Two Responses to Ruth Franklin on Genre

When, a month or two ago, I read the following asinine remark in Ruth Franklin’s review of Michael Chabon’s new novel

Michael Chabon has spent considerable energy trying to drag the decaying corpse of genre fiction out of the shallow grave where writers of serious literature abandoned it.

I just muttered, “Eh, bug off, you supercilious vblurk.”

Ursula Le Guin’s response, “On Serious Literature,” has a little more crunch to it.

[10/14/07: edited to remove Le Guin’s ipsissima verba; she’s objecting to having the short piece reposted in its entirety. Thanks to james_nicoll for the heads up.]

About JE

James Enge is the author of the World-Fantasy-Award-nominated novel Blood of Ambrose (Pyr, April 2009). His latest book is The Wide World's End. His short fiction has appeared in Black Gate, Tales from the Magician's Skull, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and elsewhere.
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12 Responses to Two Responses to Ruth Franklin on Genre

  1. fpb says:

    Hee hee.
    Considering that my reaction to this sort of prejudice is to hit the person spouting it with a piano stool, I think Ms.Le Guin has shown extraordinary forbearance. Jesus (and I am NOT blaspheming), where do these people come from?

    • JE says:

      They must serve some sort of higher purpose–if only to elicit Le Guin’s smiling, bitterly barbed irony.

  2. kythiaranos says:

    She said ‘squamous’! *lurves*

  3. davidcapeguy says:

    draw…

    I heard Harlan Ellison once mention in a talk that clodhoppers straight off the farm with s— still covering their boots shouldn’t challenge a gunfighter with 67 notches carved into their pearl-handled six-guns to a showdown. I think that holds for anybody challenging Ursula LeGuin, too.

    • JE says:

      Re: draw…

      You’re certainly right about that. Of course, it was Chabon that RF was putting the bite on. Maybe the appropriate metaphor here is something about teasing a bear’s cubs…

  4. bg_editor says:

    That’s just wonderful. I’ve revisited this post multiple times now to re-read it.

    I should share an excerpt from Leigh Brackett’s introduction to The Best of Planet Stories where she talks about folks looking down their noses at adventure fiction, although, come to think of it, I may have quoted most of it in one of my editorials at Flashing Swords. Anyway, similar vein, but not nearly as pointed. That’s just fun do tread, that is.

    • JE says:

      I know what you mean: “sturdily driving its dark trade in heroes” etc. What a writer she was! Isaac Babel famously observed, “No iron can stab the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place.” Brackett knew exactly where to put those periods.

  5. Anonymous says:

    You know, if I weren’t already a happily married man I might have to try to get Ursula’s number …

    — Steve

    • JE says:

      I know what you mean. There’s something about phrases like “the thing … reeking of rocket fuel and kryptonite, creaking like an old mansion on the moors in a wuthering wind, its brain rotting like a pear from within, dripping little grey cells through its ears” that sets my pulse racing.

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