October 30th, 2009 / 5:01 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Blake Butler—
Gigantic has posted a Halloween web special which, among other things, includes a conversation with Brian Evenson regarding horror films and his work.
sasha fletcher, brian evenson, horror movies.
i’m glad mean week is over because this is all good.
sasha fletcher, brian evenson, horror movies.
i’m glad mean week is over because this is all good.
A nice coda to the genre-literary debate we had some time ago. Choice excerpts:
So that was, for me, the start of reconsidering these really clean genre distinctions that I thought I knew. There was a Conjunctions issue that Peter Straub edited called the “New-Wave Fabulists” issue, which had writers that would normally be thought of as genre writers being considered on more literary terms. There were a lot of great writers in there: John Crowley, who I think is an incredibly interesting writer. He has a novella called The Great Work of Time that I love. So that got me reconsidering the lines between genres.
… Which got me thinking: maybe there are things that are out there, in genre, that are really interesting and worthwhile….
Eventually, I started reading a lot more genre fiction, and realizing that if you’re selective there’s at least as much interesting stuff out there as there is in literary fiction . And a lot of stuff that gets called literary fiction is also really bad. I mean, a lot of it’s good, but certainly there’s your share of bad literary fiction: derivative, it’s a genre in itself.
…
It certainly is. Is there anyone you can recommend who’s typically considered to be a genre writer?
Well, I think M. John Harrison is really great.
I think Phillip K. Dick, when he’s at his best, is really amazing. He’s not always at his best.
Yeah, he definitely was. Like I said, M. John Harrison is quite good and complicated. There’s a book of his called The Course of the Heart which is kind of a horror novel that I really like. (thrice bolded for emphasis – I don’t necessarily consider it horror, though it can be seen that way, but The Course of the Heart is a novel to fall in love with)
A nice coda to the genre-literary debate we had some time ago. Choice excerpts:
So that was, for me, the start of reconsidering these really clean genre distinctions that I thought I knew. There was a Conjunctions issue that Peter Straub edited called the “New-Wave Fabulists” issue, which had writers that would normally be thought of as genre writers being considered on more literary terms. There were a lot of great writers in there: John Crowley, who I think is an incredibly interesting writer. He has a novella called The Great Work of Time that I love. So that got me reconsidering the lines between genres.
… Which got me thinking: maybe there are things that are out there, in genre, that are really interesting and worthwhile….
Eventually, I started reading a lot more genre fiction, and realizing that if you’re selective there’s at least as much interesting stuff out there as there is in literary fiction . And a lot of stuff that gets called literary fiction is also really bad. I mean, a lot of it’s good, but certainly there’s your share of bad literary fiction: derivative, it’s a genre in itself.
…
It certainly is. Is there anyone you can recommend who’s typically considered to be a genre writer?
Well, I think M. John Harrison is really great.
I think Phillip K. Dick, when he’s at his best, is really amazing. He’s not always at his best.
Yeah, he definitely was. Like I said, M. John Harrison is quite good and complicated. There’s a book of his called The Course of the Heart which is kind of a horror novel that I really like. (thrice bolded for emphasis – I don’t necessarily consider it horror, though it can be seen that way, but The Course of the Heart is a novel to fall in love with)
This is great. Hey, when is the Wenderoth thing coming?
This is great. Hey, when is the Wenderoth thing coming?
I enjoyed this. Nice way to end Mean Week.
I enjoyed this. Nice way to end Mean Week.
hey thanks!
hey thanks!
if you mean the poetry section he edits it should be in the next issue, whenever that drops, which should be soonish.
if you mean the poetry section he edits it should be in the next issue, whenever that drops, which should be soonish.
even better is that carmen lau vampire story. it’s amazing.
even better is that carmen lau vampire story. it’s amazing.
He’s working on the web portion, so hopefully soon
He’s working on the web portion, so hopefully soon