I think one thing that gets me about the literary elite is the whole "popular = bad" equation they seem to be taught at birth.

Heh. Nodding furiously in agreement here. And I loved Stephen King's evil little comment at the American Book Awards, about, did they think they got some kind of intellectual points for snubbing their own culture?

Not saying it was the most appropriate venue for him to say it, but I'm still pleased that he said it at all.

Stephen King's evil little comment at the American Book Awards, about, did they think they got some kind of intellectual points for snubbing their own culture?

Oh, I think they believe they do. It's like little kids, kind of -- "We'll have a club, and it'll be super-secret, and only people who know this handshake and that head toss will be allowed to join, and..." They don't seem to realize that not too many people actually want to be in that club. Great writing is great writing, no matter where it's published, and if lots of people read it, isn't that a Good?

There's definitely a "smarter than you unwashed masses" attitude about the subjects covered, too. Which is another reason romance gets scoffed at, of course. But how smart is it to write books most people don't want to read, and make only a subsistence living doing it? I'm definitely not saying authors should dumb it down or cater to the lowest common denominator, but I'm going to read someone who's telling me a decent story over someone who is spouting what s/he learned from a desktop "word a day" calendar and imbuing every possible sentence with Important Symbolism and Metaphor. (Or allergory? Heh.)

Not to Buffy up the topic, but that's the way I've always felt about the show. People see vampires and roll their eyes, but those of who are actually smart enough to get the bigger picture know it's about Life and Love and Redemption and Identity...but it's wrapped in a stylish blond package with demons! and puns! and blood! and leather pants!, and written by some of the smartest folks writing for TV anywhere, anytime.

Must. Get. Back. To. Work.

There's definitely a "smarter than you unwashed masses" attitude about the subjects covered, too.

Yup. That, and "oh, you don't live in Manhattan? You mean there are people who write things who don't?" 'tude about, specifically, the NYTBR, that makes me whacky. It's a very parochial attitude to have about books, and it came out loud and clear in the recent kerfuffle over the changes they're planning on making to the NYTBR. Feh.

And as someone who is writing crossover genre but who has also written literary fiction, I like 'em both. What I don't like is some candyassed Yale grad at a city desk somewhere, assuming that because someone like Mailer wrote it, it must be literary, and therefore "worth" reading.

I agree that popular=bad has been the reigning critical stance for certainly the last 30 years. What's ironic about it is that many of the writers in the Western canon, including Shakespeare, Dickens and Twain, were wildly popular in their time. Popular taste does not always stand the test of time; the public loved Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth and Josiah Allen's Wife and didn't think much of Hawthorne and Melville. Still, if you go back a hundred years, popularity seems to be about as good a predictor of literary worth as critical acclaim.

*cough*

Yale graduate. Living in New York.

Just sayin'.

Micole, you also read a broad spectrum of stuff and I've yet to see you sneer. There are some damned good editors out there. The problem is with the attitude (and I went to both Erasmus and PA in my day, so ex-New Yorker myself, and I loathed the attitude then, too).

And substitute any university you like for Yale - in fact, thinking about it, I don't think any of the reviewers I'm talking about are Elis.

And as someone who is writing crossover genre but who has also written literary fiction, I like 'em both.

Oh, me too. But on a merit basis. Just because someone, as you say, is deemed "literary" by the Powers That Be doesn't automatically make me want to read it. As, of course, something being considered "genre" doesn't make me not want to. (Okay, that couldn't have been any clunkier, huh?)

Right now, most of the stuff in my "to be read" pile is the literary stuff, and that may be simply because I don't have lots of time to read, and when I do (with new baby, two other kids, writing deadline) I'm usually exhausted and not up for much effort on my part.

With writing, too, most of the stuff I wrote in the past was probably what would have fallen under "literary" (or least aspirations thereof, since none of it ever got published), and what I'm writing now is very commerical. Or supposed to be. But that doesn't mean I'm not trying to make it good.

Did you ever read Margaret Lawrence? The Burning Bride, Blood Red Roses? Also mysteries, set against the years following the Revolutionary War. Brilliant, raw, emotional stuff, and she writes like she's a poet at heart.

But on a merit basis.

Yes, exactly. I'm a Georgette Heyer junkie for that reason - her research is meticulous, her sense of time and place stone perfect, her writing lively. She makes me happy as hell, mostly.

But during the kerfuffle at the NYTBR, their man in charge said something about "of course, we'll continue to review the latest from Franzen" (and a couple of others)...

Really? Why? That's parochial crap - why are these people autrmatically going to get the consideration? Suppose they're writing garbage, while someone in West Podunk is writing great stuff? It's the Ladies Who Lunch mentality, and I don't think it's good for publishing. I don't think it ever has been.

(and me out for the afternoon, hoping to have not started a kerfuffle, because all opinion stated by me are mine only)

Franzen. Not all that. IJS. "Mildly amusing" would be what my review would say. If anyone cared...which, maybe...I'm gonna go to Amazon.com and slag "The Corrections" probably not till tomorrow, though.Not just for Deb, because it was the most overrated thing I've read in years. I gave it to goodwill after reading it once...that never happens. Cause I'm broke...buying books is a committment. I gave JF my heart...he gave me a pen...um, the Corrections.

I hated The Corrections. Miserable, nasty people living miserable nasty lives. Most of what I read is books-on-tape, and the topper was that it was read in a miserable, nasty tone of voice by Dylan Baker. (If you are an author, do not let him do your book on tape.)

I was talking books to someone at a party and he and his wife had a topper: the book was so nasty, it took them forever to listen to, and they ended up with something like a $25 book fine. Begs the Q, why didn't they just rewind it and return it, but it was the capper our mutual hate-on for the book.