| Popular genre fiction (e.g., mystery, romance, speculative fiction) has been accused by academics and non-academics alike of being inferior in quality to literature, with predictable plots, cardboard characters, and themes that either indulge in escapism or uncritically reinforce the status quo. Even worse, reading such fiction is assumed to have harmful side effects ranging from addiction to a dulled intellect. Interestingly, women's novels are often considered to be among the most harmful. Studies demonstrate, however, that reading is a habit bimodally distributed among the population; either one is a reader, and reads anything from cereal boxes to novels, or one is not, seldom reading anything beyond the television listings. Furthermore, distinctions which critics use to separate literature from trash ultimately collapse.;Instead of reflecting neutral judgments of quality, therefore, bias against popular fiction stems from the sacralization of literature during the late nineteenth century. This process has privileged "vertical" reading, which focuses attention deeply into a single book, over "horizontal" reading, which focuses attention broadly over a class of books. To be fully appreciated, formula texts must be read horizontally; individual books reflect the genre's complexities. In this way, genres fulfill Helene Cixous's call for women "to write through their bodies," and genre texts can be a source of subversive power.;Horizontal reading is similar to the reading of hypertext, in that neither genre nor hypertext has fixed boundaries, fixed beginnings or endings, or fixed viewpoints. These texts change as readers use them according to their own purposes. Hypertexts, like genres, are infinitely decenterable and recenterable by the reader. Horizontal reading is also similar to the act of rereading. Distinctions between printed text and hypertext, and between reading and rereading, are reflected in the distinction between vertical and horizontal reading, and in the split between canonical and popular literature.;Ultimately, any evaluation of popular novels must consider their generic contexts, and their functions for specific readers; otherwise, genre fiction will remain outside the canon, and our understanding of literature will remain impoverished. |
