WHEN THE BAR HAS NO LOWER TO GO ... CHOICES*

Adult readers, it appears, crave the comforts of young adult (YA) reading.

Lisa Santamaria is a college student who also enjoys YA fiction, particularly fantasy, which she said is often more imaginative than fantasy books written for older readers. Santamaria runs the children's department of the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Willow Grove, where many adults come in and ask for books for themselves.

"Children's books have a more upbeat ending, and a lot of people are looking for that," Santamaria said.

"They want something a little more entertaining or fluffy, so they come to the kids' section, only to find out that these books are not necessarily fluffy at all. Like Harry Potter - it makes you think."

It does, indeed.  Mostly, it makes us think about how blindingly wealthy J.K. Rowling has become.  Still, on the one hand, we remind ourselves that any number of great, enduring works started out as intended for children.  (The Little Prince leaps to mind, although even that's probably open to argument.)

On the other hand, it does ever so slightly feel like yet another stone of the great edifice of Grownupland has been gleefully kicked out from underneath us.  And there aren't many of those suckers left ...

* In deference to Cecil Castelucci's comments (see comments box), we've changed the title of this post to be a slightly more accurate, less incendiary reflection of our intentions.

Comments

[Gwenda]

In my opinion: smart readers. Many of the best books I read these days are published as YAs -- frankly, a lot of big publishing houses wouldn't touch the stylistic hijinks that go on in a lot of these books if they were being targeted as adults. We really are in a golden age of YA literature, and I do think we'll have a whole knew generation of classics when the dust settles. J.K. Rowling's work isn't something I'd put in that category, but it _did_ make a lot of this possible.

[Cecil]

You are right about the fact that a lot of YA fiction (because there used to be no section called YA) are books that we now call classics universally. To Kill A Mockingbird, Huck Finn, and Catcher in the Rye come to mind.

But...The Bar Has No Lower To Go?

This attitude is exactly why I insisted so passionately that you be awars and read the book MT Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation Volume One: The Pox Party. Because I figured that you would never give it a chance because of it's label, but if you did, you would see just how high the bar for Young Adult literature really is.

Remember this. Teenagers are on the road to becoming adults. Yep. It's true. They are right in the middle of that transformation. That to me is what is so compelling about writing for that age.

It is very upsetting, as an author of Young Adult fiction, who is an adult, and who is a literary adult, to read a sentence like "yet another stone of the great edifice of Grownupland has been gleefully kicked out from underneath us. " It's a bit tiring to feel constantly ghettoized as writer as writing something 'less than' as a literature. Especially when, as Gwenda points out, we are in a golden age of YA.

I'd be happy to give you a list of books that if you had no idea that they were YA you would just think they were really good books.

[TEV]

Please allow me to clarify.

The bar I refer to isn't really YA. I realize that's probably unclear. It's more to do with the dropping standards by which too many readers in our culture make reading choices. For someone to say (as the interviewee in the piece did) that base their reading choices on seeking out upbeat endings represents - to me anyway - a terrible lowering of the bar; a life in permanent adolescence where everything resolves all nice and sitcom-like at the end of 30 minutes. That is so uninteresting to me as to be inexpressible.

I realize that point might not be made as clearly as I'd like, and I'd understand why YA authors would think me an asshole based on it. My beef here isn't with authors, it's with undiscerning readers - and I'm not saying they are undiscerning because they select YA; they are undiscerning because their criteria of what makes a book worth reading are shallow.

That said, I'm still quite eager to read Octavian Nothing - it's on "Shelf One" here (there is such a thing) - and I do remember that on my initial thumbing through, the book looked very impressive.

I am, however, going to stake my own personal opinion - and I stand reasonably firm in this - that as an adult reader, the very best of YA is still never going to offer me what the best of adult fiction (that sounds like porn) will offer. If you say there's a YA title that competes with a Coetzee, well, that's going to be an eternal hard sell for me. And, frankly, as a 40-year-old, that seems to me as it should be, because his subject matter will speak most directly to me. I enjoyed being a young adult, but not so much that I necessarily want to revisit it via fiction. Just another reading choice, I suppose, and one that you might equally consider a sad lowering of the bar.

[James A. Owen]

When my manager started shopping around HERE, THERE BE DRAGONS, I had no thought of it (which was, to be fair, only an outline then) as a YA book.

But it was Simon & Schuster's Books for Young Readers who made the preempt offer. And my manager cautioned me that if we took it (which we did), I'd run the risk of being labeled a Children's Book Author.

I looked around at my shelves, and realized that the writer whose work I was most wrapped up in (recently) was Garth Nix. And it wouldn't have mattered to me WHAT his books were presented as.

I also considered the fact that a YA book can be marketed UP, to older readers - but a book published for 'adults' would not be marketed down to younger ones.

Either way, I wouldn't have written it differently than I did. How it's presented, marketed and sold has been up to S&S - and who am I to argue with a supportive, enthusiastic publisher?

[Cecil]

Thanks for clarifying.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Octavian Nothing.

cc

[Nan Cohen]

Reading the winners' lists of the ALA Alex Awards (adult books with significant appeal to YA readers) -- http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/alexawards/alexawards.htm -- is a reminder of how blurry the line can be. For example, recent winners include Jim Shepard's Project X, ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. Of these, all of which I read and admired, I'd maybe have thought of giving Persepolis to a teenager, but the others are potentially wonderful YA reads as well. Alison Bechdel's Fun Home should be on next year's list.

As for books written for YA readers, the really good ones that I read when I was young still do offer me as much pleasure as a really good new novel for adults. Paul Zindel's books come to mind.

[Gwenda]

And of course there's Meg Rosoff's remarkable How I Live Now, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread and the Orange Prize and won the Guardian and Branford Boase awards (among many others). I don't think many people who've read it would have a hard time conceding that it has more to say than most literary novels. (I'm not going to directly compare Rosoff to Coetzee -- although having read them both, I'd feel comfortable with that -- because using a Nobel Prize winner as the representative of the potential of adult fiction seems a bit stacked toward the argument of: 'well, sure it's good, but could it win a Nobel Prize?'.)

Quite simply, the reality is that many of the books published as YA could be published as adult fiction just as easily. A good example there would be Marcus Zusak's The Book Thief -- published as YA here and as a novel for adults in Australia, I believe. It's an increasingly fine line. What we're talking about, when we talk about the best of YA, is a marketing decision that has nothing to do with whether it's of high enough "quality" to be published for adults. These books are very much in the same league and able to achieve just as much as books written and published specifically for adults.

[TEV]

A few things as I think more and more about it.

Ghettoization: I'm not that sympathetic to complaints of ghettoization for a couple of reasons, primary of which that said ghettoization is, I think, the result of willing collusion between writers, readers and publishers. The same, for that extent, applies to other genres – science fiction, romance, mystery – where you also see these same kinds of complaints about not being taken seriously enough. (I should extend that to say that I’m equally unsympathetic toward literary fiction writers who complain about lack of commercial rewards.) I continue to think, as I have before, that the genre v. literary debate is a tired and ultimately unedifying one. But I do respectfully point out that these groups of writers and readers tend to travel in their hermetic, self-referential packs, and publishers are savvy enough to find them, group them under a rubric and pick them off. But writers are trying to have it both ways when they cash in on the marketing advantage of being classified as a certain type of author, and then complain about being classified. Frankly, as a writer you pick a horse and you ride it, and whatever area you choose is going to have its drawbacks. In literary fiction, it’s usually money. In genre, it’s sometimes so-called respect. (And even there, I always wonder about the insecurity that fuels the angry responses, as it seems to me an author genuinely sure about the value of what he/she was doing wouldn’t feel the need to complain quite so loudly. There’s a real serenity in believing in what you do.)

Nobels: Although Gwenda stepped back from the Nobel comparison, I don’t think she should because that, to me, is exactly where the question falls. Can a YA novel – or any other genre – reach those kinds of heights? Because that’s what I’m interested in – works of lasting value. I’m not excited about mere escapism, or even a solid tale well told. I want the Big Stuff, the stuff that sustains, the stuff that will cross boundaries and be read generations from now. If those writers aren’t aiming that high, well, I’m not sure they can complain about “not being taken seriously.”

Here’s the rub for me, however irritated it will surely make many of you. (And please do know I respect each of you individually, and my disagreements are not personal at all but philosophical.) I believe that it is the very conventions and requirements of the genres in question that forever prevent them from reaching the very highest levels. I don’t think any art of any kind can reach its full flower with any kinds of restraints – happy endings, clear villains, three acts, whatever – on them. I understand that this comes down to what you read novels for, and not everyone wants what I want. But I seek out the great depth that only novels can offer, the interiority of character, of being able to travel infinitely deep and I think that these types of books – out of honest and fair consideration of their readerships – don’t go there. I’m sure the average mystery reader would pitch a book with Henry James-like character depths over his or her shoulder in well-deserved frustration.

But it’s given me an idea for an experiment. I’m going to seek out four authorities I trust in the fields of YA, science fiction, romance and mystery, and I’m going to ask each to recommend me one title that they feel is truly of deep and lasting value, one that transcends categories, and to explain their reasons. I’ll read each book and then write an essay about all this, including whether my preconceived notions can be shaken in any way.

[Gwenda]

I don't think those of us arguing in favor of YA believe it's a ghetto. Seriously.

Nor do I honestly consider the Nobel the be all/end all -- that's why I stepped back from it.

As for the experiment, it'll be interesting, but I'm not sure it will "prove" anything, other than perhaps better defining your taste (which I think is pretty well defined already). And reading one recommended title from each genre isn't quite a big enough sample to give you definitive grounds on which to decide whether books from "genre" can reach the great heights of LITERATURE (which I can't even believe is a serious question, honestly). Most SFF readers I know would say you have already outted yourself as a big fan of at least one SF novel: The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer. (Which I'm guessing you might disagree is SF.)

[Christopher]

...including whether my preconceived notions can be shaken in any way.

'Cause what would be the point of reading them without preconceived notions?

[Niall Harrison]

I don’t think any art of any kind can reach its full flower with any kinds of restraints – happy endings, clear villains, three acts, whatever – on them.

What restraints do you think YA novels (or for that matter, science fiction novels) are operating under? Because neither group are bound by the three examples you give there.

(Relatedly, are you saying that there can never be, for example, a truly great haiku, because haiku is a rule-bound artform? How about a great sonnet? A great concerto?)

[Benni Maddi]

Hear this: YA is a marketing category. That's it. They're usually about teenagers, but plenty of "grown-up" books are about teenagers, too. How does one decide if a book about a teenager is a A or YA? sometimes the choice to publish as YA is obvious, but in many, many cases, it's a tossup that comes down to marketing.

also i think Gwenda hits the nail on the head in her first post. one reason i was attracted to YA is the fact that it's such a wide-open category, in terms of the risks you can take with both style and content. You don't have to be an old white man writing about Important Things to be taken seriously by your readers. (granted, my own personal books are pretty shitty and inconsequential, but that's not the point.)

And yes, I think a YA book has the potential to be as good as or comparable to Coetzee just as often as an adult book is as good or comparable to a Coetzee book. Which is to say not often.

To answer your second question: no, a YA book is probably not going to win a Nobel prize anytime soon. Why? Because the Nobel committee, like yourself, probably considers itself too klassy for YA.

Glad to see you have an annoying opinion about something you admit to know nothing about, though. Talk about lowering the bar.

[Justine Larbalestier]

Two points:

One, the novel did not always enjoy the exhalted status it has today. The status quo changes.

Two, constaints frequently produce great writing. The constraints of crime fiction has already produced a number of widely admired modern masters such as Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith. Both of whom are finer than several Nobel prize winners I could name.

The constraints of the Hays Code produced some of the finest movies of the 20th century (Preston Sturges, anyone?).

The form of the novel is in itself a constraint. If you're writing you're operating under a whole series of constraints. At least if you want to be intelligible you are.

[TEV]

Niall, you make an outstanding point. Something for me to take back and ponder. Thanks. Similarly, Justine's point is also well taken.

I think one thing that's gotten a bit lost is that all along I am stating that I'm aware I'm talking about a preference - my own, personal preference. When Justine says Chandler and Highsmith are finer than some Nobelists, that's her opinion as well. I'm sure not everyone would agree. I do think, however, that the Hays constraints aren't the type I mean. Writers have always figured out clever ways around censorship (See Bloc, Soviet). I mean self-imposed conventions of the form. And while I think Niall is ultimately right, the forms in question feel (to me) to be ruled by convention and the need to satisfy expectation.

Gwenda, I'm sorry you don't find the question serious but it does seem to me a logical extension of this discussion. If various genre authors believe that their chosen forms hold all the same benefits of other forms (and why shouldn't they think that), then why be reluctant to hold that up to some sort of test? I'm scarcely suggesting that my reading would be in any way a definitive statement - by talking again and again about personal preference here, I think I'm clear that we're talking about one reader's taste. Whatever I might finally decide, it's easily rejected by anyone who disagrees (as it's likely to be). But I think if folks who are exceptionally well read in their fields direct me to the best of the best, well, why would I start anywhere else? And what would be more likely to make me see things differently? (If Matt Cheney can't recommend a sci-fi title, I'd like, then it can't be done - that's how I view it.) And you're right, I don't consider Max Tivoli SF - but neither does Andrew Greer.

And Benni my boy, your defensive snottiness is exactly what I'm talking about in the worst cases, so thanks for proving a point. "Because the Nobel committee, like yourself, probably considers itself too klassy for YA," is an idiotic sentiment, and you do little for your cause. Those are the kind of comments that are the easiest to dismiss out of hand, that make your clique seem like a group of petulant highschoolers. I never admitted to knowing nothing, I'm just not an expert. My bar might be low but yours is invisible.

One and all, please remember - this is an expression of taste and preference, and that's all. I can't be wrong about that, any more than the wayward young lady quoted in the article can really be wrong about her taste. I might have my own troubles with that but they are my troubles.

Anyway, intelligent challenges are always welcome. I'm never shy about stepping up when I decide I've gotten something wrong and clearly, I've been given more to think about but some of the replies here. And the day I find a genre read that satisfies me as deeply as my other favorites, I will shout it from the rooftops right here.

[Christopher]

...I don't consider Max Tivoli SF - but neither does Andrew Greer.

See, Fallacy, Intentional.

Had a few ideas on what genre books you might consider dirtying yourself with. Looking forward to your thoughts on whether they'll stand the test of time, especially since we now seem to be conflating "of lasting value" with "what you like."

Science Fiction: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Mystery: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
Romance: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
YA: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

[TEV]

Again, Chris, I gotta ask - wherefore the hostility? What do you take so personally about all of this?

As for your list, I've read them all and love 'em. I also don't consider Frankenstein sci-fi and think no one outside of the YA world would call Huck Finn YA with a straight face. Love the Doyle but don't think it's necessarily a Great Work.

I have no immediate rebuttal to the Austen. So perhaps you have me, at last ... Presumably, you're happy now?

[Niall Harrison]

If various genre authors believe that their chosen forms hold all the same benefits of other forms (and why shouldn't they think that), then why be reluctant to hold that up to some sort of test?

I wouldn't want to say that there are any things that a given genre *cannot* do, but I tend to think that if there weren't things that a given genre was particularly suited to doing, then there'd be no point in it existing.

(Aside: genre is, of course, a terribly loaded word. You're quite right that The Confessions of Max Tivoli isn't genre sf: it wasn't marketed as sf, and I'm willing to believe that Greer didn't think of it as sf while writing it. But that doesn't change the fact that the book has many of the characteristics of sf as a *mode*; that it uses the sorts of ideas, and in the sorts of ways, that are familiar to sf readers.)

To get back to the point, we immediately return to the issue of personal taste: if you're not interested in the things that science fiction or YA novels are best at doing, then although there are bound to be *some* novels in each group that you will like, even love, there might not be very many, and it might not be worth the investment of time needed to seek them out. Which is fair enough.

But looking at genres in this way does mean I'm wary of saying all writing can be judged by the same test. From my point of view, there are many ways for literature to be wonderful, but the Nobel disproportionately rewards a subset of those ways.

(If Matt Cheney can't recommend a sci-fi title, I'd like, then it can't be done - that's how I view it.)

No pressure, Matt ...

[TEV]

Niall, you are a welcome, welcome contributor here any time. I think you get it all quite right, especially the way you make a much clearer, less muddled statement on where taste leads us than I've managed.

I think there's a great essay somewhere in your notion of modes of SF, how they might cross over and using Max as a specific case. I'd read that in a heartbeat.

By the way, could I twist your arm to put an RSS feed on your excellent site?

[benni maddi]

ha! okay, i can't believe i'm getting into this considering how pointless the great chick lit debate has been, but here's all i'm saying:

i've written two YA books already. they're dumb chick lit mysteries. cute, but definitely not anything that's going to win any award, much less something fancy. but because I've already published two YA books, i pretty much plan on making all my future books "YA," no matter what the content or quality. so if i happen to write an amazing, brilliant book, on par with whoever your personal literary god may be, it will still be YA, because i'm a YA writer and I like it that way. YA doesn't have genre conventions like sci-fi and mystery do-- because YA is not a genre. like I said before, it's a marketing tool, and there's a diff.

as for why i assumed that you know nothing about YA, it's because of this:
"I don’t think any art of any kind can reach its full flower with any kinds of restraints – happy endings, clear villains, three acts, whatever – on them."

besides disagreeing with the opinion in general, none of the examples of "restraints" that you cited have anything to do with YA lit. Do you think that YA books all have to have happy endings, or am I misinterpreting what you wrote? If so, please offer examples of the restraints that are placed on YA and therefore, in your opinion, make it less worthy than A lit. because i honestly can't really think of any hard rules.

this is not even getting into the fact that almost all art operates in the context of some kind of structure or convention.

finally, you go to great lengths to remind us that this is simply your own opinion. fair enough. but to say you don't read YA is one thing-- I know many people who feel that way, and while I don't really get the justification, it doesn't bother me either. What does bother me is when you suggest that because OTHER adults are reading YA it is somehow a sign of the erosion of society. (Or, as you call it, "Grownupland.")

You later clarify this statement by writing:
"My beef here isn't with authors, it's with undiscerning readers - and I'm not saying they are undiscerning because they select YA; they are undiscerning because their criteria of what makes a book worth reading are shallow."

I hope you see the irony here. I agree that it's dumb to only want to read books with a happy ending. However, I'd say that it's at least somewhat better than including constructed and ultimately meaningless bookstore categories in your own criteria of what makes a book worth reading.

Anyway, sorry you think I'm defensive and snotty etc.! These have always brought me luck...

[Niall Harrison]

Mark: that's very kind of you, thanks. Torque Control does have an RSS feed, here; I'll see if I can find some way to make the link a bit more obvious.

I can't take credit for the notion of sf as a mode, though. I picked it up from Farah Mendlesohn's introductory essay to The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, but I'm pretty sure it's been knocking around (in genre circles, natch) for a while.

[TEV]

Added you to my daily reads, Niall. Thanks. And I'll try to track down the Cambridge Companion. Sounds like an interesting read.

[ed]

Replace YA with "chick lit," "science fiction," "mystery," and "graphic novel." This is the problem here.

[Colleen]

Okay, I'm a bit late to this party but as you seem to be looking for a few titles I thought I would suggest some that might change your mind about YA fiction in general. I review 5-6 YA titles a month for Bookslut and I also read them for Eclectica Magazine, so I'm knee deep in YA. What I have found is that there are certainly titles that fit the "happily ever after, obvious villain, etc." criteria. They are enjoyable reads but not going to change the larger world. (Although they might change a teenager's world and that is no insignificant thing.) However, there are also a lot of YA titles that go far deeper than adult readers might suspect and are quite relevant. Remember, as Cecil pointed out To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn were both YA titles - and most of us all read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Treasure Island when we were kids. Now they are classics, period, and have transcended all age group assignments.

Here's some titles that have impressed me recently:

Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen. This novel of WWI is hands down one of the best I've ever read (and I used to teach college level history to soldiers). It follows the life and death of John Kipling and uses him to illustrate why so many young men of his generation initially embraced the opportunity to fight. It also shows the immense transformation John's death had on his father Rudyard. No happy ending here, but some incredibly poetic writing about the folly of war, and the relationship between fathers and sons. This sits on my shelf next to Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier and really, they belong side by side.

Amaryllis by Craig Crist-Evans. Tim O'Brien's Vietnam books are some of the most significant writing I have ever experienced but this novel about two brothers, one of whom goes off to Vietnam, is a small masterpiece. It follows the brother left behind, struggling to keep his small family together in all of the 1960s turbulence, and shows through letters, the eventual breakdown of his older soldier sibling. It captures perfectly the stark before and after that war brings to families and is a wonderful story about brothers, and again, fathers and sons. Also - no happy ending here either.

For more general historical fiction, I thought Pauline Chandler did an excellent job with Warrior Girl, a novel about Joan of Arc. It's highly readable but more importantly the scholarship is impeccable - I have read many nonfiction titles on this subject but this is the first novel which manages to dramatize her life yet stay true to the facts. With Angelmonster Victoria Bennett looks at Mary Shelley's life from the moment she meets Percy and through their subsequent marriage, the births and deaths of so many of their children and his early death. The famous dinner party is included here and the origins of Frankenstein considered at length. In all Bennett manages to make Shelley an amazingly sympathetic character without simplifying her life.

While both of these titles are YA fiction - I suppose because the protagonists are young adults - it really seems odd to me to consider them as such. When these young women lived they would hardly have been considered children and the authors do not, at all, glance over any of the more intense or desperate aspects of their lives. (How Shelley remained sane as one child after another died I will never know.) So why should only teens read these books? I honestly do not know.

Finally, I'm sure you have heard about King Dork which is the sort of book that appeals to teenagers and anyone who has ever been one - just as Catcher in the Rye did. Also, I read James Owen's Here There Be Dragons and while it is certainly fantasy, I am hard pressed to understand why it would appeal more to the Harry Potter crown as opposed to the Lord of Rings loving adults. For that matter, no one has mentioned Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series and that is just flat out masterful writing, from beginning to end.

And Pullman makes sure that the ending is both ambiguous and to some degree quite unhappy. But is it satisfying, deep, thought provoking reading? Hell yes, on every level, hell yes.

I think some of the folks who have responded here have seemed a bit defensive because they hear all the time that writing for young adults is not "real" writing - or that reading these books makes you less of a reader. I am constantly confused how I can gain more respect for reviewing an adult book than a young adult book. I am still the same person, yet my words seem to carry unequal weight depending on the age crowd I'm writing about. It's odd and frustrating, but it's not going away. And while you can dismiss Bennett Madison for being a bit snarky he has a very real point - a YA book will not win the Nobel simply because they would never even consider one. If they did than Pullman would have been on a short list a long long time ago.

It would be lovely if someone wrote an article about adults reading YA that wasn't silly or tied to the journalist's preconceived notions of the literature. Ask any of us why we read it and you will hear the same answer - because it is good writing. I read YA, sci fi, mystery, literature, history, nature, science, biography - on and on and one. (And yes, even the occasional chick lit.) I read these books because they are well written and that is the only reason that matters to me. I probably have some of the most ecelectic reading taste of anyone I know (Jenny D and Gwenda excepting) and I can't imagine excluding YA titles. Why would I do that just because I'm in my thirties? Why would anyone do that?

[Christopher]

Well, I don't know what "outside the YA world" means, though any definition of it that can be stretched to include me starts to look a whole like a definition of "fiction" so I guess I'll speak from within/and without, and here call Huck Finn YA with as straight a face as my cherubic features can manage.

And while we're talking about definitions; what's a useful one--useful in the academy, useful in the marketplace, useful to the artist--of "young adult fiction" that doesn't include Huck Finn?

(There are useful definitions of sf that don't include Frankenstein, I just don't think they're as useful as those that do.)

[Little Willow]

I am a professional bookseller with an expertise in children's literature - classics, kidlit, and contemporary teen fiction. There are many stories in the teen fiction department which need to be shared with a wide audience, stories which need to be told to readers regardless of age.