Jackson Radcliffe's Blog - Posts Tagged "gender-identity"
Is comedy a genre?
When people ask me about my book The Yoga Sutras I tell them it’s a comedy. ‘Yeah, but what’s it about?’ they ask. I tell them it’s about yoga, but they’re still not satisfied.
‘It’s about belief systems, gender identity and the fundamental philosophical questions of existence,’ I say. Then their eyes start to glaze over, so I hurriedly add, ‘But it’s very funny. And it has some strange sex scenes.’
‘Kinky sex?’ they ask hopefully, but I have to tell them, ‘No. Not kinky. Just strange.’
At this point they either agree to read the book or they leave the room.
The problem, I think, is genre. Is comedy a genre? I think it’s more of an attitude, a way of seeing the world.
I don’t really read genre books. I prefer books that don’t fit into any identifiable genre; books that surf the boundaries of classification and laugh in the face of taxonomy. I don’t often read humour as a genre. Romance … mmm. Thrillers … maybe. Paranormal … perhaps. But a vampire lesbian mystery romance with a post-apocalyptic urban setting, based on elements of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and with plenty of dark humour – yeah, I’ll read that, that’s my genre.
‘It’s about belief systems, gender identity and the fundamental philosophical questions of existence,’ I say. Then their eyes start to glaze over, so I hurriedly add, ‘But it’s very funny. And it has some strange sex scenes.’
‘Kinky sex?’ they ask hopefully, but I have to tell them, ‘No. Not kinky. Just strange.’
At this point they either agree to read the book or they leave the room.
The problem, I think, is genre. Is comedy a genre? I think it’s more of an attitude, a way of seeing the world.
I don’t really read genre books. I prefer books that don’t fit into any identifiable genre; books that surf the boundaries of classification and laugh in the face of taxonomy. I don’t often read humour as a genre. Romance … mmm. Thrillers … maybe. Paranormal … perhaps. But a vampire lesbian mystery romance with a post-apocalyptic urban setting, based on elements of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and with plenty of dark humour – yeah, I’ll read that, that’s my genre.
