Judging A Book By Its Vastly More Interesting Cover

Sometimes I just really love the Grumpy Old Bookman

Various people are asking whether trade paperbacks can save literary fiction (see Galleycat for a summary).

The answer is no. Nothing can save literary fiction. It isn’t a question of format or cost; it’s a question of boredom.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, and you can even fool the same people for several years — or books — at a time. But eventually the penny drops.

Honestly, this whole thing cracks me up. I do like literary fiction, but it’s an admittedly acquired taste. And honestly, even the phrase “literary fiction” bugs the crap right out of me. It carries that weighty implication that This Book is more worthy of being a book than All The Other Books and further the idea that reading This Book makes a person of more depth than the folks who read All Those Other Books.

Of course, there are books which are objectively better than other books. Using two examples from among my lifetime favourites, I would honestly say that To Kill A Mockingbird is vastly superior to any of the books in the Harry Potter franchise, judging with a critical eye on plotting, pacing, characterisation and theme. Yet I still love both, reread both, and am spurred to think about larger deeper thoughts when I read either one. But they both engage me.

It’s increasingly difficult to find literary fiction which engages me. More often than not when I pick up a piece of literary fiction I get the vibe that the author is trying to work through his therapy, impress his coffee klatsch from the MFA class and have others praise him for how loftily smart he is. More and more often I’m less spurred to new ideas and instead spurred to understand why so many people don’t read for leisure anymore.

Because leisure reading, after all, implies leisure. Fun. Enjoyment.

This current cover debate is cracking me up specifically because it’s as though the Literary Fiction people are coming ever closer to admitting that people don’t enjoy their books. So maybe if they instead made them look like the books people DO enjoy, they could trick a few readers into buying these tomes by mistake.

HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK THE BOOK-BUYING PUBLIC IS?!?!!!

Oh never mind. They’ve already answered that question.

I know I’ve already written about this, but I have to say that perhaps actually making your literary fiction interesting would be a good start.

For instance, I’m in the middle of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. This is a beautifully written book. It’s as literary as you’d expect from a Pulitzer Prize winner, yet it’s as entertaining as you’d expect from a Clancy or King.

And it has the most hideous cover art I’ve seen in awhile. Yet I’m reading it. Why? Because it’s engaging, not loftily haughty and entertaining.

Oh, and I’m reading it in hardcover, too.