How To Insult A Genre And Offend Readers

How is it even possible to insult a genre? I’d like to try it! (image via Wikimedia)

Each new year brings its own new literary controversy.  Two years ago, the Pulitzer Prize didn’t give an award for fiction.  Last Year Philip Roth and Elizabeth Gilbert disagreed over whether writing was “torture” or “f*cking great.”  This year, famous author Isabel Allende unintentionally offended a bunch of book readers by accidentally insulting the mystery novel genre.

In an interview with NPR, Allende made some (disparaging?) remarks about current mysteries, saying they’re “too gruesome, too violent, too dark; there’s no redemption there. And the characters are just awful. Bad people. Very entertaining, but really bad people.” Allende says that her own recently released mystery novel Ripper is different than the mysteries that she is referring to.  After her interview, a bunch of mystery fans got mad, and Allende apologized.  Even worse, Allende said her controversial comments were made in jest.

I don’t know why Allende would backtrack, except for public relations purposes.  I’ve read a few mysteries from the last couple years, and I agree with Allende and almost all her points. Most of the novels were dark, and violent with really bad people involved.  The only part I disagreed with Allende was where she said the novels were very entertaining.

I’m not a fan of the fake/forced apology, especially with famous authors.  There was a time when famous authors were supposed to be controversial.  Did Dorothy Parker ever apologize for the mean things she said about public figures of her time?  Did Gore Vidal ever apologize for his mean-spirited insults?  If these literary figures never apologized (and were celebrated for making mean-spirited comments), why should Allende apologize?  Allende didn’t even insult anybody.  At worst, she insulted a genre.

I didn’t even know genres could get insulted.    I can understand not wanting to insult people (it still happens), but it should be okay to insult a genre.  A genre can’t have its feelings hurt.   Allende didn’t say mystery readers were bad people; she said the characters in the genre were bad people.  Yeesh!  If you can’t make negative comments about a genre, what can you make negative comments about?

If genre readers want to get offended by Allende’s comments, I’ll really give them something to be offended about. Every genre can get insulted and stereotyped.  For example, science fiction is a bunch of spaceships blowing each other up.  Literary fiction is a bunch of eggheads trying to impress us with vocabulary and sentence structure and really complicated metaphors.  Fantasy is a bunch of elves and wizards and barbarians and buxom women with no clothes on.  Romance is a bunch of housewife wishful thinking.  I’d keep going, but… Hold on!  I think I just got a phone call from my publicist.

Sometimes I think people aren’t really offended when they say they’re offended (but I can’t read minds, so I don’t know for sure).  I think people claim to be offended when they disagree with somebody, and that by claiming they’re offended, they don’t have to explain why they disagree; all that matters is that they’re offended.  It’s a cheap, lazy debate technique, and it stifles honest debate.  And sometimes people apologize when they shouldn’t have to apologize.

I’d love to hear what’s so offensive about saying too many mysteries are gruesome or violent or dark.  Unfortunately, I won’t get that explanation because Allende has already apologized, so the offended ones don’t have to explain why they’re offended.  I think the burden of proof should be on the person who is offended.  I know being offended is usually not a legal matter, but if people can’t logically explain why they’re offended, then I don’t think they have any business being offended.

Since Ripper is Allende’s first mystery novel, she is also being criticized for writing in a genre that she doesn’t understand.  I don’t know, but I like to see authors try something new.  Too many authors stick to the same genre and simply write the same book over and over.  Even if the book Ripper sucks, at least Allende isn’t writing the same thing all the time.

*****

I have to admit, I didn’t know anything about Isabel Allende before I heard about this controversy.  And it’s quite the controversy.  A book store in Houston called Murder by the Book has even sent back twenty signed copies of Ripper over this.  I would be offended by Murder by the Book’s overreaction, but I don’t get offended easily.  In fact, I’m tempted to buy Ripper just to show my distaste for people who get offended too easily.  The problem is that I don’t buy new books because they’re too expensive. Ugh.  I hate it when my principles clash like that.

But enough about me!  If you could accidentally offend any genre, which genre would it be?  Is it wrong to offend a genre?  Is it wrong to write a novel from a genre that you accidentally offended?  Do you think people are offended too easily?  And is asking too many questions at the end of a post offensive to you?