Grant argues that new commercial categories of literature, which include poop fiction, chick lit, K-mart realism, and tart noir resemble the kind of fracturing that already occurred in the music world. Here’s the blog entry that got him started. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Commercial Categories for Literature”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.
And I’m Grant Barrett.
Erin Brenner at the Writing Resource blog caught my eye the other day. She posted about new types of literature. And Martha, I’ve got to say, a couple of these were new to me.
I’ve heard of chick lit, and I’ve heard of lad lit, and I’ve even heard of misery lit. But have you ever heard of poop fiction?
I beg your pardon?
It’s not the Quentin Tarantino film, right?
No, no, P-O-O-P, poop, like, you know, caca, doo-doo. It’s children’s fiction that uses a lot of bathroom humor and off-color jokes.
Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, my son loves this stuff. If you can work butt into a joke, it’s funny, right? Three-year-olds automatically.
So there’s a whole genre of books like that. Yeah, a whole genre of children’s literature.
And then there’s Kmart realism, which I think I kind of heard about. It’s fiction that focuses on, as she describes it, spare, terse style that features struggling working-class characters in sterile, bleak environments. And I’m thinking, well, that’s everyone I know. I mean, that’s the American way, isn’t it? A desk and a chair and a computer and a lot of boredom?
I don’t know.
Right. So what’s the Kmart about?
Kmart somehow is associated with blue collar and working class and people have gritty, tough lives. Maybe you’ve heard of Tarte Noir.
Tarte Noir?
Yeah. Well, we don’t use Tarte so much this way in the U.S.
No, we don’t. But a Tarte is a, you know, a hussy or a she-devil, a woman who goes after men with the abandon, right? So Tarte Noir, then N-O-I-R, Tarte Noir, is mystery fiction whose protagonist is a tough, sexy, independent woman. She’s a Tarte.
Okay. So I’m looking at all these types that are, and again, that’s on the Writing Resource blog if you want to find it and read a little bit more about the other types that she talks about. And it occurs to me that this kind of fracturing of literature is a little bit like the fracturing of all the different music genres.
Somewhere, I think it was in the 70s or the 80s, when it became easy for everyone to make electronic music, we started getting like all these little micro genres of dance and house and jungle and hip-hop and rock and not rock and pseudo-rock and pseudo-rap and da-da-da-da-da. If you were to chart this, the taxonomy would be bigger than like the insect kingdom.
Right. And so I think literature may be headed the same way, right? More books are published every year than any year before.
Yeah, but do you think these have any kind of staying power?
I don’t know. I think it’s a way that marketers characterize a product so it looks distinctive, and really it’s just another novel.
Well, if you’d like to talk with us about any aspect of literature or language, call us 1-877-929-9673. That’s 1-877-W-A-Y-W-O-R-D. Or you can send us an email. That address is words@waywordradio.org.
