~~ gen-fic and perversion.

[reenka]

i think at some point we all snap. me, i snapped a long time ago, but that's neither here nor there.
    
i think it's an interesting sociological observation to say that the readers of jkr's books basically start applying them to themselves. i mean, there's just definitely something in that, isn't there? i see people live out the prejudices that are being delineated in the books-- not something like muggle and mudblood vs. pureblood (thank gahd), but the whole House thing. i've seen this before, but now i've finally snapped, and i need to address this issue.
    it's one thing to jokingly wonder which house you'd be sorted in if you were in hogwarts. it's another to rigorously identify with said house and to claim appropriate characteristics-- as well as to actually discriminate in favor of people who likewise identify with your chosen group. so many people wonder why hermione's in gryffindor, or neville for instance. harry only seemed to get into gryffindor and not slytherin because he wanted to. obviously, this isn't really a personality test, here, initial evidence to the contrary aside.

i mean, i jokingly wore a stytherin scarf this winter, but. to say i'm slytherin (or gryffindor, or ravenclaw), would kind of frighten me (and not just because i don't think i fit well into any of the stereotypes). even in jest, i think there's an undercurrent of a true attempt at "sorting". which is both innocent and to be expect and kind of disturbing, really, isn't it?
~~

in other news. eleveninches is my hero. she wrote a tiny ficlet. go encourage her!!! moooore!!

hee. thinking about how j_h and ps aren't putting me off h/d at all, and are in fact encouraging me, i realized that the sad truth is, i'm just a glutton for punishment. *laughs* i like the impossibleness, i like the anger and the issues and the way draco doesn't deserve harry and how horrible he is. mostly because, while i want characters i love to be happy, i don't need to them to be happy immediately or to be mentally healthy, for that matter. i think conflict and trauma and extremes of emotion and behavior are... well... more interesting than well-balanced interactions. i almost never care about pairings that are too easy. or characters, for that matter. but anyway, horrible bastards make great characters to fall in love with. tee hee. gahd, the torture. torture them with sweetness. woo!
    okay, so it sounds like i have issues, doesn't it. but no, i have the stories have the issues for me. yah, that's it.
~~

reading lasair's latest entry, i was reminded of a nagging thought about the idea of "gen" fic. the idea that gen fic is more like what we normally read, more like published literature. i myself don't go in for gen fic-- published or not: i'm a genre reader by inclination. i like romance, fantasy, adventure, coming of age stories, fairytale-related things. my concern tends to be style and characterization and emotion rather than plot. a plot's interest tends to be proportional to its connectedness for the character development arc of a story.

i don't think it would be fair to say i like melodrama and sappy smut and gratuitous kissing in a story-- i just want these people to matter to me, i want to like them, i want to live inside their heads. the plot is merely a backdrop, a landscape to me. i never liked landscapes in painting, actually. it's not that i want -people- in landscapes, it's just that almost no one draws/photographs emotional landscapes. what's interesting about them is either color, texture, or emotional context. most people just wind up regurgitating a representation of place. this happens to plot, too. all you get is some sort of hodge-podge of ideas, and no real road-map as to why you're supposed to care.

    
gen proclaims to be about plot-- not that the romance or the fantastical elements are gone, but they're not the focus. the focus is on plot. of course, the fact is, for most people the focus is -always- on plot. everyone's obsessed with what happens on a linear scale. and then what? gets asked more than any other question about stories. and i suppose gen-fic is there to answer that question. sort of like an exercise in realism. because well-- realism isn't about romance or darkness or horror or the absurd. reality is balanced and coherent, and everything has its place but nothing dominates in the progression of events. right.

i don't know, it seems to me that's sort of the driest possible way to look at things, isn't it? because once something starts becoming drenched in emotion, the reliability of the narrator goes to hell and the interesting things begin to happen, as far as i'm concerned. somehow, it seems to me that gen-fic has no place here then, in this subjective, unreliable world. something tells me the true gen-fic depends on a third person omniscient narrator-- not sure, don't tend to read it beyond the first few pages.
    i guess i'm just implying that romance and horror and absurdity and humor and fantasy have always had a huge place in literature-- that initial tradition of heroes' sagas, romantic quests, the stories of the rise and fall of the gods. now that's melodrama for you. it's not gen-fic, either-- thank the gods. this is what i was raised on, this theatrical mixture of pathos and melodrama. this is "literature" to me.

and maybe it -didn't- include romance outright-- but it -was- romance, in the old sense of being a romantic tale. love and darkness and pain and issues of identity seem to be basic to any good story to me. i suppose there are different ways of seeing the world, here-- rational and emotional. to an emotionally biased person, everything bears a semi-direct relationship with love and fear and anger-- all the basic emotions of the human id. or maybe there's a deeper separation here between things that appeal to the id and things that appeal to the ego, i don't know.

i do know i've completely left off considering the idea of "gen-fic" directly. is that sort of like saying you're vanilla? why would one -want- to read something without a generous helping of lust and angst and obsessive brooding and introspection? nono, i'm just totally becoming solipsistic now. it's late, and my brain isn't working, but i know i'm just being childish now. not everyone is me. even -i'm- not me all the time. alas.
~~

    i'm slowly compiling a whole bunch of stupid recs, which i haven't posted 'cause i haven't reviewed/feedbacked/anything most of them and the guilt consumes me and so i will and -then- i can share. but. kissmeagain (aka charli j), writes hp fic so rarely, and i adore it so much, i had to say something. `one thousand instances left this'. i don't know -why- i love it. okay, i know why, but. see, this is my guilt-free rec where i didn't review, but. okay, i don't know what i'm thinking. gah. some people need to write more h/d. charli j is right up there on my List Of Doom. oh yes. oh yes.

also, i love swamps. love swamps, i do. and moors. and weird marshy places. mmm.

Comments

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

I've edited my entry slightly to make it clearer. Of course fantasy and adventure are included in the definition of 'gen'. All genres that don't *concentrate* on romance - romance as sexual or pre-sexual interaction between two characters - are gen.

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Looking at this again - what on earth do you mean? Gen means 'neither het nor slash'. How can you say that any book that falls into a genre is not gen? By that definition, could anything be gen? David Eddings is gen. Crime and Punishment is gen. Hell, the Bible is gen.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

well, i know that gen is "neither het nor slash".
but you used it in a way that made it comparable to "normal literature"-- ie, non-fanfic.
i mean, it's all clear if you merely use gen to mean "not really slash, ie a story about two males in love", but when it goes into plottedness and literariness or whatever, that's where it gets weird for me.

i read a post once-- maybe i can find it if i dig through metablog-- where someone was talking about how the idea of gen fanfic seems to end up meaning (in practice), fiction without a passion, without any strong genred edge to it. so i was kind of referring to your post and to that post and mixing up my own takes on things and i think it came out as a jumble-- which i said. i wasn't really thinking clearly, was tired ><;;

all in all, i don't like the idea of gen as the "real" literature. i didn't know quite how to put that in a way that didn't sound stupid (like the above), so there you go~:)

but i didn't say that any book that falls into a genre is automatically not gen. that's silly. i just was saying that in practice, a lot of gen i've heard of (there are, of course, exceptions) is sort of-- bland.

i was saying that romance and emotion are heavy parts of -my- life and what -i'm- looking for in real literature.
without emotion, everything is flat to me. (and does emotion have to mean romance? and if it's heavily melodramatic and intense, is it still gen? and what if it's unrequited love? and i mean, if you're writing about fascinating, intense, passionate people, can you really leave out some sort of romance? and isn't romance -always- intrinsic to life? well it is for -me-, that's what i was saying.) so if you have strong emotion without -romance-, that's fine, but i have a broad definition of romance, and in the end, that's what i want to read in genfic (like, i dunno, myths, as i said-- odysseus and what have you).

bleh, i ramble and get nowhere -.-

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

If it concentrates on romance or sex, it's not gen. Everything else is gen.

That's using the fanfic definition. I wasn't previously aware of any other meaning for it.

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I didn't say that real literature had to be gen - just that the majority of it was.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

i think i was playing with definitions to make an obscure and rather personal point about preferences. again ><;;

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Bad Reena. *smacks*

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

*is dutifully smacked*

i actually think i had a point in there, somewhere. maybe. at one point.
but yah, i play fast and loose a lot. i think it's just that sometimes you can -tell- that all my entries are stream-of-consciousness unplanned ramblings.
sometimes i don't figure out what i mean until the end.
sometimes i -never- figure out what i mean. sometimes i contradict myself. sometimes i'm just letting off steam. sometimes i'm being devil's advocate.

sigh. it's just weird that i -ever- make logical sense :D

[ishuca.livejournal.com]

then by your definition PoL is genfic.

there are tons of different types of writing out there, but i have to ask you- if we didn't care about a book's characters would we really care about the plot? the plot is simply a part of the story, though one that i do look at in longer works. and again, there are all types of plots.

there are adventures and fantasies and mysteries and more. even romance novels have -plots-, they're just not very epic. often stories are many plottish types all in one. in my mind, PoL is an equal mixing of romance, mystery, and fantasy. the -plot- is mystery, but the trappings are fantasy and romance. which is funny, because i don't tend to read much mystery.

and what i think las was talking about was almost pure romances, where even the stories are simply the setting for True Love. and for me, that type of stuff palls after a time. as much as i do enjoy reading romance novels every once in a while, i eventually get bored and go back to fantasy, science fiction, classics, manga, etc. books where romance plays a part but isn't the be all end all.

i mean, it's not the difference between 'literature' and two dollar paperbacks. it's a difference of focus. and genfic doesn't have to be bereft of angst and lust and more. but that doesn't have to be its primary focus.

but then again, i've again grown tired of slash for slash's sake, so there you have it. there can be slash, but i want more, too.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

the thing that tripped me up is looking at heavily plotted, not very intensely romantic fiction as real literature. as the "real stuff". gen as "the real stuff", not fanfic.

but see, non-heavily-plotted, intensely emotional, personal stories are my idea of what -i- want to read as "real literature".

and just-- using "slash" or "het" as being synonymous with low-res romances and gen as the worthwhile, thoughtful fic, was setting off alarms in my head, simply because i've always looked for that melodrama and grand passion in stories, and a lack of focus on romance doesn't make a good story to me (but neither does a presence of romance, obviously).

i -know- you've described PoL as gen before, yourself, and i don't know if i agree or not. hm. it has a central slash pairing so probably not. even if it was a het pairing, it probably wouldn't be gen because of the blatantness of it.

i wasn't bringing up the normal-lit vs. non-normal-lit as much as responding to what i've noticed being there in the post, whether it was there or not.
i mean, i don't know. even in books where romance isn't the be-all-and-end-all, i personally want to care about it. i want it to matter, to make sense, to make me sigh. i dunno. i just want emotion.
romance isn't a -corner-, something in small print (to me). i don't want it to be. i want it to be vital, intrinsic, no matter how much "screen-time" it gets.
like, reading the third cat book by joan d vinge, i was disappointed-- i love reading about cat, his coming of age, his issues. i felt the romance was tacked on, unnecessary. it didn't convince me-- it was relegated to a corner. i suppose dreamfall is gennish sci-fi fantasy. i loved the first two books because they were full of emotion, full of passion-- it's the passion that makes the romance-- the romantic edge-- the romantic -tale-, not really the kissing.

but in the third book there was an actual romance, and it fell flat because it -was- just on the sidelines, just another plotline. i was like, meh.
i don't like that sort of thing, and if that is gen, well, i guess i avoid it for a reason. even though i -do- read "gen"-- ie, "just" fantasy, just scifi, just fiction. but usually, i don't read it for plot, anyway.

man, i'm making less sense than usual today ><;;

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

"by my definition" are words i'm beginning to me scared of. scared, i'm telling you ><

it always means, "reena? you're about to get into hot water because you've been playing around with definitions again, -haven't -you-?". heh~:)

hullo

[sternel.livejournal.com]

greetings, reenka! I am Sternel, alumna of Bingo and friend of graciana, as well as obsessive Potterite. graciana steered me over your way, and I have popped you on my friends list. Am finding your entries to be of great interest.
to wit:
think there's an undercurrent of a true attempt at "sorting". which is both innocent and to be expect and kind of disturbing, really, isn't it?
Hm. Well, yes. But I think also that's something that JKR is trying to point out. I wouldn't be surprised if house affiliations, in OoP and further on, are shown to be as faulty a manner of judging a person as by their status as a werewolf, or whether or not they have been admitted to the Headless Hunt, or how pure their blood is. It's an easy way to define someone -- Oh, you're Hufflepuff, you'd never stab anyone in the back. A Gryffindor is always brave...and good. But they're not, are they? Look at the rat.
Knowing only half the story as we do we lean on those basic assumptions makes it easy to allow the House to define its members, rather than allowing the members to define their House.

And why are Neville and Hermione Gryffindors? Because that is where the brave are placed -- those who come to a school believing they are nearly Squib, those who are terrified to fail -- and who persevere anyway. ::Schnoogles the bravest ones:: They redefine the bravery of Gryffindor.

Wow. It's so much fun to get intellectual about details. =)
oh -- do you like bogs?

Re: hullo

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

hihi~:)
am glad you actually read the userinfo page and thus humored me.
although i wasn't talking about the actual sorting in the book, and more fans trying to sort themselves by identifying with the Houses, which as i said, don't tend to have a consistent relationship to someone's personality anyway.
hee. i didn't explain myself properly as usual, i guess.

but yes, i always get intellectual about details-- as well as everything else. in my own insane sort of way.
and hmm. probably bogs, too~:)

~reena

Re: hullo

[unstasis.livejournal.com]

But if they got sorted into Gryffindor just becauser they are the bravest.. that makes it almost as if most likely the only ones to be heroes are going to be gryffindores and thus if anyone actually notices in teh wizarding world (or at least within hogwarts) it makes it so you almost have an overclass and 2 underclasses and 1 outclass(or rogue/antithesis) class of people. And that points against the antidiscrimination code built into JKR's main scenarios. Of course I whos to say she'd not miss something liek that.

But it makes one think about whether you should really expect much from say, CHo ever (ideally probably between her and Cedric crea of the crop of the slitherins). And where's some mad scientist raven claw to help hermione out when she needs a specialist? You just don't see it. There's only really Snape and possibly Remus (is there any cannon background on what house he was put in?) that were actually significantly heroic characters from other houses.

But there's still hope for Crabbes redemption an Goyles noble sacrifice to save their true and secret friend Neville from death by slow digestion of cockroach larvae..

Umm or not..

I never can actually have a point at the end. Well it made snse at the beginning..

Poof!

Re: hullo

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

WHY DO YOU SPREAD YOUR NEVILLE HERESY UPON THE UNSUSPECTING POPULACE?? WHY?? WHY I ASK YOU?? >:0

Re: hullo

[sternel.livejournal.com]

lol...
actually, i only really have one argument with that, and that is that we only have Harry's word on things. The narration is directed through his experiences, and limited to his knowledge. For all we know, Mad-Eye Mooney was a Hufflepuff, but he seems to have displayed a considerable amount of intelligence and bravery throughout his career (regardless of who was Polyjuicing him...). I expect that in OoP and onwards, as our understanding of the wizarding world grows with Harry's, we will be learning a great deal more about all of this.
I really want to see JKR's notebook. =)
And your plot bunny sounds like the squickiest slashfic ever. wow. i think you should write that. =)

[gigantic.livejournal.com]

Meep! You've made me blush.

Wow, I'm speechless. This doesn't happen to me!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

heee. am v. glad. this might mean that was as good as an actual review. ahahah. i am so sneaky!!

seriously man, i *heart* your fic. a lot. a lot, lot. you should write more of it, dammit! *laughs*
it hits all my soft spots of being smoothly written and understated and poetic and yet you know, hot, with all the kissing-against-walls and the snarky weirdness and the draco-being-a-pathetic-sort-of-badass-ness. so yes. am pleased, because maybe if you know you will be motivated to you know, write moooooooore >:D