Tuesday, August 30, 2016
I hope this ends well
I was recently discussing genre here. In this case it was the issue of the disdained "romance" genre and how I thought we should come up with an equally disdained "thriller" genre, both of them made into bad genres simply by removing all the best books that belong there and classifying them into fiction or other genres.
But it all just brings home my point that genre is a murky thing. Their definitions shift and books constantly drift across their borders. Mostly genres are just tools. Anyone working in a library, who pays attention, knows there is an infinity of ways to group books together. And while there are surely more people out there who want a section devoted to sleuths who solve murders than there are people who want to browse in a section made all of short books, or funny books, it doesn't mean that mysteries is more legit than brief comedies.
I would even say the book grouping dichotomy everyone takes for granted is just a choice, and I'm not so sure it's even to my taste. I can see the practicality of dividing all books into Fiction and Non Fiction, but I think I have a split for all books that I might prefer:
Sad endings and Happy endings. That's what I really want to know.
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