Having English professors look down their noses at me and tell me that “genre fiction” was universally bad and childish and only gritty grimy contemporary stories that try so hard to be nonformulaic that it becomes the formula, where nothing happens in the story but unlikable characters smoking, drinking, cussing, having sex and/or receiving/enjoying SV, and maybe doing self-harm until it all (predictably) ends in a pretentiously unsatisfying way to “artfully” make the reader feel like they wasted their time, were worthy of the snobs’ approval.
I haven’t read that particular one and know nothing about it so I can’t really comment upon it. My issue is primarily the dogma of “all genre fiction is bad but ‘contemporary’ totally isn’t its own genre” so professors could push their particularly favorite slop on all students and try to indoctrinate them into One True Fiction obedience.
Disco Elysium had magnificent worldbuilding, a rich inner life (of an utter disaster of a human being), metaphysically unique circumstances for its setting, cryptids, and I even thought the ending(s) were bittersweet yet still satisfying.
Those professors I mentioned would hate it from the start because it didn’t take place in a real life city and didn’t name-drop specific brands of items seen on the shelfs of rooms where the misanthropic characters smoke, cuss, and hurt themselves.
(they forced us to read J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace in college)
UGH.
I tried to block out most of that “non genre” genre gritty pretentious wine liberal slop, but for some reason (probably because the professor decided to spend a week of class time exhaustively delving into it) a particular short story called “Why Don’t You Dance?” was like his favorite work of all time and its only mercy was that it was so short… but six hours of class time delving into the boomerriffic ennui may have been the start of my decision of “I’ve decided I don’t like boomers and their values and ideology are as toxic as the lead in their brains” since then.
Having English professors look down their noses at me and tell me that “genre fiction” was universally bad and childish and only gritty grimy contemporary stories that try so hard to be nonformulaic that it becomes the formula, where nothing happens in the story but unlikable characters smoking, drinking, cussing, having sex and/or receiving/enjoying SV, and maybe doing self-harm until it all (predictably) ends in a pretentiously unsatisfying way to “artfully” make the reader feel like they wasted their time, were worthy of the snobs’ approval.
90% shitpost 10% serious
Contemporary fiction is for authors who aren’t creative enough to do worldbuilding
What a compelling argument these professors have!!
contrarianism
No lie though that describes some of my absolute favourite queer lit. I like the subversions of commonly accepted narrative structures. Orange Book.
I haven’t read that particular one and know nothing about it so I can’t really comment upon it. My issue is primarily the dogma of “all genre fiction is bad but ‘contemporary’ totally isn’t its own genre” so professors could push their particularly favorite slop on all students and try to indoctrinate them into One True Fiction obedience.
Common western “education” L tbh, not surprised in the least. Hate to see it though.
Take it from a westerner who works in education. Shit sucks.
Dude you just described Disco Elysium
Disco Elysium had magnificent worldbuilding, a rich inner life (of an utter disaster of a human being), metaphysically unique circumstances for its setting, cryptids, and I even thought the ending(s) were bittersweet yet still satisfying.
Those professors I mentioned would hate it from the start because it didn’t take place in a real life city and didn’t name-drop specific brands of items seen on the shelfs of rooms where the misanthropic characters smoke, cuss, and hurt themselves.
I was joking, I have the same distaste with contemporary lit (they forced us to read J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace in college)
UGH.
I tried to block out most of that “non genre” genre gritty pretentious wine liberal slop, but for some reason (probably because the professor decided to spend a week of class time exhaustively delving into it) a particular short story called “Why Don’t You Dance?” was like his favorite work of all time and its only mercy was that it was so short… but six hours of class time delving into the boomerriffic ennui may have been the start of my decision of “I’ve decided I don’t like boomers and their values and ideology are as toxic as the lead in their brains” since then.