Conformity, Genre and Dudge-Whammets…

‘Describe your books in Ten seconds…’

‘It’s sort of a bit like Lord of the Rings, only with more laughs.  And with animals.’

‘Get out’.

Last night, at the end of a weekend which left many wondering just how it was that a nation could be left so confused, disassembled and polemically divided – Jacqui and I found ourselves looking through publishing’s own ‘divisions’ as we considered just what genre our Matlock trilogy of books would be seen to fit in by ‘conventional’ publishers. The list, of course, is all too depressingly familiar; fiction, non-fiction, romance, sci-fi, crime, chic-lit, rom-com, true-life crime, humour, satire, horror, YA (Young Adult), fantasy etc… We settled somewhere on fantasy – further Googling revealing : YA fantasy, high fantasy, comic fantasy, satirical fantasy, horror-fantasy, steampunk-fantasy etc…

We took a moment, realising that the more we tried to mine down into the infinite number of sub-categories, sub-sub-categories and sub-sub-sub categories, the further away we were ‘pid-padding’ from our books themselves.

Some publishers, apparently are looking for ‘cross-over fiction’ a loose term that as far as we could tell involved blended ‘mash-ups’ of conventional genres as long as they included the undead (Pride and Prejudice with Zombies, Westerns with Zombies, Chic-lit with zombies – basically anything with zombies).  We began to wonder if we’d missed a trick and should have included Matlock encountering a shuffling zombie-horde – but of course, as readers of part one of the trilogy – The Riddle of Trefflepugga Path – will know, he does exactly that as he encounters the silent, black-eyed army of the Dreggs.  So, zombie box ticked, we ploughed on through the ever narrowing commercial genre confines to find the exact predetermined reader-fit for our books…

Predictably, after an hour, we hadn’t found one, leading to the conclusion that either there was no place for Matlock to exist in – or simply that really, he didn’t need one.  He already has one, Winchett Dale, the residents of which haven’t ever lived a single ‘sun’turn’ of their lives by actively embracing a conformity of expected behaviours or commercial categorisation whatsoever (further evidence of this can be found by visiting their annual ‘Pie Throwing’ contest in the village-square).

‘Aha,’ the publishers that ‘know about such things’ would say, ‘so I presume you’re selling me a ‘genre-buster’?  Great – pitch me those books in ten-seconds.’ Whereupon, we’d struggle. Yes, they’re ‘high-fantasy’ as they include a complete, fully realised, fantasy world.  Yes, they’re hopefully humorous, satirical, mildly political in places. Yes, they borrow from mythology, religions, folklore and philosophy.  Part Socrates, part Orwell, part Douglas Adams, part Tolkien, part….basically, it just is Matlock the Hare!

‘The Riddle of Trefflepugga Path’ and ‘The Puzzle of the Tillian Wand’ – books 1 & 2 in the ‘un-classifiable’ Matlock the Hare trilogy…

They are what they are…

Someone once asked us if the books were like ‘Harry Potter for grown-ups?’ – based presumably in the logic that both have a wand-wielding protagonist at their heart. I replied that I wasn’t aware that Harry’s adventures were simply for children. Surely one or two adults had read them too – and heavens forbid, maybe even enjoyed them?

Yet such thinking pervades our lives everywhere as we unknowingly re-enforce ‘genre-thinking’ at almost every turn in our lives as casual shorthand to our personalities, as if by saying we’re ‘mainly into gothic sci-fi/horror’ it tells others what we want them to think of us based on our own expectations.  Job done in just a few generalities, without ever having to discuss the merits or otherwise of ‘The Castle of Otranto’ and how Horace Walpole wrote seminal gothic horror that at the time was a true ‘genre-buster’.

The same with music, film, games, clothes, possessions – our online personas frequently boasting of our genre’d likes (Chic-lit,rom-coms, dub-step etc) as we seek to quickly associate and ally ourselves with commercial generalities without ever needing to be too explicit about our precise likes and dislikes.

And, of course, here is where brands and genres make such lucrative capital.  What we buy, what we read, consume, wear, drive in and live amongst says something about ourselves.  When publishers look at Matlock the Hare, the uppermost thought in their minds is, ‘How would readers feel about others knowing they were reading it – an unclassifiable series of books about a majickal-hare aimed primarily at adult readers, yet filled with over a hundred full-page illustrations and set within a fantasy world, complete with it’s own language?’ Then, of course, you have to add in the fact that it’s also full of animals and creatures… Which is more or less about the time they realise that Matlock can’t be conveniently pigeon-holed, and we are politely shown the door…

We’ve even had publishers tell us that they ‘absolutely adored’ the books personally, but really don’t feel the buying public would. Swift, presumably had the same trouble with ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, considered by many to be un-classifiable by genre – and subsequently earning its own genre by confused publishers as a result – Swiftian Satire – something I’m assuming the humorist himself would be quietly amused to have forced upon them. (Incidentally, and this is no accident,the small amusement park set creakingly high into the limestone cliffs above  Matlock Bath is called ‘Gulliver’s Kingdom’ – further inspiration for us as we took our hare-hero on his own Swiftian journey…)

Gulliver’s Kingdom – set high above Matlock Bath – more inspiration for our hare-hero’s very own ‘clottabussed and saztaculous’ travels…

So what are we left with at the end of all this genre-waffle?  Where does Matlock fit into an increasingly divided and sub-divided world, where easy sound-bites demonstrate a lazy contemporary allegiance to the current ‘zeitgeist?’  The answer – thankfully – is nowhere, which is precisely where’d he’d like to be.  They’re long novels full of saztaculous adventures set in majickal lands, high above the Derbyshire Peaks.  Like the Peaks themselves, we hope they offer a prolonged, fun-filled escape for those that want to ‘go’ somewhere different, or return to long-lost thrills of reading the fantasy sagas of their youth.  Oh, and of course, with loads of laughs and a chance to ‘dudge your whammets’ along the way…

Perhaps it’s no surprise that on the same weekend as the nation faced what might be viewed to be an unnecessary binary split, others were celebrating diversity and ‘unclassification’ on a farm in Somerset.  Glastonbury offers itself as a similar place of retreat, a festival of populist, esoteric, sometimes downright strange events and activities.  There’s something for everyone, variety for all tastes and ages.  And yet how would you ‘genre’ this most successful of gatherings?  It’s nothing Glastonbury ever seems bothered about.  It is, because it is. It happens because people want it to. Its overriding premise is for  a coming-together, regardless of our own individual, differing ‘genres’.

I simply wonder if Matlock will be pid-padding there next year…