just not the model the publishing industry had when Elmore Leonard started (though, it may be closer to that now).
As the article said, you’d think they could manufacture another Norah Jones. The thing about a ““manufactured” Elmore Leonard is that forty years of consistently great writing would have to become part of the equation.
But there were some interesting things in the article, like:
“Our desire to believe in an orderly universe leads us to interpret the uncertainty we feel about the future as nothing but a consequence of our current state of ignorance, to be dispelled by greater knowledge or better analysis. But even a modest amount of randomness can play havoc with our intuitions.”
It is possible that we’ll just never know.
