The View From The Foothills

Ian links to a blog post which quotes a professional book reviewer who says he finds so-called literary fiction to be “so jejune, self-absorbed and lifeless that I am just about unable to read it, much less pass fair judgment on it.” Instead, he says, “I find myself turning more and more to what is commonly dismissed by the literati as ‘popular’ or ‘genre’ fiction…” The reviewer’s name is Jonathan Yardley; he writes for the Washington Post, and he’s won the Pulitzer Prize. The blogger who quotes Yardley, novelist Richard Wheeler, agrees at some length.

Of course, I’ve been touting the virtues of genre over “literary” fiction for years. Unlike me, though, these two guys have done their time in the trenches–they’ve made a serious effort to read the latest literary fiction, and so their opinions have some weight behind them. Decent of them to jump on the hand grenade for us like that.