Sunday, December 18, 2011

Love Letter from Genre to Literature

... cuz you know they just can't quit each other.

I love that Horror and Fanfic write their own letters in the comment thread.

Commenter at 7:56 pm 12/14/2011 says,  "The important distinction among books is well-written and poorly-written. [Philip K.] Dick et al. have been adopted into the wider canon because they can write well."

I just picked up the recent literary best-seller Her Fearful Symmetry,  and it is a flat-out ghost story -- definitely well-written.

And this gets us to the question, Just what does "well-written" mean, anyway?   Page-turner?  Rich use of language?  Surprising ideas and/or emotions embedded in the action, descriptions, and dialogue?  Plot and character developments that startle but feel organic?  Authentic "voice" in the narration and dialogue?  The sense of a world?  I've picked up "best-sellers," even stuff from Oprah's book club, that had at best two of these elements.

In the news, we lost Russell Hoban last week and now Vaclav Havel.  I has a sad about that.

More happily, the local indie book store has sold out of Yu: A Ross Lamos Mystery, and will be ordering more for me to sign -- because friends who recieved my e-mail realized that they want to give the book as a gift!

Yay!

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