50 Book Challenge Part Five

Remus - Did you really bring up Pollyanna? You're just pushing my buttons now

Saffy's Angel for me when I need a kids' book to cheer me up. Love that book. (It's not saccharine in the least, but it is very funny.)

I want to be in RMC's class.

Agree that Goodnight Mister Tom is far better than Just Henry.

The lion, the witch and wardrobe is my go to book. Had the pleasure of teaching it last year. In the middle of the term we had an outdoor Ed day where by fluke it snowed. Spent the whole day pretending we were in Narnia. Even had a tame robin that followed us around it was actually magical.

I always go for Anne of Green Gables when I need a nostalgic sentimental saccharine injection. Or The Secret Garden.

And Pollyanna is saccharine cutesy-ness and probably best avoided by any sane reader. I surprised myself by loving it, but I must have just caught it at a moment when I needed cuteness.

RMC - Goodnight Mr Tom is exquisite. Unfortunately Henry nowhere near as good imvho.

And I have never read Pollyanna - am I missing out? Or have I missed the boat?

Remus, Southeast DD is reading Goodnight Mr Tom. One of my favourite ever books, and I found another of Michelle Magorian's in charity shop on Saturday that I have never read Just Henry. It's waiting for me when I have finished The Hare with Amber eyes, which has improved dramatically!

Also - have just caught up with the thread.

Would everybody like a little lie down for awhile now? It's all getting a bit pedantic and repetitive. I reckon you all need to relax in a semi-darkened room, with just enough light to read Pollyanna by.

Book 42
Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth
Continuing the Golden Age of crime thing, after the Tey. I really enjoyed this. It was a good mix of light and frothy laughs and some reasonably (for the time) sinister stuff and I liked the way she made me worry that one or other of the people I liked might actually prove to be the baddy. The ending was a bit preposterous, but that was fine because this was essentially Scooby Doo for adults with posh people, and cartoonish villains. I’d definitely read another of hers.

Slightly, I found the Shardlake book I read difficult as I couldn't accept the style of the language as historically correct- though I have no problem with Georgette Heyer! I guess we all have our personal preferences.

Slightly. Yes I mind about that. But that's an issue of a book being a poorly written, regardless what genre it has been labelled as. A book full of inaccuracies is just annoying but I don't see that a genre issue. That is a different thing to what Cote was arguing; which is that there a strict set of rules surrounding a certain genre. Rules linked to time, place and content and if you break those the book is not a certain genre.

Should read "wouldn't need to be..."

Slightly I admitted upthread to being a complete hypocrite about this issue, in that I don't mind scientific inaccuracy at all, but loathe historical inaccuracy. The only way I can justify this (and it is a very woolly justification) is that historical fact cannot be altered as it has already taken place. The past existed as it was. The future for me is more unknowable and open to change. What was scientific fiction, may become fact. Also in sci-fi world building scientific laws may differ from our own. Plus I don't feel the need for a writer to explain everything to me. In NLMG I would' need to be told explicitly that donor organ rejection had been overcome by medical advances. I could just accept that in this book it is so. Like I said before I am a mass of contradictions

So, for those who say they don't care about the genre, do you still get bothered by things that seem to really not fit with the way the book seems to be written - e.g. historical fiction with medieval French peasants speaking and behaving like 21st century middle class Manhattanites? (No specific example in mind).

Because that's all I mean when I criticise things in terms of genre - that the book comes across as aiming to be a specific thing and does it badly, rather than aiming to be gloriously ambiguous about where you might find it shelved in a bookshop. It's a useful shorthand for "jeez, don't read this one if you're a stickler for historical accuracy, but if you don't mind the inaccuracy if the plot is tight and the character development rings true, it's fun enough for the beach."

Cote
The society in Animal Farm is not imagined, since it is Russia changing into Soviet Union. Those are actual historical events. I don't know how else I can say this

Taking inspiration from real life historical/political events does not disqualify a book from being dystopian literature. The story and setting of Animal Farm is highly fictionalised. Nobody disputes that Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic example of dystopian literature and its inspirations though broader, were similar to Animal Farm's. But yes - AF is considered to be (amongst other things) dystopian literature and is widely referenced as such.

^There is room for variation within a genre. That's how new ideas and are formed and boundaries tested. ^

RMC this is spot on. And something that Ishiguro is know to do, and has spoken about (also see the backlash he got for playing about with elements of the fantasy genre in The Buried Giant). FWIW it had never crossed my mind to call NLMG science fiction until I read this thread.

29. Mariana, Susanna Kearsley

Disappointed by this, especially as I picked it up after a MN recommendation. Timeslip novel about a woman who realises that she is the reincarnation of a woman from the seventeenth century. I found the historical bits mawkish and clichéd, and the modern sections boring :(

Maybe the rest of us should try and find an evening course on Taxonomic Classification of Genres in Fiction. Or not.

Genres are just a way of trying to organise books that have been written. They're not rules that have to be obeyed. You can discuss whether a book best fits into one genre or another, if that sort of thing floats your boat, but it's not obligatory for the enjoyment and criticism of literature.

@RMC123 sorry for delayed reply. I really enjoyed 'She Wolves', felt it was engaging enough to keep me interested whilst being well researched and meaty enough to have some substance. Of the queens/periods I was most interested in it was a good jumping off point to go on and read more.

Conformed not confirmed!! Good I wish you could edit MN!

Cote
In the further quote (which I did read but didn't think it added much to the argument) the key terms seem to be 'many' 'often' and ' arguably' not 'all' 'exclusively' and 'definitely' .
There is room for variation within a genre. That's how new ideas and are formed and boundaries tested.
I agree with Sirsidney that you are very hung up on definitions of genre and judge books accordingly. I feel I judge a book on whether I enjoyed it, responded to, whether it taught me anything etc etc. Whether it confirmed to a subjective genre definition is way down my priority list.

There is also a love story in 1984. That does not make it a romance.

Dystopian fiction is rooted in the word dystopia and cannot change its meaning. Just as the term Science fiction cannot change the meaning of the word science.