Is there any genre fiction out there with even a sprinkle of literary merit?

Philip K Dick and JG Ballard

Dickens' genre would be Dickensian then.

An indicator that a piece of literature developed the traditions of the art by a triumph of originality and masterful craftsmanship, or some degree of such a success.

Harry Potter has literary merit then.

Cormac McCarthy.

Under the clause "to some degree", sure, if it's an original interpretation of fantasy or modern fantasy, or even narrower than that, magic school fantasy. I'm not familiar enough with those genres to say, although I'm under the impression that the last one was created by Harry Potter, but that might be a commercial development rather than a literary.

Harry Potter is the evolution of those Roald Dahl books.

How so, and so what?

The ultimate model for Harry Potter is "Tom Brown's School Days" by Thomas Hughes, published in 1857. The book depicts the Rugby School presided over by the formidable Thomas Arnold, remembered now primarily as the father of Matthew Arnold, the Victorian critic-poet. But Hughes's book, still quite readable, was realism, not fantasy. Rowling has taken "Tom Brown's School Days" and re-seen it in the magical mirror of Tolkien. The resultant blend of a schoolboy ethos with a liberation from the constraints of reality-testing may read oddly to me, but is exactly what millions of children and their parents desire and welcome at this time.

What's happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.

But when I wrote that in a newspaper, I was denounced. I was told that children would now read only J.K. Rowling, and I was asked whether that wasn't, after all, better than reading nothing at all? If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn't that a good thing?

It is not. "Harry Potter" will not lead our children on to Kipling's "Just So Stories" or his "Jungle Book." It will not lead them to Thurber's "Thirteen Clocks" or Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" or Lewis Carroll's "Alice."

Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

Our society and our literature and our culture are being dumbed down, and the causes are very complex. I'm 73 years old. In a lifetime of teaching English, I've seen the study of literature debased. There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable.

>The ultimate model for Harry Potter is "Tom Brown's School Days" by Thomas Hughes, published in 1857

Whoa, that genre went far back, huh? I thought it was started by David Copperfield (boy version) and A Little Princess (girl version)

...Fug, I just realized this is a pasta

Asshole adults, magical kids, and boarding schools.

Dune

Also Corncob isn't genre-- I think that's a v far stretch. Writing about the west is different than western genre fiction

A few superficial similarities in literal content doesn't suggest an evolution, not that you bothered to describe one.

>genre fiction
The same kind of person who then cries about "experimental writing" within genre fiction. Just stop reading altogether already.
P.S. 99,9% of books you think are above genre fiction are just SoL.

Motherfuckers stretched their legs so much they could be part of the fantastic four.

>this meme again

Yeah, lots.

>"If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

SAVAGE

But to be fair reading Stephen King lead me to read Frankenstein and Dracula, and probably other classics from their.

Somewhat related: Lee/Kirby's run on the Fantastic Four is an American literary masterpiece

i feel like that guy is Yung Leans more serious twin brother

New wave sci-fi (Ballard, Dick, le Guin, Moorcock)

Gibson's cyberpunk novels (more for their style than anything, but God what an invigorating style)

James Ellroy crime novels

>Dick
>Moorcock
noticing a pattern here user

Harry Potter isn't remotely original.

>Dickens
A Christmas Carol, for example, isn't straight fiction

>Crime and Punishment
An even better representative of lit-meritorious genre fiction from Dosto is Karamazov

As for writing that's primarily genre but has lit merit, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Stanisław Lem yet.
Or Borges for that matter.

>their

Nothing is original, retard.

Yes

The reason genre fiction is shat on isn't because it's inherently bereft of literary merit; it's because it's a beacon for autists and hacks, which makes wading through it not as worthwhile.

Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Chesterton, Dostoevsky, McCarthy, Wolfe, Tolkien, Dick, Peake, Vance, Dunsay, Wells, Kipling, Frankenstein, Dracula, Moorcock, Leiber.
In short, a lot of it.
Assuming by genre fiction you mean fiction heavily reliant on tropes and existing within certain genres.
If you mean genre fiction as all fiction you think is bad, no.

>lead me to read Frankenstein and Dracula
You mean awful pop horror? They're in the realm of Stephen King, only slightly higher. Read Ann Radcliffe.

Are you implying King is good enough to be read 100 years from now?

>Frankenstein
Never heard of this author before, thanks.

>tfw nobody appreciates how true this is.

Even on Veeky Forums there are people stupid enough to complain about SoL. Off yourself.