This article at at the Guardian made me see red:
Ebooks roundup: Fifty shades of new erotica and roll the dice for a price
Populist titles tick the genre boxes, publishers get creative with eshort tasters and price-setting takes a new twist
I love how the author manages to get her web-hits by name dropping FSOG while not actually bothering to read any of the books she’s pissing on:
Meanwhile, explicit tales of erotic entanglement are legion as publishers chase the market opened up by the runaway success of Fifty Shades of Grey, still dominating the bestseller chart. This month sees the launch of Beth Kery’s Because You Are Mine, to be published in eight weekly instalments (Headline, ￡£1.49 each); Destined to Play by Indigo Bloome (HarperCollins, ￡£1.99); Marina Anderson’s Haven of Obedience (Hachette Digital, £3.99); Diary of a Submissive by Sophie Morgan (Michael Joseph, £2.99); and three collections of erotic short stories by Tobsha Learner titled, with unashamed camp, Quiver, Yearn and Tremble (Hachette Digital, £2.99). The plots involve – well. Do you really need to know the plots?
Yes, Ms Page, we DO REALLY NEED TO KNOW THE PLOTS.
It is the height of hypocrisy, in the digital age, that these literary arbiters will gladly get web-hits from the mention of a best selling erotic novel, but won’t actually stoop to read one.
Here, for what it is worth, was my response:
“The plots involve – well. Do you really need to know the plots?”
Yes, I really need to know the plots. That literary critics have felt it so beneath them to critique erotic fiction has certainly contributed to the sad reality that few writers within the erotic fiction genre have developed the sort of storytelling skills of other fiction genres.
If, as Iain Banks eloquently said, the genre of science fiction examines how humans deal with change, then erotic fiction examines how humans deal with desire. Within those parameters, there is a great deal of scope for theme, story, character and conflict.
Every year, the Bad Sex Awards come along and the Guardian posts yet another article on how sad it is that no one writes sex well in novels. Not terribly surprising — when literary luminaries think it so beneath them to actually read any well-written sex, or can be arsed to critically review novels in which the good sex writing appears.
Sexual desire is a fairly universal experience and yet the literary world is still stuck in the grip of Aristotles’ insistence that no rational thought is possible under its sway. If ever there was an unquestioning, uncritical acceptance of dogma, this has to be it. It’s been 90 years since Lady Chatterly’s Lover was written. Could you please get over it?
There are wonderful stories out there about how humans navigate the storm of desire. Presidents court impeachment, the great and good are brought low by it. And the literary world’s response, for the most part, is to tiptoe around the reality of those tempests like parsimonious prigs picking their way down a shit-strewn alley.
When some adventurous writer doesn’t follow that banal path, it’s labeled ‘porn’. Which only goes to show what sheltered little lives most critics live. Because if you did consume any, you’d be able to tell the difference between porn and erotic fiction: no one in their right puts conflict into porn.
If you are an erotic fiction writer or reader, I urge you to take your digital ass over to the Guardian and give them what for. The attitude is patronizing and the tactic is blatantly opportunistic.
So true! I’ve given up on these big publishing houses anyway. Most of the time I can find good writers online or through independent channels. There is so much really bad writing getting published by these people :/
Loved your online series Tales of Mumbai Coven. Thank you!!
Why does anyone need a big publishing house, either to publish erotica or to find it? I find it much more interesting to discover lesser known authors online, authors who put time and energy into character and plot, and who will interact online with their fans.
Art isn’t any less art just because it ends in an orgasm.
Hi Anon, Hi Valerie:
I think you’ve probably both put your fingers on why digital and indie publishing has taken off so successfully. Because the big publishing houses are not longer the source of good writing (they publish some unmitigated crap) and because critics seem to be too lazy to really consider the world of indie publishing at all.
Yes, they really are. I have a facebook friend, a well-known critic, who actually opined publically that she never reads anything that isn’t from the ‘majors’.
However, we reviewers also need to move to the non-major, Goodreads and its ilk. Most book editors at e.g Guardian, FT, Telegraph and even the Independent won’t look at reviewing small press books either.
Thanks for calling this out!
Here’s a snip from my comment to the article:
“Do you really need to know the plots?” has a dismissive, contemptuous undertone that offends me as a reader and writer of erotica. What I pick up from the tone is the idea that people don’t read books like this for plot or any sort of literary enjoyment. Arousal is absolutely part of the package with an erotic book — but that doesn’t mean every reader or writer is a sweaty-palmed fiend with no sense of taste. It’s possible to choose your arousal the way you might choose your dinner. You can eat because you need to eat with no sense of distinction, or you can cook or buy food with an eye toward the aesthetic pleasure of it. In this way, “Do you really need to know the plots?” sounds a lot like mentioning a bunch of restaurants, and then saying, “Do you really need to know what they serve?” (Yes, food, but that suggests the speaker has no idea how to choose one restaurant over another).
In a past life, I was a journalist, and I recall an unfortunate pressure to “have opinions about” whatever people were talking about. This often came with a healthy dose of groupthink. Sadly, in journalism, there isn’t much time to reflect, and the increasing speed of the news cycle isn’t helping. I think this sort of article is born from pressure to mention things without sufficient time to investigate them.
Also, I think you’re quite right about the search for web hits. I have to admit I’ve been clicking to the Guardian a lot more lately, what with all their articles mentioning Fifty Shades. I’m sure they’re getting traffic for it, and I’m part of the herd that’s been rewarding them… 🙁
Er… she managed to find the time to provide synopses of the other non-erotica titles, though, I notice.
By “without sufficient time to investigate them,” I mean, without sufficient time to challenge one’s preconceived notions. That’s the step that’s really missing, I think. She came back in response to you and posted the plots of the erotic books she’d mentioned, but nothing in her tone had changed.
Great post, RG. The tone of this piece, as you excerpt it, is preposterous. As if sex weren’t important to the human condition. Literature about every other drama and appetite is acceptable, but stories of sex are somehow indulgent. Last I checked sex was a basic human drive as inextricably intertwined with our psyches as eating, and staying alive.
I’ll go say the same thing on the article itself.
I will also offer this hilarious analysis of why people love 50, also at the Guardian. Glad she could finally explain it to me: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/29/victoria-coren-fifty-shades-of-grey?INTCMP=SRCH
Oh my god… it’s the FOOD PUSHING! I knew there was a subtextual reason I was so creeped out. Hehe.
I actually really enjoyed that Guardian article. It was the one I was thinking of when I said they’d been drawing my traffic lately. But note that this author has actually spent time reading and thinking about the book she’s writing about.
yes! Exactly.
Thank you so much for sharing that! it actually accomplished a rare feat and made me snort with laughter. XD