Dumb Things I Read in the Saturday Globe and Mail, Oct. 8, 2011

The masses demanded, so they got. Well, one mass anyway. At first, it was looking like I wasn't going to get any material. The articles were all reasonably intelligent, or at least not outwardly idiotic. I turned to the Style section, which can usually be counted on to serve up something stupid. It's the Style section; isn't that what it's for? There's Chris Nuttal-Smith, right on the third page. I remember the time some guy wrote in to say he liked top hats and wanted to bring them back into fashion. Naturally Chris had to nip this kind of dangerous fashion dissension in the bud, so he got out the big guns (I picture an haute couture gun, perhaps with feathers hanging from it, unless they're not in fashion this year) and informed the reader that HE was not someone who could bring back the top hat and he'd better not even think of wearing one in public unless he wanted to make a fool of himself.

Of course not. A lowly citizen can't bring back the top hat. You need someone like Karl Lagerfeld, someone who already has a design house and is respected in the field. If Lagerfeld put on a top hat on one of his models, it would be heralded as revolutionary, everybody would be wearing one, and then the reader would be permitted his top hat. But put on a top hat when Lagerfeld hasn't done it yet, and you're just an ass.

Not being a fashion victim, I thought that was pretty stupid, and I expected to enjoy more, similarly stupid pronouncements. But this time, Chris was tackling the question of middle-aged people wearing clothes meant for young people. He nixed it, of course. "Cheap casual clothes are simply not flattering on imperfect men: This is why tailored suits are one's greatest support in old age. The same principle is true for women," he argues, and... I agree with him.* Apparently, if I wanted stylish stupidity, I'd have to dig deeper.

So I did, but page after page, I wasn't finding stupidity. Some perfectly credible furniture, a recipe, a piece about wines: all reasonable stuff. Hideous clothing on the two-page spread for Paris Fashion Week, but that's visual. I needed stupidity in print.

Just when I thought all was lost, I found it. Page 18. Katrina Onstad's column, entitled: Swedish for emasculated baby-men. First sentence:

It has been said that there is no greater test of a relationship than navigating the life-altering choice between a Krunst and a Gertllos throw rug.

And we have a winner. Thank you, Katrina Onstad! You have maintained G&M's vital stupidity quotient. Hear that, everybody? No greater test of relationships than shopping for a throw rug, so forget degenerative diseases and child rearing; they're insignificant.

OK, you could argue that she was being tongue in cheek, but I'm not so sure. The scary thing about the Globe and Mail is the peek it gives into this alien world of Toronto upper-middle classness where things that nobody else gives a shit about, like where to go to eat weird extruded, foam-covered nouvelle cuisine or which thousand-dollar handbag to buy, acquire a quasi-mystical, fetishistic significance. If you are the kind of person who cares about such things, then maybe throw-rug shopping really is the greatest relationship challenge you expect to face.

But perhaps I should get to the point. Katrina was very upset because IKEA had the temerity to try to rescue men from the pain of shopping. In a location in Sydney, Australia, they have installed Manland, a room that men can hang out in while they wait for their wives to finish shopping. It is said to contain entertainments such as foosball and hot dogs. As a Torontonian with no real problems, Katrina is deeply offended by this proposal.

"The set of assumptions behind Manland doesn't flatter either sex," she claims. "Once again, here comes the baby-man meme, wherein men are unable and unwilling to participate in the rote side of domestic life." Leaving aside the implication that all ideas are now "memes," whether or not they originated on the Internet, isn't it interesting that women are the ones who get to decide what constitutes "participation in domestic life"? One could argue that women don't adequately participate in the garbage-removal and snow-shovelling side of domestic life. Once they've been together a year or two, couples invariably and naturally split up tasks according to the inclinations and abilities of each spouse. Somehow that's never a problem until some woman says it is. I never heard a man say that a woman's not pulling her weight in the coupledom arena unless she's walked alongside him while he pushed the lawnmower, so it's not clear to me why men should have to shop with their wives if they find it a genuinely painful experience.

And they do. I can't count the number of times I've been in a store and seen a man sitting in a chair outside the women's changing room with a dead look in his eyes. One glance, and I know he's gone well beyond boredom. He hit boredom after the first half-hour. Now his brain has shut down. Ladies, if you love your man, why would you want to put him through this?

Mind you, that's clothes shopping. I think furniture shopping probably induces a fair bit of male unhappiness as well, but at least a sofa doesn't have to be tried on. If any store needs a Manland, it's a clothing store. Still, IKEA is to be commended for its innovation, and clothing stores may well follow suit.

There's more to Katrina's argument. "To be a man..." she claims, "is to participate fully in your relationship and muster up a civil opinion on a bath mat from time to time. Manland is a country populated by the lowest forms of manhood: the whiner who can't even put aside his own (adolescent) proclivities for an hour to help his wife carry a Shrompfken - one that he's probably going to enjoy sleeping on himself." In other words, a woman can't manage the shopping-at-IKEA task herself because there are two things she needs from her man: an opinion and help carrying things.

All right, I can accept that a woman might value her husband's input while shopping... for real furniture. You know, something major, like a dining room table or a sofa. Not a bath mat. A BATH MAT, Katrina? Are you kidding me? You need your husband's opinion on a bath mat?

I can't imagine why you would care about something so insignificant as which precise bath mat your spouse decided to bring home, unless you're a middle-class Torontonian, in which case I suppose it's a matter of crucial importance.

But yes, for larger purchases, your spouse's input might be desirable. Fine, but you need to be aware that compromise is a two-way street. That is, it means something other than what Katrina seems to think it means: Man does everything woman tells him to do. Compromise may mean, for example, that the woman moves through IKEA and makes purchasing decisions more quickly than she would like to. Contrary to popular belief, men are quite capable of shopping... at their pace. They know what they want, they go in, they get it, they leave. Done. What makes men miserable is the lingering that women like to indulge in.

As for the Shrompfken-carrying business, Manland is still in the store, meaning the man is still available to do whatever carrying is required. You only need to carry from the store to the car or bus. While you're in the store, you have the cart.

Katrina further claims, I can't help but suspect dishonestly, that women are being altruistic when they shop: "Perhaps there are those whose perfect Saturday includes Swedish meatballs and picture frames, but I suspect that almost no one actually wants to go to IKEA, regardless of gender." Really? That's news to me, because I love IKEA. I have ever since it was first introduced in Montreal. I loved the tyranny of the little maze you had to walk through when you went into the furniture section. There was a little gap you could squeeze through if you knew where it was, thereby skipping to the end, but to fully appreciate the IKEA experience was to walk the whole thing, seeing everything from living room sets to kitchens in the order that the designers intended. We have too much choice in our society, and studies have shown that that makes us unhappy. I appreciate the IKEA genius who took away not only our choice of where to wander but also rejected the alienating warehouse look of the average big box store in favour of a cozier, more human-sized maze. And you can even get Swedish meatballs at the end, in lieu of the traditional piece of cheese.

I'm not the only one either. I know that because Cristina Perissinotto once wrote a fabulous poem about how much she loves IKEA (I have no idea if she published it, unfortunately). [UPDATE (2011/11/16): Cristina herself has informed me that the IKEA poem can be read in her poetry collection Exhale, Exhale by Guernica Editions. Buy a copy at Book Depository and get free shipping.]

Angry as she is, Katrina is not afraid to toss in thoroughly spurious arguments if she thinks it will win her her point. "I look forward to my pedicure room at Rona," she says sarcastically, but since when do men make their wives come to the hardware store with them?

The arguments just get more spurious as she goes on. A few tweaks, and suddenly this is some sort of feminist, political issue. Comparing Manland to the newly-popular man caves, she decides that these phenomena mean that men are feeling "elbowed aside," and having invented the problem, rushes to undermine it. All of a sudden, she's quoting statistics ("in 2010, less than 30 per cent of Canadian MPs were female"), after which she declares snidely, "it's a touch difficult to see 'invisibility' as a male issue."

Invisibility? Lack of female MPs? I thought we were talking about men shopping at IKEA.

Still, man caves are an interesting subject, one that hardly helps her argument. They may be partly about retreating from the world and indulging in entertainments such as XBox and foosball, but they're also about a man having a space that he can decorate precisely as he wants to (even Katrina admits as much, with her fleeting reference to "an electric guitar as wall art"). That implies that the rest of the house is the woman's domain, where she holds sway and decorates as she sees fit. It is difficult to reconcile such a vision with Katrina's assertion that women value the male opinion on decor, even on such items as the lowly bath mat. One might rather be tempted to conclude that there is truth in the stereotype that a woman wants a man's opinion on decor as long as it jibes with her own, all the while reserving the right to summarily dismiss deviating opinions. If this is what men are experiencing, no wonder they'd rather hang out at Manland, or in the man cave, than join their wives in the IKEA maze. I suspect that Katrina—poor, furious Katrina—has no one to blame but herself.

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* Actually, reading this statement over, I realize it merits mockery as well, for the claim that "tailored suits are one's greatest support in old age." Hello? What about walkers? Canes? Medicare? He would have done better to word that differently, but G&M columnists appear to be like Tinkerbell, unable to hold more than one thing in their heads at a time, and so the rest of the world is forgotten as they make wild overstatements to support their arguments pertaining to whatever trivial topic they happen to be discussing. Back

"Genre" is not a Synonym for "Formulaic": a rant

[I]f you haven't had a life, and therefore have nothing to write about, don't worry unduly; this guarantees your dreary novels will be reviewed positively in all the posh papers, because posh papers are staffed exclusively by graduates who haven't had a life and therefore don't realise you're writing about nothing, or if they do realise it, rather approve of it. (This is called 'non-genre fiction', and, contrary to popular belief, it is much more profitable than popular fiction, because it is subsidised by taxes stolen from the working classes.) ~Mat Coward, in Success... and How to Avoid It.

The Globe and Mail from Saturday, Sept. 10 has an article in its Books section called Why Fiction is Good For You. Psychologist and fiction writer Keith Oatley claims that reading fiction makes you more empathetic. Sounds interesting, right? And to an extent, it is, although Oatley’s oftentimes bizarre ways of expressing himself don't improve the reading experience (at one point he says, "It is not that one puts bread into a toaster and makes toast."). For me, the article was spoiled, as is many a promising work of fiction, by the ending. The third paragraph from the bottom reads: "For his part, Oatley is convinced that the better the writer, the more powerful the simulation, and he makes a distinction between literary and genre fiction."

Instant raising of the hackles. Mind you, I have no way of knowing whether Oatley himself chose to use the words "genre" and "literary" or whether he spoke more intelligently. That is not revealed in the direct quotes which follow:

"You can have a good read, but it is sort of like going on a roller coaster. […] You get off, your heart is beating a bit, but you are still the same person."

"Chekhov was a great artist: The effect is different – the extent to which [the reader] can really inhabit another mind."

And that’s all fair enough, as long as one doesn’t pointlessly slam genre. Writer Kate Taylor continues to make an ass of herself by ending the article as follows:

The roller coaster may be fun, but the flight simulator … now that’s art.

What?

I have often thought of doing a series of blog posts that would be collectively called Dumb Things I Read in the Saturday Globe and Mail. I can usually rely on reading at least one stupid thing in every issue. The only thing that’s stopped me is, it takes me a week or two to get through an entire Saturday Globe and Mail, which would result in the posts being embarrassingly out of date. However, genre-bashing never goes out of style among the snobigensia, and apparently, neither do bad metaphors. So although this post has a different title, it could also be considered number 0 in my possible new series: Dumb Things I Read in the Globe and Mail.

It has already been pointed out ample times, mostly by fans, that genre fiction does not have to be superficial and formulaic, that it can in fact contain character development and whatever else you might expect to find in quality fiction. No matter how many times it’s said, it won’t penetrate the heads of those who don’t want to hear it. This selfsame article sings the praises of Jane Austen, a blatant genre writer who never wrote anything that wasn’t a romance. Snobs don’t want to think of Austen as a genre writer, though she clearly was, as it would interfere with their negative perception of genre fiction. So reality must be ignored.

This post is not yet another genre fiction apology. Rather, I want to make the opposite point: not that genre fiction doesn't have to be formulaic, but that literary fiction often is.

While the term "literary fiction" is generally understood to simply mean good-quality fiction, when one has read enough literary magazines and novels, it becomes clear that literary fiction, is, in fact, itself a genre. After all, it has clearly-defined rules. One of those rules is that it not be what is traditionally known as genre (ironic, isn’t it?). Other rules of the literary fiction genre include:

• It needn't have any sort of satisfying ending.
• The writing style should be "lyrical," that is, poetic.
• A shovelful of symbolism is always good.
• Also good is a recurring image, shoehorned in to create a feeling of "resonance." The image may be symbolic, though it doesn’t have to be. (For a particularly obnoxious example, read The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy.)
• If the story lacks both symbolism and recurring, resonant images, it can still be considered literary if it adheres to the other rules and is a slice-of-life vignette of the sort that gives reviewers the opportunity to use adjectives like "stark" and "gritty."

What is formulaic fiction? It is fiction that adheres too strictly to the rules of its genre. These rules or guidelines do have their uses. Without genres or categories, the sales people at publishing houses wouldn't know how to sell a book, and book store workers wouldn't know where to shelve it. But an important part of art is breaking the rules, and to the degree that the author fails to do that, art is compromised. Just as a writer working on a thriller may say to himself at a certain point, "It's been a while since that last car chase; I'd better stick in another one," the literary writer may worry that there aren't enough deeply meaningful symbols in his lyrical story and he'd better work in some more.

This strict adherence to rules is why a lot of literary fiction sucks, and when literary fiction sucks, it sucks worse than most traditional genre fiction possibly can. Why? Because whatever else it may be lacking, genre fiction has to be at least entertaining. The market demands it. By contrast, literary fiction need not be; indeed, if you are enough of a snob, entertainment value may actually be a drawback because it detracts from the "seriousness" of the piece. (Snobs like to refer to short stories and poetry as "pieces." If you would like to make it in certain literary circles, be sure to refer often to your "piece." But make sure you are in the right circle or people may think you have a gun.)

I fear this discussion has become a little confusing, and not just because of the gun remark. After all, "genre" normally refers to certain specific genres that are considered genre (romance, science fiction, mystery and so on), while I am claiming that something normally thought to be outside genre (literary fiction) is actually a genre as well. I’m trying to make the distinction clear by referring to what is normally thought of as genre (romance, science fiction, mystery and so on) as traditional genre (meaning what is traditionally considered genre), while referring to fiction that follows the rules outlined above as the genre of literary fiction. So, having defined my terminology, I will sum up by saying that while some traditional genre fiction may be formulaic at times, it is also the case that the genre known as literary fiction is often, in its own way, formulaic as well, and boring to boot.

Clear as mud?

Mind you, I’m not saying that all literary fiction sucks. Just that too much of it does. And while I’ll read good-quality literary fiction, when I can find it, which is not often, I prefer good quality science fiction, fantasy fiction, mystery or horror (would any brave snob like to step forward and claim that Edgar Allen Poe is formulaic and low-quality?). But not western. Even though western is a genre and I identify as a genre fan, I don’t generally care for westerns (although the movie High Noon was quite good). Also not romance, except Jane Austen, who, romance writer though she was, is in a class of her own.

Perhaps we need a better vocabulary to discuss these things. That is to say, less misleading, less freighted with prejudice, and more accurate. What do you think? I think throwing out the meaningless expression "genre fiction" would be a good start.