Go forth and proudly read crap if you want to

One of the things that my wife Rose who works fo Publisher's Weekly brought home recently was the Neil Baron "Fantasy And Horror" guide. It's absolutely jammed full of interesting information and a few informative essays on the genre. It's great to have in that it listls so may authors, their influences, and synopses of well known books.

It's also full of disdain for a lot of non specified authors who cashed in on Tolkein's popularity. In fact, it completely skips any critical analysis of what those works mean to readers, and to culture. I like beig a snob as much (if not more so) than any other snob you might meet. But even if I think McDonalds is crap, if I'm talking about the American diet, I can't ignore it's cultural impact and focus on Emeril. More to the point, just because I'm snobby about my consumption of something doesn't mean I disdain people who consume what I consider crap. Sometime I want a McDonalds french fry. There's nothing like them. I can't stand the burgers, but I figure if I crave the fries, who am I to say anything about people who crave the burgers?

I think Piers Anthony, for example, is pretty schlocky. He's also got a bit of creepy older man going after younger woman theme in his books that squicks me. But hey, if you really like his work, or Terry Brooks, or anyone else who writes what might be described as formulaic genre stuff, I say enjoy it proudly. I read Laurel Hamilton and Simon R Green for goodness sake. I read them *because* they're silly schlocky and fun. They're McDonalds French fries, and love them.

Back when he was getting realy popular, Stephen King was being dismissed for writing schlocky fun thrillers he came out to proudly proclaim himself as the iterary equivilant of a big mac and fries, which is where I get my metaphor from. King does well. He tells enjoyable stories, and he's popular. Some of his stories, like Dreamcatcher, are so over the top, I can't realy enjoy them. But some are just fun reads for me. They're not deep or meaningful, but I'm not reading him in search of deep meaning.

Reading just for fun, and not to search for deep meaning is not bad, or wrong. You're not contributing to the pollution of a genre if you read and enjoy schlocky stuff. Furthermore, historians and analysts of the genre who ignore the schlock are not doing thorough investigations. These books need to be examined, and the people who read them need to be considered as part of the real audience of a genre.

For example, really can't stand most of Kevin J Anderson's books. I find them totaly lacking in depth in a way that even Simon R Green manages to avoid. But the books themselves are important to note in that they sell OK. Anderson puts them out them at a frightening pace, and they get bought reliably.

Media consumption is an industry, just like art consumption is. Prity and high art can coexist with schlock. Neither is "better" in some moral sense. Sure, Shakespeare wrote better, more beautiful lines that give deep poetic insights into the human condition, and Dumb And Dumber was not as deep. But Dumb Ad Dumber has an place in culture, and should be examined in analyzing comedy. If you enjoyed it, and I didn't, big deal.