Escapist and Genre Fiction is not a bad thing.

[aperson]

I think it's fair to be a bit concerned by or perplexed over how popular YA books are with adults. Maybe that's a function of content - literary fictions tends not to be about boy wizards and vampire romance.

 

I have a somewhat low opinion of YA fiction, but I also have a low opinion of literary fiction. (For different reasons) And it seems odd to me how there is a stigma (at least in some circles) with adults liking YA fiction but there's no stigma with adults liking Pixar movies - which are movies made for six-year-olds. Maybe someone can explain how liking fiction written for teens is bad but liking fiction aimed at toddlers is ok.

 

See, that's how you do elitism. Go all the way!

[Gormongous]

I think it's fair to be a bit concerned by or perplexed over how popular YA books are with adults. Maybe that's a function of content - literary fictions tends not to be about boy wizards and vampire romance.

 

I have a somewhat low opinion of YA fiction, but I also have a low opinion of literary fiction. (For different reasons) And it seems odd to me how there is a stigma (at least in some circles) with adults liking YA fiction but there's no stigma with adults liking Pixar movies - which are movies made for six-year-olds. Maybe someone can explain how liking fiction written for teens is bad but liking fiction aimed at toddlers is ok.

 

See, that's how you do elitism. Go all the way!

 

Yeah, I don't have a problem with people having very restricted tastes. That's fair, that's human. I just don't like when people frame those tastes in terms of intellectual, let alone moral, superiority. It feels like the most perverse way for you to wage a culture war by proxy against people whose tastes are, while superficially different, still too similar to yours for any real comfort. Oh, you watch Herzog? How pedestrian, I only watch Fassbinder. It's just not possible to tell a fulfilling story in only two hours, especially if it's cluttered with all that action and drama. Gross.

 

I also wanted to post something about how historically any private reading for pleasure was considered culturally deviant and empty, regardless of the pretensions of the author and reader, but couldn't find the quote that I'm sure is from this book, so whatever. It just feels so silly to be like, "Well, my stories about imaginary people and events are difficult and sometimes distressing, so they're good for me, while yours are just fun and only sometimes sublime, so they're not." Is this a useful function of literary criticism, picking out the best books for self-improvement through reading?

[SilentBtAmazing]

I strongly agree with the premise of this thread. Personally my job is extremely heavy on thinking / analytics so I strongly prefer to read genre fiction and just sink into the worlds of everything from Dresden to Drizzt, so long as it's not too much like the real world I spend all day thinking about

[Merus]

I think it's pretty presumptuous to decide what reasons are valid for reading books. YA books usually have a focus on being highly readable at the expense of depth. They're light entertainment, and that's fine. If you're presuming that people reading light entertainment are somehow avoiding weighty issues, then well, that's hardly the book's fault, and more importantly, you have no way of knowing whether they don't get that from somewhere else, or whether they're emotionally or psychologically able to shoulder the problems of the world right now.

 

Maybe that's a function of content - literary fictions tends not to be about boy wizards and vampire romance.

 

I am delighted by the existence of The Magicians and The Passage chiefly because they are literary novels about boy wizards and, well okay The Passage is about the vampire apocalypse, not romance, but the point remains.

[osmosisch]

Calling The Magicians literary is quite the stretch. Entertaining sure.

[Merus]

Huh, I guess I was misinformed.

[prettyunsmart]

Just for fun, I thought I'd post some alarmist commentary from the 18th century about the dangers of reading non-literary things.

 

"The languishing and affectedly sentimental compositions formed on the pattern of Sterne, or of other less original Novelists, not only tend to give the mind a degree of weakness, which renders it unable to resist the slightest impulse of libidinous passion, but also indirectly insinuate, that the attempt is unnatural. ...In vain is youth secluded from the corruptions of the living world. Books are commonly allowed them with little restriction, as innocent amusements; yet these often pollute the heart in the recesses of the closet, inflame the passions at a distance from temptation, and teach all the malignity of vice in solitude. There is another evil arising from a too early attention to Novels. They fix attention so deeply, and afford so lively a pleasure, that the mind, once accustomed to them, cannot submit to the painful task of serious study. Authentic history becomes insipid. The reserved graces of the chaste matron Truth pass unobserved admist the gaudy and painted decorations of fiction. The boy who can procure a variety of books like Gil Blas, and the Devil upon Two Sticks, will no longer think his Livy, his Sallust, his Homer, or his Virgil pleasing. He will not study old Lilly, while he can read Pamela and Tom Jones, and a thousand inferior and more dangerous novels." - From Knox's "On Novel Reading"