Urban Fiction

I read a really interesting article earlier today about the emergence of a relatively new genre of fiction and how it is impacting readers and libraries, especially in urban areas.  The article, titled “Urban Fiction Goes From Streets to Public Libraries” by Anne Bernard appeared in today’s issue of The New York Times and focuses on the rising popularity of a genre that is called, as you may guess from the title, Urban Fiction.  What I find most interesting about the article is the degree of controversy that can arise over a certain genre or literary style.  Urban fiction has been criticized for being overly violent and/or sexual and for romanticizing “gangster” lifestyles.  In fact many of the criticisms of urban fiction parallel those made on Rap music which is closely associate incidentally in both location and within the writing itself.

What I really find interesting is that this isn’t the first genre or literary form to be criticized in similar fashion.  Romance novels have long been looked down upon.  Until rather recently comics were not generally considered of much literary value (a topic I hope to write about in further detail at a later time).  At the same time other styles of writing, which once dominated what was literary have fallen out of popular favor.  Poetry was once the way to write, and it made up much of what people read.  The case is not quite the same today (not that people do not still read poetry, I personally love it myself, it is just not as popular as it was in the past).  

As I have written before I’m sure, I will state again that there is a certain degree and mindset of literary elitism.  It is the stance that people take saying that “this” is a work of literary worth, while “that” is quite base and low, solely intended to entertain the masses. I admit a guilt to this kind of thinking occasionally myself.  I personally have great dislike for some very successful novels such as “The Da Vinci Code” and “The Kite Runner” and have made arguments about them being of low literary worth.  At the same time I am currently in the midst of Stephen King’s “Duma Key” and considering authors who have received significant criticism for not creating works worth literary praise King is high up there.

I have tried to relax my bouts of overpowering literary elitism by taking a proactive stance of “if it is getting people to read more than it cannot really be all that bad.”  I suppose in the long run time will tell, as the scholars of literature in the years to come determine which works are worthy of continual inspection and which others disappear into the metaphorical cracks of literary history.