January 27, 2016

My World Can Be Yours: 1/23/16

If you so desire, a fresh new post at I Are Writer! (of which you can leave a comment at this post) can be had for the inexpensive price of two minutes of your time.

Or, if you so desire, a fresh new post here at Father Nature's Corner to be had for exact same price.

I'd mentioned last week that while I was writing the opening paragraph, I came up with what was sure to be a hit (amongst the fans of me, which number about, oh, 1) phrase for my blog posts. I dig consistency, so the phrase would have worked quite well. Alas, poor Horatio, I knew him Yorrick.

sound of crickets chirping in the background

Yes, well, ummm....be that as it may, I came up with a new title for my posts: My World Can Be Yours. Simple yet highly functional.

Anyhow, I was reading Anne R. Allen's highly informative blog the other day, when she got to talking about the collegiate degree one can get for writing and persistent myths that said collegiate degree expounds upon. As I read this highly informative piece, I got to thinking about literary fiction/non-fiction in all of its inglorious annoyance.

For those of you who thought they knew everything that there is to know about me, guess again. I have an almost pathological hatred of anything literary, fiction or otherwise. While I'm willing to experiment with almost every genre at least once (and from those of you who I've bought books from over the years, can vouch for the veracity of that statement), literary is the one genre that I will shoot first and maybe ask questions about later.

I'm not sure why I developed such a pathological hatred of that genre and to a lesser degree, those who partake in it. I do know that reading a story in which the writer talks down to me, or turns into preachiness (literary non-fiction is notorious for this), or even worse, turns it into a manifesto about themselves, irritates me to no end. I also hate anything that seems to be formula driven (this originated from working with newspapers in the mid-90's). The literary genre is notorious for being so formula driven that the vast majority of writers are interchangeable with their stories.

Now I may sound like a close minded individual when it comes to the literary genre, but rest assured, I have tried on numerous occasions throughout the past decade or so to read literary fiction/non-fiction. Only once did I read a book from cover to cover in that genre, and that was a debut western by Clifford Jackman called The Winter Family. I haven't written a review for it yet, but chances are that it may get a 3 star rating from me on Amazon when I do write it.

For the most part though, reading literary fiction/non-fiction has been a frustrating journey of ginormous info dumps, ego stroking to the nth degree and prose drier than a prolonged water drought. I would rather read....well, I can't say what I would rather read...actually, I can. I would rather read a anti-police screed containing a forward from this ego-driven monster, than another piece of literary fiction/non-fiction that has blurbs glorifying the writer as the newest true genius of (insert sub-genre here) literature.

And that, my friends, is a rare rant for this blog. Tune in next week, when I'm pretty positive that I'll get down off my soapbox and talk about the more mundane things in my life. Maybe.

(c) 2016 BOOKS BY G.B. MILLER. All Rights Reserved.

16 comments:

  1. I'm not sure what qualifies as "literary." I figure that writing is either good or bad.

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    1. Per Wikipedia, here is a partial definition of literary fiction:

      "Literary fiction is a term principally used for certain fictional works that hold literary merit. In other words, they are works that offer deliberate social commentary, political criticism, or focus on the individual to explore some part of the human condition."

      The kind of stuff that most teachers would drum into your noggin back in the day.

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  2. I think for the most part, all readers have a specific genre they really love and another they really don't care for. Even as popular as it is, I've never been big on paranormal fiction. I do like a good mystery, but dangle a sci.fi. book in front of me and I'll likely snap that up.

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    1. That is very true. I've tried almost all the genres out there at one point or another, and hands down, literary is the one I hate the most. For me, I've always been a sucker for historical fiction. Dangle one in front of me, and I'll hungrily devour it like Chinese take out.

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  3. If you're like me, it was all those literary books you were forced to read in high school that did you in. Not a genre I'll pick up either.

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    1. Not really. It was mostly all those literary journals that I submitted short stories to and ultimately wound up subscribing to as well that did me in. The books that we had to read in school I had no issues with. They were good, but I wouldn't go out of my way read them again. Except maybe, "Of Mice And Men".

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  4. I used to feel that way about literary fiction but I've mellowed considerably over the years.

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    1. Mellow is good. Maybe some day I'll mellow over literary like I did over romance, but it may take a lot of soul searching to do it.

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  5. I am the fifth commenter so you have at least 500% more fans than you thought

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  6. you gave deep snow to so many this week... JK

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  7. Replies
    1. Thanks. It's a nifty little title that invites people to partake a very small slice of mine to digest and have fun with.

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  8. The books that I enjoy are usually thought of as "literary", however I don't have a generalized love for the entire genre. There are some writers, mainly novelists, who make their stories so difficult to understand that it's just not worth the mental effort. I do enjoy that story that tries to make me think, or teaches me something, as well as entertaining me.

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    1. I agree that some novelists are virtually unreadable, yet somehow people do like them.

      I haven't totally dismissed the genre, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to read something from cover to cover in that genre.

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