Girl in Landscape = Literary?

I think it’s just because Jonathan Letham may write a “coming of Age” book well may not make it a good book.  See I was so indifferent to this book that I actually went ahead and experimented with ordering the Audio Book format just to keep getting through this book.   Is it a Genre Novel?  Well before this book was in my sights I would have said in this day and age there really isn’t a great deal of book that are genre book.  Wow…  Would I have been wrong. 

The book did a lot of he said she said to illustrate the characters depth…  Or in some the lack thereof.  This story deals with the downside of earth in decay and dreams of a better future elsewhere.  Then in the ultimate ending it shows us that life is what you make of it where you stand right now. 

Now is it literature… Nah.  I’d say it’s definitely genre.  SyFi with a bit of spaghetti western, coming of age-puberty, strife, racism projected via human vs. alien, voyeurism, sexual identity and power struggles.  All of these are just a work that when he wrote the story in 1998 were directed to an audience in not much more than pandering to a base that he knew would purchase his book.   Is this literature for the fact of trying to write a great story that someone will someday say “Now that Novel is a great literary work”….  Heck No, he was just trying to sale a book…  Nothing wrong with that either, everyone needs to put food on the table.

Anyway the adapt, hit the road again for greener pastures or just plain die existence of the character situations works well for the semi-trapped teens in the story.  I was kind of surprised (I think it’s funny in a cheezey way) to see that by the end of the novel how Pella who was written as a really rebelliously independent character ends up fawning for the “Bad Boy” to return.

Hell I guess it grew on me and I’ll have to listen to it again the next time I’m up for a long drive.  But is it a Literary work of art I doubt it but hey if had that crystal ball I’d be down at the dog tracks instead of here trying to learn something.