[Hereford Eye]

While we're on the topic of categorization; here are some books that contain fantasy elements. How would we categorize these?
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Bless Me, Ultima - Rudolfo Anaya
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
The Bull From the Sea - Mary Renault
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
White Lotus - John Hersey

BTW, we will not find them in the sff sections of our libraries or book stores. Why is that?

[Gary Wassner]

They are all considered cross over titles, with the exception of Moby Dick and Animal Farm perhaps. I don't know that I would categorize Orwell in this case. If anything maybe political satire? Moby Dick is an epic adventure, but I don't view it as fantasy myself. The Bull From the Sea is really mythically based and more like historical fiction. The Lovely Bones is probably more akin to the supernatural than to fantasy with it's contemporary settings, and Heaven again is a contemporary novel with a fantastic theme. Fantasy is so broad a category that they could all be considered fantasy in some sense, but they are not marketed that way. The genre is expanding with the New Wierd, Mieville and Gaiman et al. The only clear category in fantasy that I fully understand is Epic Fantasy. It is what it is: Epic and Fantastic.

[Hereford Eye]

Sort of like your other thread, go into the library or bookstore. Where do you look for them? In the book stores, it's literature and I suspect, though I don't know for certain for all of them, they are under general fiction in the libraries. Haven't been into a library in almost 8 years. So, what good are the categories?

BTW, must disagree about Moby Dick: has a purpose driven monster just as Jaws 1-100 do and Frankenstein. Referring to Animal Farm as political allegory doesn't seem to be playing with all your cards exposed. We know these books are science fiction: The Foundation Series, Dune, and The Forever War and yet they each could also be categorized as politial allegories. Stanger in a Strange Land and Hyperion could be categorized as religious allegories. Folk are always trying to make The Lord of the Rings allegorical of something. By your admission, your own stories could be considered allegorical. Calling something allegorical doesn't seem to be a legitimate substitute for the fact that it is a fantasy or science fiction work.

Another BTW - been thinking about requesting my handle be changed to "Devil's Advocate Wannabe" :rolleyes: D'ya think Dag will buy it?

[Gary Wassner]

Books aren't written with a category in mind. At least I hope they are not, although today many agents sell the ideas before the first paragraph is penned, so I might be wrong. But at least it is probably safe to assume that Melville and Orwell didn't write with any thought at all about how their works would be marketed. So, they just cross over, as I said. I agree that the sci/fi label fits in some cases. Strangers in a Strange Land was social commentary for me. I suppose certain books are different things to different people.

I don't think though that anyone would disagree that I write Epic Fantasy. It may be metaphorical, but what isn't? Metaphor is a technique that is not restricted to any genre, as is the use of allegory.

Devil's advocate wannabe? Let's not give the devil so much credit here. You are doing fine without him.

[Sammie]

Referring to Animal Farm as political allegory doesn't seem to be playing with all your cards exposed. We know these books are science fiction: The Foundation Series, Dune, and The Forever War and yet they each could also be categorized as politial allegories. Stanger in a Strange Land and Hyperion could be categorized as religious allegories. Folk are always trying to make The Lord of the Rings allegorical of something. By your admission, your own stories could be considered allegorical.I agree that a story can be both fantasy (or science fiction) AND allegorical (Narnia is another good example).

However, I would not categorise 'Animal Farm' as Fantasy because it is a political satire, and that, imo, is a genre in itself. As with 'Gulliver's Travels', in 'Animal Farm' Orwell uses an implausible scenario, and implausible characters (tiny men, giant men, animal-men) to represent specific political figures, parties, ideals, and to represent stereotypes from among the general population.

It's not fantasy.....they don't intend us to suspend disbelief and, for the duration of the book, believe in talking animals......we are intended to see through these characters to the real message of the book.

[Gary Wassner]

I agree. I wonder if Orwell did categorize his own writings?

[Hereford Eye]

we are intended to see through these characters to the real message of the book.
Isn't that true of Heinlein and Asimov and Mieville and Wassner and all the others as well? Why else did they write? To assert that Orwell, Lewis, Carroll, Swift and Kipling did it on purpose but the others only did it through happenstance seems a bit cavalier to me. Has anyone asked China Mieville if he is doing political satire? Is David Weber examining everything military as a pure story teller or is he burying a message in all those books? Did Elizabeth Moon write Paksennarion because she had nothing to say about the U.S. military?
If political satire is a separate genre, does it include some of their work? Does the genre include Margaret Atwood's work or must there be a sense of humor involved? In that case, would it include include Keith Laumer's Retief tales? Everything Sheri S. Tepper writes deals with the issues of feminism; is that political satire? Do the books by political columnists containing compilations of their columns fit into the genre? Are some of Shakespeare's plays in the genre?
Defining categories and then sorting authors into them seems like a slippery slope to me.

[Gary Wassner]

It is most definitely a slippery slope. And it often does more damage to the author and the reader than anyone ever realizes. But what's the alternative? How would you ever begin to sort through the thousands of books being published if we didn't make some effort to separate them by category? It's a bit like stereotyping. We all do it unconsciously, and there are reasons why we stereotype, there are generalities that we can draw. But it is degrading nonetheless. Categorizing literature can be degrading too.
Mieville most certainly has a point of view, a very strong political one, and he expresses it allegorically in his books. Every author has a point of view, or almost every one, and they too express it when they write. There are books that we categorize as 'trash' and I don't know if that stereotype if even fair. But we do it all the time and with all mediums. Art, music and even sports. There are serious sports and then there is badmitten.

[Hereford Eye]

Isn't badmittens when you put the gloves on to pick up the casserole of baked beans and you spill the beans on the gloves?

Badminton on the hand is now an olympic sport which elevates it to the ranks of tennis. Not quite up the sociall scale to golf but getting there.

As for categorizing, yeah, we do. Can't help it. Probably an essential capability of our mind to reduce the world to manageable size. The problem, as I see it, is when we think the categories are real, cut and dried, with known boundaries and then believe we can justify putting a given book into a given category.

Your trash example is perfect. What I consider trash will not mesh with what you consider trash and that's fine. We both know what we mean by "trash" and neither of us expects the other to put precisely the same books into the trash bin.

I am quite content that the book stores have gathered up most of the books I like and put them in places I can reasonably find them. Every now and then it takes them a year or so to get it right. The Time Traveler's Wife spent it's first year in the lit sections of the book stores and is only now findings its way to the sff sections. A remarkable accomplishment for the author as far as I can see.

[Gary Wassner]

I thought that of badmitten too until i looked it up here: http://gearshopping.com/shop/browse-badmitten-745-1.html

How odd, right?

It is the ambiguous books that seem to get lost in the big stores. When something is clearly genre fiction - a mystery, a thriller, epic fantasy or the like, it is easy to place it on a shelf with a sign on the top to identify it for the customers.

I think that the shelves should just extend beyond their categorical borders. Let them blend toghether when the books are cross over books, and don't put a name on the side of the shelf. Just place them in between two other labels. Call them blends.