Possibly the most brilliant words ever uttered about ‘genre’ fiction - IMO!
From a discussion between two of my favorite authors, Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin. You can find some of their works listed on my page of books to read.
“Perhaps because of this disagreement, the two writers crept around the issue of science fiction all evening (Le Guin: “it’s just so complicated!”), preferring rather to discuss the motivations and morality of fiction-writing, until an audience member made a comment about their works falling between “literary fiction” and “science fiction.” Le Guin immediately took exception to this confluence of “literary” with “realistic,” arguing that realism is a genre like any other, and that all writing is by definition literary, except that some is better than others. It’s Le Guin’s belief — and Atwood seemed to be in cahoots — that realism is limited in terms of what it can actually discuss. The modern realistic novel, she lamented, has devolved into tales of well-off East Coast people with problems, and this form of novel can’t “bear witness” to anything but that particular condition. Both women were fierce in their conviction, however, that speculative and not-quite-real fictions have more freedom to tackle sweeping subjects unavailable to the realist.”
My feelings exactly.
