Ursula Le Guin & the Zombie of Genre Fiction, Jul 2007


	Ursula Le Guin & the Zombie of Genre Fiction, Jul 2007

readforpleasure

7-14-2007 5:26 PM

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tags:

reading, fiction, science fiction, literature, reviews, satire

readforpleasure says:

Le Guin's response is hilarious. And right on.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/ecee4fe1-88a7-4f57-af74-86cf8054fb70/4EAF87D9-A54D-4935-84BC-B96B614BE368/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.readforpleasure.com/2007/07/genres-polluting-touch.html" href="http://www.readforpleasure.com/2007/07/genres-polluting-touch.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.readforpleasure.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.readforpleasure.com/2007/07/genres-polluting-touch.html">Ruth Franklin's <A href="http://www.slate.com/id/2165763/pagenum/all/"><I>Slate</I> review</A> of <I><A href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0007149824?ie=UTF8&tag=readforplea-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0007149824">The Yiddish Policemen's Union</A></I></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.readforpleasure.com/2007/07/genres-polluting-touch.html">jabs at both the literary-genre fiction divide <I>and</I> genre boundaries.  This week <A href="http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/on_serious_literature/">The Valve</A> found a great follow-up--<A href="http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Note-ChabonAndGenre.html">Ursula Le Guin</A>'s funny and apt <A href="http://news.ansible.co.uk/a240.html#leguin">response in <I>Ansible</I></A>.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.readforpleasure.com/2007/07/genres-polluting-touch.html"><div align="center"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.readforpleasure.com/img/083F485A-79B1-4829-BDF0-1BC1F46FF0A1" alt="" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.readforpleasure.com/2007/07/genres-polluting-touch.html"><A href="http://www.slate.com/id/2165763/pagenum/all/">Franklin introduced</A> the image of genre as zombie:<BLOCKQUOTE>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.</BLOCKQUOTE><A href="http://news.ansible.co.uk/a240.html#leguin">Le Guin's riff</A> on the undead theme is worth reading.  She ends by attempting to hold off all of Genre with a single totemic literary work:<BLOCKQUOTE>Where was her copy of Ulysses? All she had on her bedside table was a Philip Roth novel she had been using to prop up the reading lamp. She pulled the slender volume free and raised it up between her and the ghastly golem -- but it was not enough.... Genre breathed its corpse-breath in her face, and she was lost.</BLOCKQUOTE><DIV>It's a great metaphor for the way that genre fiction is put down by comparison</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.readforpleasure.com/2007/07/genres-polluting-touch.html"><div align="center"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.readforpleasure.com/img/1F887953-FA7C-4087-9D4C-C473131F0612" alt="" /></div></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/4EAF87D9-A54D-4935-84BC-B96B614BE368/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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