Inspired by a post on Dear Author (where I also stole this LOLcats pic) I’ve been thinking about reading tastes–specifically, how we wear a rut in our reading road and occasionally have to be rocked free.
I’ve lost count of the number of people who tell me ‘Oh, I read everything! Science fiction and fantasy.’ Very like those who say, ‘I’m omnivorous, I gobble Mysteries and Thrillers!”
I read all kinds of things, about all kinds of people, from all kinds of points-of-view with all kinds of narrative arcs. But if I’m honest I can see one giant rut: I prefer not-here-not-now fiction. Speculative, supernatural, criminal, historical, exotic. Mundane fiction–mainstream litfic–with a small town, crowded metropolitan, or campus setting, makes me claustrophobic. (It also bores me rigid.) I like open air: a beach on an alien planet, a wind-swept moor in times past, clinging to a rain-wet 50th storey balcony with the stolen flashdrive in my pocket, or hacking my way through the jungle in pursuit of the ancient mystery. I need to breathe. I can’t cope with being cooped up.
So what’s your rut? What do you avoid as a reader?
Nicola Griffith 
I will read anything that isn't Philip Roth. How's that? =P
I don't like the genre “literary fiction.” Read “A Visit from the Goon Squad” recently just to check– yep, still don't like it!
http://mordicai.livejournal.com/1902829.html
Colleen, I hear you on that!
mordicai, interesting review. I haven't read it because, well, see above. But you're right, some of her sentences, every now and again, are lovely. Not enough for a novel, though.
A few years ago I would have unhesitatingly said “My rut is Iain M. Banks and authors like him.” And been wrong about thirty-five percent of the time. Now, I'm not so sure. I've been reading a lot of mysteries (because, like, I'm trying to write them now) but with a couple of exceptions I haven't fallen into the orbit of any specific writer. (Just found both Michael Connelly and Margaret Maron, who couldn't be more different.)
But I'll add my vote to the no “lit'rary mainstream” thing. I've read Ann Hood, Jane Smiley, Raymond Carver, Russell Banks…meh. (Though I kind've admire Russell Banks. Lately he seems to be trying to break the mold.) Though I've come to appreciate character much more than I ever thought I would, I need Event. Shit has to happen. Blow things up, shoot someone, throw a punch, steal a car, SOMETHING! The microscopic analysis of character under stress is fine, as long as the stress is interesting and cool.
Mark, I've managed to read only one Banks (without or without the M) novel, The Wasp Factory, which I thought was brilliant. His other stuff, I've tried several (The Bridge, Consider Phlebas, others) but can't click.
I read in pretty much every genre — with the possible exception of kind of small ones like Western and military thrillers, which I imagine (possibly incorrectly) as having hardly any women in them and endless fighting.
Genre readers complain that “literary” readers are narrow-minded and inflexible, but as far as I can see it goes both ways. I don't really think you can slam someone for that if you do it yourself.
But whatever — the one point I would make is that if you're a writer and you're not reading out of your genre then you're less likely to be able to bring something fresh to your genre. That goes for litfic writers as well as the other genres, too, by the way. The writers I like best get out of their own neighborhood more often and come back with cool stuff. Neal Stephenson wouldn't be Neal Stephenson if he were a huge David Foster Wallace fan.
If it don't click, doesn't matter how good it is. It don't click.
I mean, if he *weren't* a huge DFW fan. Because he is.
Well, other than crap, I won't read horror. Reality is bad enough, why make that stuff up?
And, yes, I agree with the read outside your genre advice!
(Pssst, tell Kelley I LOVED Solitaire!)
Elaine, I like a good creepy ghost story, but I'm not much into splatterpunk and its descendants.
And, yes, I'll let Kelley know. She'll be v. pleased.
You said, “… crowded metropolitan … makes me claustrophobic”
I think of Slow River and Blue Place as very urban, as well as very good depictions of certain kinds of urban life. I guess I should have put more attention on how Lore and Aud try to construct a human place within those cities.
Too bad perbs hadn't been invented yet :)
Thou varlet, thou unhousel'd corpse
Thou perb!
Nah ….
Anon (with the OpenID), yes, one should read outside one's genre. I'm not sure who you're trying to persuade, exactly. I think we're all on the same page on this.
ladyjanegrey, the biggest worry I had with Slow River was that it would feel grey and dull and empty because Lore didn't get outside much. I struggled to find moments of joy: the garden, the park greenhouse, the unfurling soybeans in the water. I fought to make the interiors spacious: high ceilings, vast treatment plants. And i dwelt lovingly on the outdoors during Lore's childhood. In The Blue Place Aud is outside a lot: the garden, driving, Norway. I think I might have gone quite made otherwise.
You said,
“the biggest worry I had with Slow River was that it would feel grey and dull and empty because Lore didn't get outside much. I struggled to find moments of joy….. In The Blue Place Aud is outside a lot: the garden, driving, Norway.”
Yet in these novels, no place is really safe. Even in Ratnapida, children were abused. Aud was first attacked, and killed first , in the suburbs. And her hardest physical challenge was in rural Norway, at the seter.
You sneaky writer, you…
ladyjanegray, joy has never meant safety for me, as a writer or as a human being. Being outside means being able to breathe, to think. It means I'm alive.
I'm sure I must have a rut, but I suspect that it's hard for a person to see her or his own rut — that's why it's a rut.
I'll read almost anything, and I have: horror, sf, fantasy, mundane fiction, literary fiction, romance, suspense/mystery, military fiction, spy thrillers … and it occurs to me as I write this how much these categories overlap… children's books old and new, “classics” (and also less well-known books from the past: Mary Brunton, for example, as well as Jane Austen and Frances Burney). I've even sampled Christian women's inspirational fiction. I don't read as much poetry nowadays as I perhaps ought, but I have read a lot of it. I also read lots of nonfiction on many subjects. Sometimes I go for depth instead of breadth, working through the complete works of a writer (Shakespeare, Austen, the Brontes, Jane Rule, Dostoevsky).
I'm not sure this is a virtue so much as a rut of its own, not that I mind. I'm glad I don't live in a time where books are scarce, so that it makes sense to read nothing but the Bible, over and over, plus maybe Shakespeare, and for variety the Farmer's Almanac. I crave variety and novelty in my reading, yet there are books I reread numerous times. If I haven't read in some genre, I start to wonder why; I figure if someone's reading it, it must have meaning for them, so I'm curious to see what's going on there. I recently took a shot at Zane Grey, but couldn't get through the book — not then, anyway. Maybe later.
Promiscuous, I was just thinking, “Wonder if he's tried Westerns…” when I saw the Zane Grey thing.
I haven't read a western for years. It might be time to see what's new out there.
I can't remember the title of the Grey I tried; I felt ambivalent about the protagonist's fascination with the Mormon farmers' mighty biceps and thighs. I should give it another try; I can always write about the homoeroticism.
I've seen some reviews of some nouveau Westerns that sound interesting, including some written from the Indians' viewpoint. And aren't some of Molly Gloss's books Westerns, more or less? A friend whose opinion I value has also spoken well of Louis L'Amour. I think that just about the only other Western I've read as an adult was Song of Aaron, one of Richard Amory's Song of the Loon books. :)