With the start of a Literary Fiction monthly book club, discussions on the Harvard Classics, and personal challenges to read on "classic" book each month, I found this article (http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/06/the-emptiness-of-literary-fiction-and-the-stereotyping-of-genre-literature/) over on SF Signal to be timely and thought provoking.

His concluding paragraph:
My contention is that "literary fiction" is not problematic because people do not understand it, but that we cannot understand it. It is an idea that is not designed to be understood. It is a term that tells us very little, and can be used to hide a lot. It is absurdly insistent on some idea of purity, of gravitas and transcendent refinement, to the exclusion of many other works that have as much, if not more value, to their readers. Its invocation removes the works it labels into a self-contained realm of appreciation where all other works fail to achieve what the authenticated "literary works" do simply because they are assumed to not be in the same category. It is hard to feel energized when we wrap so many conversations around such an idea.

I'm curious about other's thoughts on this subject.

I tend to view books classified as "literary fiction" as things that are probably good for me, that might better illuminate some aspect of life or increase my understanding of human nature, but not necessarily as something that I might pick up on a whim and enjoy. My mental equation now is: reading literary fiction = unwelcome chore. For example, I've wanted to read Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" for years, but I never took out a copy from the library or bought a paper copy. Now that I have the ebook version, I read a few pages, was interested in the story, but still the ebook is languishing unread on my reader.

I think that learned response developed in college from way too many English Lit classes, because I know before that, when I was in high school and earlier, I read authors who fell in to the literary fiction category on my own - and enjoyed the books. I can't read those books now without mentally preparing a term paper in my mind.

I think of "literary fiction" as mostly being a description of what a novel is not: not romance, not crime, not science fiction, not fantasy, not zombie-mermaid. "General fiction" might be a better term.

That said, sometimes those "literary" classics can knock you out. I recently read Hadji Murat, the old Tolstoy novel about Russians fighting Muslims. Ripped out of today's headlines, you might say, except it's about 110 years old. And narratively speaking, it gallops along.

I hear "literary fiction," and I want to immediately run in the opposite direction.

To me, too often it means fiction that doesn't bother with a silly little thing like plot, and I think plot is of paramount importance. I want a story, not fancy language or "meaning."

Obviously I am overgeneralizing, but that's the prejudice I start with.

I try not to get hung up on labels. I just read.

i'm with Diap. but still, we can't prevent others from judging us on what we read. it's why i got an ereader :| i'm getting tired of the notion that unless you're reading "real" fiction/lit (whatever that means), you're not a "real" reader o_O. aren't books supposed to provide enjoyment? :| different people like different things.

relax, some 100 years from now most junk produced will be forgotten and what is left will be considered "literary classics".

I read stuff that sounds interesting to me, some of it "literary" like Margaret Atwood and A.S. Byatt, most of it genre.

I think of "literary fiction" as mostly being a description of what a novel is not: not romance, not crime, not science fiction, not fantasy, not zombie-mermaid. "General fiction" might be a better term.

I highly disagree. Any type of book can be literary fiction. In fact, I've read more books that you'd not lass as LF that are so much more enjoyable then LF. The problem is that LF is usually saved for boring tedious old stuff books that are not really enjoyable. War of the Worlds is science fiction. It's a classic. It's literary fiction.

That said, sometimes those "literary" classics can knock you out. I recently read Hadji Murat, the old Tolstoy novel about Russians fighting Muslims. Ripped out of today's headlines, you might say, except it's about 110 years old. And narratively speaking, it gallops along.

Not all books classed as classic are unenjoyable. Some are quite good. But some are total rubbish. In fact, a lot are rubbish disguised in fancy prose.

The idea of "classic" or "literary fiction" just makes little to no sense. A classic does not have to be from dead authors only. A book can be a classic that is not that old. I would class Harry Potter as a classic. Given a lot of definitions of classic, it fits. The only things it doesn't fit is old or dead author.

This is why for book clubs, having books in a classic or literary fiction categories is a bad idea. Because what is a classic to some is trash to others. Take Anna K. for example. I think it was OK for it's time, but for today it's just had it.

I hear "literary fiction," and I want to immediately run in the opposite direction.

To me, too often it means fiction that doesn't bother with a silly little thing like plot, and I think plot is of paramount importance. I want a story, not fancy language or "meaning."

Obviously I am overgeneralizing, but that's the prejudice I start with.

I don't like labels such as literary fiction or classic. The problem with such labels is that they are meaningless.

I don't like labels such as literary fiction or classic. The problem with such labels is that they are meaningless.

Classic to me means a book that has stood the test of time, that is not a passing fad. The book has to have been around for, oh, 20+ years or so and still in print and being read for me to consider it a classic.

@Catlady, is a classic still a classic if it's available in the internet, ready to be downloaded? Or it's gotta be in print exclusively?

@Catlady, is a classic still a classic if it's available in the internet, ready to be downloaded? Or it's gotta be in print exclusively?

Obviously the meaning of "in print" is now changing.

Literary fiction is whatever the literati claims literary fiction to be, nothing more, nothing less.

Literary fiction is whatever the literati claims literary fiction to be, nothing more, nothing less.
No one is more surprised than me about this, but... I agree completely. :eek:

A strict definition would be pretty hard. Personally, I consider literary fiction to be fiction written by people who give the craft of writing their top priority. Genre writers (SF, romance, thriller, mystery, etc.) can get away with simply telling a story, or creating compelling characters and putting them through their paces (so-called "franchise novels"). Some genre writers are really good writers, some...not so much. Expectations for the writing itself seem to be lower in genre work; if you stick with the conventions of your genre and your prose is serviceable, you can have some success.

But literary fiction is not just old, boring stuff that's "good for you." There are plenty of great writers working in the genre now. If you want purity and gravitas, it's out there (yeah, Jonathan Franzen, I'm talking to YOU), but there are also plenty who can write their asses off and tell an engaging story at the same time. I'm partial to (off the top of my head) Michael Chabon, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kazuo Ishiguro, Michael Ondaatje, and Richard Russo, but what each of us like is a matter of taste. The problem here (and in most other realms of life) is when we start confusing our personal tastes with objective fact.

I disagree completely with the article cited by the OP. I thought that concluding paragraph was complete and utter BS, like the author had been forced to read some Thomas Pynchon, was really, really angry about it, and decided to make some idiotic generalizations about a genre of which he knows (to be generous) next to nothing.

I know nothing about SF, romance and westerns, however I think most SF, romance and westerns are poorly written trash. However, I know my opinion is a result of prejudice and laziness on my part, and thus tend to keep it to myself, and certainly don't go starting threads to make the point that such fiction is a waste of time.

I know nothing about SF, romance and westerns, however I think most SF, romance and westerns are poorly written trash. However, I know my opinion is a result of prejudice and laziness on my part, and thus tend to keep it to myself, and certainly don't go starting threads to make the point that such fiction is a waste of time.

Exactly. The original article (and this thread) is like going out of your way to tell someone that their kid is ugly. It never ends well.

Exactly. The original article (and this thread) is like going out of your way to tell someone that their kid is ugly. It never ends well.

I didn't start this thread to bash 'Literary Fiction'. I'm not sure *anyone* actually read the article.

Part of the first paragraph:

I'm really tired of literary fiction. No, not some of the works themselves, those great books given a lame label to somehow appropriate vestiges of their qualities and impart them onto a range of other works. There are plenty of books burdened with that designation that I love, and it is not the fault of the texts that they have been so unfairly labeled. I'm really tired of the idea of literary fiction, of the pretentious and patronizing aspects of it.

The author (and I agree) believes that the label Literary Fiction is being used to separate the Good Stuff™ from the great unwashed.

Just because it's labeled Literary Fiction doesn't make it good. Just because it's labeled as Genre Fiction doesn't necessarily make it bad.

See: Sturgeon's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_Law)

See: Sturgeon's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_Law)

Yes, and everyone has a different opinion on what makes up the 90%. :)

My original response was reacting more to the responses than the original article, so: my apologies for perpetuating the off-course drift in your thread.

That being said, I'd have to add that I didn't care for the original article, either, simply because arguing over how imprecise genre labels are used, and what "good" and "bad" mean in the context of writing (as if there were a single objective definition) leaves me cold.

The author (and I agree) believes that the label Literary Fiction is being used to separate the Good Stuff™ from the great unwashed.

Just because it's labeled Literary Fiction doesn't make it good. Just because it's labeled as Genre Fiction doesn't necessarily make it bad.



Isn't the term being used to distinguish the "literary" from the "non-literary", (albeit sometimes mistakenly) - before one can say whether that equates to the good stuff and the not so good doesn't one have to answer the question, good for what? It is not a sign of anything to suggest that a painting by Mark Rothko has more artistic merit than a painting by Thomas Kinkade - neither is it a sign of anything to suggest that a novel by Iris Murdoch has more literary merit that a novel by Maeve Binchy. The literary philistines cannot have it both ways - to claim that literary fiction is rubbish and boring, whilst complaining that the term is used to separate the good stuff from the rubbish.

The literary philistines cannot have it both ways - to claim that literary fiction is rubbish and boring, whilst complaining that the term is used to separate the good stuff from the rubbish.

Ok... This is my last post on this thread. You seem to not be wiling to actually *read* what is posted.

No where have *I* or the author of the originally linked article claimed that literary fiction as a whole is rubbish or boring. I've just finished "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov and found it to be an amazing book. The author has many Literary Fiction books he loves. Is some Literary Fiction boring and rubbish? Yes, by *my* definition, some is. I read for pleasure. My pleasure. If the book is boring, genre or literary, it's still boring.

Having a label doesn't make a great book. Get over it. Done.

Having a label doesn't make a great book. Get over it. Done.

Completely agree. I'm primarily a science fiction and fantasy genre reader, but I've enjoyed Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I love experimental narratives, but I've immensely disliked anything I've read by Michael Ondatjee. I do read outside of genre fiction sometimes, but I can't help but look at the label "literary fiction" as suspect. It's just not a useful definition for me, especially when a book is *new* and the publisher is selling it as literary fiction. I rather think about books as "classics" and have their worth be vetted by readers over time. I know "literary" fiction is supposed to be a sort of "artier" high-brow kind of book, but that's so subjective that I can't deal with it as a label that's informative or one I could take seriously.

Ok... This is my last post on this thread. You seem to not be wiling to actually *read* what is posted.

No where have *I* or the author of the originally linked article claimed that literary fiction as a whole is rubbish or boring. I've just finished "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov and found it to be an amazing book. The author has many Literary Fiction books he loves. Is some Literary Fiction boring and rubbish? Yes, by *my* definition, some is. I read for pleasure. My pleasure. If the book is boring, genre or literary, it's still boring.

Having a label doesn't make a great book. Get over it. Done.

It is the case that the article cited in your OP seems to be exercised by the use of the term "literary fiction", and makes the rather obvious point that simply calling something literary fiction does not thereby make it any good. However, most of the subsequent contributions to the thread are quite clearly of the the "literary fiction is by definition boring" variety.

let's all be friends and just read stuff that we enjoy? xP

personally, sometimes i feel guilty for reading and liking stuff that many people might consider "trash", but then it's my free time and i don't want to spend it trudging through something that may have "merit", but feels like work.

A strict definition would be pretty hard. Personally, I consider literary fiction to be fiction written by people who give the craft of writing their top priority. Genre writers (SF, romance, thriller, mystery, etc.) can get away with simply telling a story, or creating compelling characters and putting them through their paces (so-called "franchise novels"). Some genre writers are really good writers, some...not so much. Expectations for the writing itself seem to be lower in genre work; if you stick with the conventions of your genre and your prose is serviceable, you can have some success.


I agree with this. Too often, I found that literary fiction is too hung up on fancy writing styles, allegory, and other fancy stylistic choices. I'm with JRR Tolkien on allegory: "I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence."

I read a lot of literary fiction in HS and college and I'm not generally a huge fan. I think it's a mistake to make high school students read the stuff they do, but that's another discussion.

Once in a while there's an exception, a literary classic I actually like (like Alas, Babylon....)then again that's really sci-fi of a sort and a genre I'm comfortable in.

Literary Fiction = Books written with a thesaurus constantly open.

Literary Fiction = Books written with a thesaurus constantly open.

Literary Fiction = Tomes steadfastly scribed with unencumbered entrée to a thesaurus's bounteous wordsmithery efficaciousness.

Or that! :)

The idea of "classic" or "literary fiction" just makes little to no sense. A classic does not have to be from dead authors only. A book can be a classic that is not that old. I would class Harry Potter as a classic. Given a lot of definitions of classic, it fits. The only things it doesn't fit is old or dead author.


I'll repeat myself from an earlier thread:

"Great Literature" and literary fiction are not necessarily the same thing. Shakespeare's work, while certainly great literature, was genre material produced for general consumption. Both general and literary fiction can find its way into canon; what distinguishes literary fiction is not so much quality or endurance, but idiosyncrasy.

General fiction relies on convention: structured plot, near-journalistic (or alternately, florid) prose, easily recognized character relationships, and typically a third-person omniscient or roving third-person limited perspective. Literary fiction may discard an advancing plot (The Sound and the Fury), specific characters (If on a Winter's Night a Traveler) or even spelling and syntax (Finnegan's Wake), operating by its own rules. It requires more effort of interpretation from the reader, but it can convey thought-structures beyond the means of conventional storytelling.

I did read the article, and it says very little. The whinging about the emptiness of categories could be applied quite generally, and has little to say about the specific category of literary fiction. All the author expresses is his own insecurity as a reader (and producer?) of genre works:

What makes this idea <of literary fiction> so enervating is that it is a term in the discourse on literature that purports to describe the best, most resonant type of fiction, but that generally ends up being used to denigrate "genre fiction" and any work that the user does not like.

Really? That's how it generally ends up being used? I'm reminded of my vegan days when the least mention of my dietary choices would throw certain non-vegans into a combative defense of their own, when I hadn't said more than, "No, I won't be having the bacon burger." No matter how much you nod and smile politely at such people, they still walk away with their narrative about how those "arrogant, judgmental" vegans (or literary fiction readers) look down their noses at everyone else quite intact.

Literary fiction may discard an advancing plot (The Sound and the Fury), specific characters (If on a Winter's Night a Traveler) or even spelling and syntax (Finnegan's Wake), operating by its own rules. It requires more effort of interpretation from the reader, but it can convey thought-structures beyond the means of conventional storytelling.

The trouble here is that your definition of LF is simply not that of most other people.

The trouble here is that your definition of LF is simply not that of most other people.

"Most other people" don't have a definition of literary fiction, but just a vague sense like JSWolf's that it's something like a classic, or yours that it uses lots of big words, or some others' that it's anything that doesn't fit another category. Do you object to either my description of the qualities of general fiction, my description of the qualities of literary fiction, or the distinctions I've drawn between the two? If so, on what grounds?

I've read a considerable amount of literary fiction, classics, general fiction, and genre fiction, as well as having been exposed to a great deal of fiction aspiring to be literary and received instruction on the qualities of literary fiction, in the course of pursuing a Bachelor's Degree of Fine Arts in the English Language. My opinion is certainly not authoritative, but being conversant in all the sorts of literature under discussion and having intimate knowledge of literary fiction, those who read it, and those who produce it, I'm confident those last two groups of people, at least, would assent to most or all of my description.

Literary fiction may discard an advancing plot..., specific characters

So may genre fiction. A great example would be any of the myriad stories that take place within dreams, and more specifically, stories that leave you wondering if what you just read was a psychological event; a spiritual event; or a material world event based on the science of many worlds, parallel universes, and hidden dimensions. You'll find most of these in the fantasy and science fiction categories.

or even spelling and syntax... operating by its own rules.

Many genre specific stories do the same, or would really not consider Lord of the Rings to be fantasy? And Tolkien was not alone when it came to making-up his own language.

It requires more effort of interpretation from the reader

This is generally only true because these authors do their very best to use the most obscure words (not "big" words as you misinterpret me) they can find. They dig up old lost and forgotten words that nobody uses today, and do so needlessly more often than not. Why would I use a word like "threadbare" today when almost no one under thirty would know what it meant? when I can be more effective by speaking in modern language and say "wearing thin" or "getting old" etc. Most authors that get pegged with the LF tag are simply poor communicators who come off sounding like a 12-year old trying to impress their English teacher and failing miserably at it. The one and only reason to use an old word is if it is the only one available to convey the meaning you need. As far as obscure words go that aren't old—ditto. I fully expect to come upon obscure words when reading something like Chris Langan's Cognitive Theoretical Model of the Universe where he had to actually invent terms where none existed to convey his thoughts. The same would have been true during the fifties when David Bohm was inventing new concepts like nonlocality and quantum potential. I also expect to see both new and obscure words and terms when reading good sci-fi. (I don't think I ever read an Author C. Clarke novel without learning some new ones.) This simply isn't the case with hardly any literary fiction I know of. Their obscurity is generally just bad writing.

but it can convey thought-structures beyond the means of conventional storytelling.

Name one that I can't find the equivalent of in a genre category.

"Most other people" don't have a definition of literary fiction, but just a vague sense

That's because it doesn't have one except that of being very focussed on words even at the expense of the story. LF is by its very nature incredibly subjective, and most people realize that.

Where most LF authors miss the boat is that they tend to concern themselves more with old and obscure words as a way of making themselves try to appear smarter than they really are when they should be concerned with learning to turn a phrase. The latter, along with having good stories, is exactly what makes a great author a great author. Few were better at it than Mark Twain and GK Chesterton. Consider Twain's describing a child's birthday party as a "pleasant turmoil." No old or obscure words there. Good authors don't need them. Take any number of quotes from Chesterton:

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."

"...feminism is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands."

"It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything."

"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference which is an elegant name for ignorance."

Or how about Ray Chandler:

"To say goodbye is to die a little."

Old and obscure words are almost always an excuse for a lack of talent, and this is exactly why LF doesn't sell. Not because people don't understand it, but because they do.

I've read a considerable amount of literary fiction, classics, general fiction, and genre fiction, as well as having been exposed to a great deal of fiction aspiring to be literary and received instruction on the qualities of literary fiction, in the course of pursuing a Bachelor's Degree of Fine Arts in the English Language.

Hmm—well, like Chris Langan, I ain't had me much educatin. Hadda settle for being what they calls an autodidact. I tries to makes up fir it by being extra special good looking.

"Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously." ~ Chesterton

That's all I've got to say on the subject.

but it can convey thought-structures beyond the means of conventional storytelling.

Name one that I can't find the equivalent of in a genre category.
:rofl:
Can you not see how ridiculous that demand is? Do you think "thought structures beyond the means of conventional storytelling" are within the means of pithy forum posting?

You don't know what you don't know about literature. Reading fiction is like any other skill or discipline: by practicing, challenging oneself, and being a "student of the game," one gains deeper insight, what was once difficult becomes reflex, and one can attempt greater challenges that one may not even have been capable of recognizing to exist at the outset.

It's like meditation, higher mathematics, or even football: if one has not pursued knowledge of the subject habitually over a significant period of time, one cannot even talk sensibly about it. For that matter, if you have no intent of becoming genuinely familiar with the subject, why do you want to talk about it?

This is generally only true because these authors do their very best to use the most obscure words (not "big" words as you misinterpret me) they can find.

I took your first post to this effect as a joke and responded jokingly, but it appears you actually consider this position supportable and descriptive of reality. Listen, I'm not making the case that all literary fiction is superior to all general or genre fiction. Plenty of terrible literary fiction gets published and even more written. Not all of the terrible literary fiction conforms to your absurd stereotype--there are whole minimalist movements that strive toward the exact opposite, and get badly imitated just as often as the florid New Yorker stuff--but some does, sort of. Honestly, I doubt a single author's process looks much like what you describe, except perhaps a satirist (A Confederacy of Dunces comes to mind).

You're welcome to live and die without knowledge of the more esoteric depths of literature, but you don't have to tell yourself these just-so stories about thesauruses in order to do so.

Just be honest with yourself. You don't know anything about literary fiction and don't care to:

THE END

You go, taosaur. I'd give you still more karma if the system would let me. :)

There's books I like and books I don't. Them's the only categories I bother noting.

"I don't know what you don't know and I can't take the time to explain it" sounds strangely like a cop out. Why don't you at least try? You can think of it as practice... since we obviously won't be the only idiots you encounter in life.

Well regarding an attempt to define “Literary Fiction” the best I can offer is to quote U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: “I know it when I see it.” Of course Justice Stewart was speaking of any attempt to define pornography, but the same limitation can, in my opinion, apply to trying to find a definition of “Literary Fiction.” To me it is some combination of quality of writing, development of a plot and narrative beyond the typical boilerplate (whatever the genre), and saying something new and important. I know it when I read it, but my literary fiction may leave others unimpressed.

Now “Classics” I believe can be defined as a book that holds up over a significant length of time, I would say at least a generation or two, while retaining broad interest and readership. So, despite what some here claim, to earn the title “Classic” does require the passage of some time to turn the book from one that is currently popular and highly regarded into a “Classic.” To tell if it is a classic simply requires that time. Well the Harry Potter books become classics? Probably, at least for children's literature. How about the Twilight series? I suspect these will not outlive the current 'young vampires in love' craze, but I could be wrong. Only time will tell.

A big reason I like this being one part of the definition of “Classic” and having classics as a category for book of the month selections is that it forces selection from a book at least a few decades for such months.

Just tossing this into this post, the Philadelphia Public Library has just added a large number of classic books (in epub) to its selection. Including The Tale of Genji (in English translation).

"I don't know what you don't know and I can't take the time to explain it" sounds strangely like a cop out. Why don't you at least try? You can think of it as practice... since we obviously won't be the only idiots you encounter in life.

If that was aimed at me, I'm not calling anyone an idiot, certainly not on the basis of being unfamiliar with literary fiction. I didn't say I don't know what Ransom doesn't know, I said s/he doesn't know what s/he doesn't know. With regard to literary fiction, Ransom has proven to be an unconscious incompetent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence):
http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm307/Vudusu/unconsciousincompetent.png

The only way I can "explain it" is to say go to your nearest community college and take a course or two in modern or contemporary literature, or at least grab the syllabus from such a course and do the reading and write up some critical responses.

At the very least, start with a book of short stories. This one is great, and definitely skews toward minimalism: http://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Contemporary-American-Short-Stories/dp/0679745130

The first literary novel that caught my attention in my teens was Charles Baxter's Shadow Play, though I'd recommend his more recent The Feast of Love more highly. Hemingway or Chekhov's short stories are amazing. Almost everyone's read some Vonnegut, though I'd recommend Cat's Cradle or Deadeye Dick over Slaughterhouse Five.

All of the above are quite approachable. A couple of my favorite books, Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller... and Jeannette Winterson's Gut Symmetries, probably require a primer in the author's way of looking at things: Invisible Cities or The Baron in the Trees for Calvino, and Sexing the Cherry or The Passion for Winterson.

Again, if you have no interest, don't do any of that. Just don't go off half-cocked with stereotypes because you:


Don't know how to find the literary stuff you'd like
Don't know how to read the literary stuff you find

The only way I can "explain it" is to say go to your nearest community college and take a course or two in modern or contemporary literature, or at least grab the syllabus from such a course and do the reading and write up some critical responses.
What if I've already done that (but not a community college) over 25 years ago and I while I enjoyed the courses immensely, they didn't get me any closer to being able to differentiate between good writing and good literature? Am I unteachable?

The first literary novel that caught my attention in my teens was Charles Baxter's Shadow Play, though I'd recommend his more recent The Feast of Love more highly. Hemingway or Chekhov's short stories are amazing. Almost everyone's read some Vonnegut, though I'd recommend Cat's Cradle or Deadeye Dick over Slaughterhouse Five.

All of the above are quite approachable. A couple of my favorite books, Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller... and Jeannette Winterson's Gut Symmetries, probably require a primer in the author's way of looking at things: Invisible Cities or The Baron in the Trees for Calvino, and Sexing the Cherry or The Passion for Winterson.

Again, if you have no interest, don't do any of that. Just don't go off half-cocked with stereotypes because you:
1. Don't know how to find the literary stuff you'd like
2. Don't know how to read the literary stuff you find

Yeah. Because you have me pegged, and I fit in the stereotype you just plopped down, right? :rolleyes:

I've actually read quite a few of the works you mention. And even enjoyed several (although when it comes to Vonnegut, I consider his musings, essays, and speeches to be vastly superior to his fiction—which I would consider fun, but not even remotely "literary." Oops! Did I say that out loud?). Hemmingway wasn't trying to be "literary" when he wrote, so why should I approach reading his work any differently? And Chekov is just boring. Sorry (I say that at the risk of you simply pointing to your second bulleted item and exclaiming; "aha!").

Look, I read everything I can. I try not to limit myself in any way—and I'll admit that part of my response has been to jerk your (and other's) chain a bit. Sue me. There's a whole big bunch of fiction that certain eggheads would probably consider "literary" that I like. That I like a lot. The problem is that in "literary" circles, people want to focus on why good writing should be raised up on a pedestal and revered above all other writing, while everybody else just wants to know if there's more like it somewhere. And if so, then bring it on.

So until you can come up with something a little better than; "my BA tells me what's 'literary'," I'm going to continue to assume that it's an imaginary term used to justify tuitions. And start arguments.

By the way, where do McCarthy and Foster Wallace fall on your literary scale?
You know what?
Never mind.
I'd rather be satisfied with the knowledge that I like them... on my terms... sans labels.

Can you honestly swear that you've read no genre fiction whatsoever that you would consider "literary?" If so, I find that most stuffy; and I would prescribe Dan Simmons' The Terror, Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan, and Neal Stephenson's Anathem for your edification.

I think 'literary fiction' is an artificial term used to describe books that are taught about in college's. Some are well known classics I imagine while others are newer books that have some perceived merit in the eyes of educators. Genre fiction is more specific. A book might be a Romance or a Western etc. based on the setting and other story elements. If a book is set in the modern day and doesn't stress a setting like a Western or a Historical Romance might then it might also find itself being considered Literary. Such books do have a setting, but the setting isn't as important to the story as it is in a genre book.

Yeah. Because you have me pegged, and I fit in the stereotype you just plopped down, right? :rolleyes:

I didn't mean to include you in those "going off half-cocked." It was my error not making it clearer, given that I was responding to your post. I was referring to the specific individuals who have in fact gone off half-cocked and stereotyped literary fiction in this thread. In general I was attempting to clarify my prior posts (as you seemed to be asking me to do), not to characterize you or your reading preferences in any way shape or form. Sorry for any confusion.

I've actually read quite a few of the works you mention. And even enjoyed several (although when it comes to Vonnegut, I consider his musings, essays, and speeches to be vastly superior to his fiction—which I would consider fun, but not even remotely "literary." Oops! Did I say that out loud?). Hemmingway wasn't trying to be "literary" when he wrote, so why should I approach reading his work any differently? And Chekov is just boring. Sorry (I say that at the risk of you simply pointing to your second bulleted item and exclaiming; "aha!").

Not to get bogged down in the details, but whatever Hemingway's protestations, his work, influences and personal acquaintances were decidedly literary--he was at the center of a whole cadre of the most prominent literary figures of his time. Whether Vonnegut's work is literary is already the subject of roughly 2.76% of the internet, so hopefully we can set it aside.

The problem is that in "literary" circles, people want to focus on why good writing should be raised up on a pedestal and revered above all other writing,

As I put to the author of the article: really? Is that what goes on in literary circles? Because I only seem to encounter these characterizations from people who have set themselves quite apart from--if not in open opposition to--literary circles, whereas from in here, in these circles, it just seems like we talk about the books themselves. Actually, we mostly talk about people we know, and where we ate out last, and what great beer/wine/liquor we just tried... but when the conversation comes around to books, we don't don sacred robes and light candles and bow to a statue of Joyce Carol Oates.

So until you can come up with something a little better than; "my BA tells me what's 'literary,'" I'm going to continue to assume that it's an imaginary term used to justify tuitions. And start arguments.

Hey, I provided a more specific set of criteria by which to identify literary fiction than anyone in the thread. Go ahead and swing at some "egghead" strawman if you like, but I only put my background out there to say that I'm not pulling those criteria completely out of my a$$, or even if I am, I've at least digested some relevant material beforehand. Also, I wasn't emphasizing my literary background any more than my readings in general and genre fiction (ETA: in fact, I also took classes on popular and genre fiction, and genre theory). An equal part of any qualification I'd claim to speak on the matter is that I don't confine myself to only one sort of literature, or consider one of inherently greater quality than another (as I said explicitly in my first post).

By the way, where do McCarthy and Foster Wallace fall on your literary scale?

Both are obviously literary. Again, it doesn't aggrandize their work or denigrate any others to say so. Personally, I'll take DFW and leave McCarthy.

Can you honestly swear that you've read no genre fiction whatsoever that you would consider "literary?"

I can't and I haven't. Genre fiction and general fiction are not one and the same. Much general fiction is not genre, and much literary fiction (especially lately) is genre, which is precisely why I'd consider the distinctions I put forth in my first post more relevant to recognizing literary fiction than just saying 'It's not genre.'

Yes, an excessive reliance on categories can obscure the qualities of existing works and even obstruct the emergence of the best qualities in new works. The utter abandonment of categories, however, will prevent us from ever finding any work, or ever discussing similar or related works should we manage to discover them. You want to wish away the classification, but you're still relying upon it to have this conversation. The category is not the problem. It's the insecurity of both genre and literary partisans, leading each to feel they must devalue the others' tastes to validate their own, that muddies the water.

If so, I find that most stuffy; and I would prescribe Dan Simmons' The Terror, Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan, and Neal Stephenson's Anathem for your edification.

Anathem is probably the best book I've read in the past three years, and definitely draws on both literary and genre influences. It's obviously going to get shelved in the sci-fi section of a bookstore, but I don't hesitate to recommend it to friends with more literary tastes (if they also like math and physics).

The category is not the problem. It's the insecurity of both genre and literary partisans, leading each to feel they must devalue the others' tastes to validate their own, that muddies the water.
But you see, I have no desire to devalue anyone's tastes, only their classification systems. In my eyes, literary fiction (the term) is based on exclusion, since genre fiction—a term I find just as distasteful as literary fiction, by the way—such as westerns, mysteries, fantasy, scifi, and romance are generally deemed not literary. Yet you've already admitted that certain scifi (Stephenson's Anathem) can have literary merits... which implies inclusion. And besides its ex-clusive nature, literary fiction just doesn't really bring anything helpful to the table when looking for something interesting to read. Wherein lies my primary beef. ;)

"I'm looking for something literary."
Really? How vague is that, and what is your next question to me going to be?

Now if I tell you I'm looking for something scifi-ish—not space ships and ray guns scifi, but rather something speculative yet more esoteric and introspective—don't you think you might have a better idea of what I'm looking for? And I if have to say; "Speculative, but Literary please." Well then what's the point? Use terms that describe what kind of book it is not what kind of book it isn't (it isn't scifi, fantasy, western, romance, or mystery). Does that make any sense? I'm not turning up my nose at eggheads and their books... I'm turning up my nose at what some eggheads call their books—and what they call mine.

You seem like a pretty good egg, though. ;) And I'm not trying to inflame... just discuss strenuously.

And besides its ex-clusive nature, literary fiction just doesn't really bring anything helpful to the table when looking for something interesting to read.. Wherein lies my primary beef. ;)

But, but, but this:

Now if I tell you I'm looking for something scifi-ish—not space ships and ray guns scifi, but rather something speculative yet more esoteric and introspective—don't you think you might have a better idea of what I'm looking for? And I if have to say; "Speculative, but Literary please."

demonstrates just the opposite! If you say to a librarian or clerk, "I'm looking for something scifi-ish—not space ships and ray guns scifi, but rather something speculative yet more esoteric and introspective," the dreaded L-word is going to be the second or third one out of their mouth.

"More literary?"

And then you will pop them in the nose.

You could save everyone some pain and suffering and yourself some legal bills by acknowledging the existence of the adjective that shall not be named.

Use terms that describe what kind of book it is not what kind of book it isn't (it isn't scifi, fantasy, western, romance, or mystery). Does that make any sense?

"Literary" does describe what kind of book it is, at about the same level of precision as "popular" or "genre." There are more exact subdivisions of literary fiction, but you'd need a stronger background in literary criticism than mine to really get into them. There are the "eras"--Romantic, Victorian, Modern, Post-Modern, Contemporary (it will be interesting to see if that one becomes antiquated the way "Modern" did)--and a few almost-genre-like classifications like Magical Realism and Minimalism, and of course any discussion of literature will come down to comparing specific authors. Still, particularly when discussing genre books with literary qualities or vice versa, "literary" is a very useful term.

If it also has baggage to be unloaded, well let's air that dirty laundry and sit in the catbird seat.

:tired: I'll stop now.

You could save everyone some pain and suffering and yourself some legal bills by acknowledging the existence of the adjective that shall not be named.
First off, I'm not in the habit of punching anyone in the nose. Are you stereotyping again? ;)

And of course I acknowledge the adjective's existence. I just see no valid reason for it to be used as the primary classification of any work, since it's almost always relegated to secondary descriptor at best.

I'll stop now too.

Can you not see how ridiculous that demand is?

No. You said, "thought-structures beyond the means of conventional storytelling." You didn't say "thought structures beyond understanding." The only thing ridiculous is your absurdity and the childishness of your multiple loser-names. But then, you are still just a college kid. I don't expect much from you till you've had time to grow-up and gain the wisdon it takes to doubt yourself.

I shot down all of the following items that you ignorantly claimed were specific to literary fiction.

Literary fiction may discard an advancing plot..., specific characters

or even spelling and syntax... operating by its own rules.

It requires more effort of interpretation from the reader

but it can convey thought-structures beyond the means of conventional storytelling.

Now, if you have an actual argument to make instead of hurling insults and throwing a tantrum, I'm listening.

"Most other people" don't have a definition of literary fiction, but just a vague sense...."

It would appear at this juncture that the only thing vague is the worth of your education. Perhaps when you're my age and have spent another thirty years reading something of actual value, we can then have a pleasant conversation. Actually, the one thing anyone over fifty can tell you if they're well-read at all is that you don't need to read a lot of books. You just need to read the right books, and you need to get the right things out of them. There's a singular golden thread that connects the right books, and a person of the right character will see it and follow it through to its logical conclusion. The hints will all be there weaving in and out of both fiction and non-fiction from Homer to Plato to Virgil to Pseudo-Dionysius to Dante, and there the thread intertwines where Helen of Troy; Beatrice; and the Holy Other become one symbol of that which is always sought for but never attained (one wishes Cabell had understood it better), and then on to St. John of the Cross and his "Great Sea"; to Donne and Milton; the uneducated brilliance of Bunyan; the illumination of Novalis; the hard truths of James Hogg; the "feeling intellect" of Wordsworth and "far Ancestral voices" of Coleridge; to Adam's house of slumber in George MacDonald; the all-encompassing head of Sunday in Chesterton's Thursday; to the primordial reality behind the world in "the City" of Charles Williams; and finally resting at the foot of Lewis' cave in Perelandra where Aeneas, Kubla Khan, and Lewis' hero join metaphors. There are dozens of other writers in the meshes adding a little salt here and there as well, but it's here at Lewis' cave that the thread lies buried until another worthy of it picks it back up. It's very doubtful that someone from the LF basement will be the one to continue the line since absolute garbage like Gaiman's American Gods is the norm among the LF crowd—a book I tossed in the can after 80-pages like all reasonable people do.

And when you're very, very old it may be hoped that you'll at last be able to realize and embrace this sane and simple fact: that reading is all about finding meaningful truths, and the greatest truths of all lie within those faerie tales you left on the nursery room floor. Until then you've got your Greek, your Latin, your German and your French to learn and innumerable connections to make, and when you've discovered the wisdom of Berkeley and Kierkegaard over against the folly of Hume and Schopenhauer, then we may have something to talk about.

From reading this exhausting thread, I have reached two conclusions:

1) I am very pleased that more than half my reading is non-fiction.

and

2) The difference between "literary" and "genre" fiction is rather subjective.

2) The difference between "literary" and "genre" fiction is rather subjective.
:thumbsup: Subjective enough that there need be no distinction at times.

Like Diap, I get a little peeved with some of the inverted snobbery around giving books a 'genre' or a label - I'm a philistine with regards to all my interests.......'I know what I like, and I don't care whether it is intellectually cool or not'

I shot down all of the following items that you ignorantly claimed were specific to literary fiction.


I made no such claim.
Your examples were irrelevant to the respective traits I did describe.



It would appear at this juncture that the only thing vague is the worth of your education. Perhaps when you're my age and have spent another thirty years reading something of actual value, we can then have a pleasant conversation. Actually, the one thing anyone over fifty can tell you if they're well-read at all is that you don't need to read a lot of books. You just need to read the right books, and you need to get the right things out of them. There's a singular golden thread that connects the right books, and a person of the right character will see it and follow it through to its logical conclusion. The hints will all be there weaving in and out of both fiction and non-fiction from Homer to Plato to Virgil to Pseudo-Dionysius to Dante, and there the thread intertwines where Helen of Troy; Beatrice; and the Holy Other become one symbol of that which is always sought for but never attained (one wishes Cabell had understood it better), and then on to St. John of the Cross and his "Great Sea"; to Donne and Milton; the uneducated brilliance of Bunyan; the illumination of Novalis; the hard truths of James Hogg; the "feeling intellect" of Wordsworth and "far Ancestral voices" of Coleridge; to Adam's house of slumber in George MacDonald; the all-encompassing head of Sunday in Chesterton's Thursday; to the primordial reality behind the world in "the City" of Charles Williams; and finally resting at the foot of Lewis' cave in Perelandra where Aeneas, Kubla Khan, and Lewis' hero join metaphors. There are dozens of other writers in the meshes adding a little salt here and there as well, but it's here at Lewis' cave that the thread lies buried until another worthy of it picks it back up.


I'll just leave that right there.


It's very doubtful that someone from the LF basement will be the one to continue the line since absolute garbage like Gaiman's American Gods is the norm among the LF crowd—a book I tossed in the can after 80-pages like all reasonable people do.

If American Gods is your idea of a work of contemporary literary fiction, I rest my case. It's urban fantasy, by an unabashedly and exclusively genre author, and not his best work. Whatever phantasms the words "literary fiction" conjure in your mind, it's not what the rest of us are talking about.

And when you're very, very old it may be hoped that you'll at last be able to realize and embrace this sane and simple fact: that reading is all about finding meaningful truths, and the greatest truths of all lie within those faerie tales you left on the nursery room floor. Until then you've got your Greek, your Latin, your German and your French to learn and innumerable connections to make, and when you've discovered the wisdom of Berkeley and Kierkegaard over against the folly of Hume and Schopenhauer, then we may have something to talk about.

There are fields of interest other than philosophy (or really, you seem more concerned with theology), and wonderful authors who are not dead white men.

Also, my formal education ended a decade ago, whereas my reading did not.

And you might enjoy Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, Narcissus and Goldmund and/or Steppenwolf.

Conclusion: Some people think "literary fiction" is a helpful and informative way to describe a book, while some other people think it is an unhelpful and uninformative way to describe a book. I'm in the latter camp, but hey, whatever helps you get your read on. Okay? Chill?

I just prefer specifics. "I'm looking for something a bit challenging with an experimental narrative structure. I want every word worth mulling over with a more pensive tone. Plot optional. I want it set in the future, invented or parallel worlds are fair game." <-- that beats "genre" vs. "literary".

I made no such claim.

Very well, but you did say that LF "may discard" all those things while saying just before it that LF was "idiosyncratic." If it's not the discarding of those traits that sets LF apart, then just what exactly is so individualistic about this so-called genre?

Your examples were irrelevant to the respective traits I did describe.

Oh come now.

If American Gods is your idea of a work of contemporary literary fiction, I rest my case.

Why not tell the truth about this? I said: "...garbage like Gaiman's American Gods is the norm among the LF crowd...." This is true. It's part of your crowd's mindset—not mine. You'll seldom see a conversation about this trite work that doesn't include the term LF even though it certainly is entirely fantasy, and if you'll search reviews for the book, you'll find it listed as LF time after time.

"...wonderful authors who are not dead white men."

I can't think of many since 1960. Arthur C. Clarke has written some fine things, especially 2001 which was indeed wonderful and much better than the movie, but his finest work was a couple of decades earlier. Susanna Clarke has written the only other piece of fiction I've read since 1960 that I would refer to as wonderful although the first 200-pages of her 800-page masterpiece were very slow, and her fictitious footnotes got to be very draining. Some of Orson Scott Card's books have been quite good even though he's the best example I could give if I wanted to exhibit the inherent problems within stream of consciousness writing. His stories are good—his writing is not. However, good is not wonderful. Patrick O'Brian has some fine stories, but he's not wonderful.

And you might enjoy Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, Narcissus and Goldmund and/or Steppenwolf.

I gave up on Hesse after he butchered both Hinduism and Buddhism in Siddhartha. He now joins my list of 20th century lightweights alongside of Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, M. R. James, and Norman Mailer. Not that they all didn't have their moments (except Mailer), but their overall output is quite overrated.

The great misfortune of our generation is that there are few, if any, writers who know how to write for men anymore. This is where Twain and Chesterton ruled the literary world. No one could write for men like they could. Again, Patrick O'Brian is not bad in this regard though.

And you might enjoy this article in the (gulp) Guardian titled "Is speculative fiction poised to break into the literary canon?" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/02/science-fiction-literary-canon) They make such enlightened statements as: "Over the same period, the fashion of literary fiction writers borrowing ideas from SF has continued." And of course, American Gods is mentioned once again.

I didn't start this thread to bash 'Literary Fiction'. I'm not sure *anyone* actually read the article.

Part of the first paragraph:



The author (and I agree) believes that the label Literary Fiction is being used to separate the Good Stuff™ from the great unwashed.

Just because it's labeled Literary Fiction doesn't make it good. Just because it's labeled as Genre Fiction doesn't necessarily make it bad.

See: Sturgeon's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_Law)
The problem is that often the "great unwashed" is later seen to have more acceptance by the majority than what is considered to be 'literary.' And what is thought to be genre junk by one generation of literati often rises to Classic status later on. I'm sure there were those who felt the works of Charles Dickens were junk writings because he wrote for the masses and yet now they teach college courses with his works being held up as examples of how to write. The literary treasure of one generation often becomes the forgotten of another generation down the line.

Susanna Clarke has written the only other piece of fiction I've read since 1960 that I would refer to as wonderful although the first 200-pages of her 800-page masterpiece were very slow, and her fictitious footnotes got to be very draining.

People warned me about that book's slow start, but I found it delightful from the get-go. I even enjoyed the footnotes. Well, most of them.

I gave up on Hesse after he butchered both Hinduism and Buddhism in Siddhartha. He now joins my list of 20th century lightweights alongside of Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, M. R. James, and Norman Mailer. Not that they all didn't have their moments (except Mailer), but their overall output is quite overrated.


Sometimes people of brilliance display a level of arrogance that is breathtaking, but they are forgiven this arrogance because of their brilliance. Other folks are just arrogant without anything to be arrogant about. Now, I know nothing about you, but where do you get off dismissing major figures of the 20th century literary canon? It certainly seems to put you in the second camp.

where do you get off dismissing major figures of the 20th century literary canon?

Didn't your mama ever tell you anything about jumping off bridges just because others do it? The day you start worrying about making your own outlook match those of others is the day you may as well stop reading because you're incapable of thinking for yourself. Last I heard, the majority is just as often wrong as they are right. A thousand years from now people will still be quoting Lewis, Twain, and Chesterton. I doubt very much that anyone in AD 3011 will know there ever was a man named Hermann Hesse.

"Public opinion is a flitting thing, but truth outlasts the sun...." ~ Emily Dickinson

Didn't your mama ever tell you anything about jumping off bridges just because others do it? The day you start worrying about making your own outlook match those of others is the day you may as well stop reading because you're incapable of thinking for yourself. Last I heard, the majority is just as often wrong as they are right. A thousand years from now people will still be quoting Lewis, Twain, and Chesterton. I doubt very much that anyone in AD 3011 will know there ever was a man named Hermann Hesse.

"Public opinion is a flitting thing, but truth outlasts the sun...." ~ Emily
Dickinson

I do not make a habit of jumping off bridges but I do tend to give initial credence to the opinions of experts in their field - like doctors, car mechanics or literary theorists - people who have spent a considerable time developing their expertise - until and unless I have a specific reason for dismissing or arguing against them. What I don't do is display my arrogant ignorance by making stupid statements dismissing the history of literary criticism or making unsupportable and ridiculous predictions that are less that worthless.

but I do tend to give initial credence to the opinions of experts in their field - like doctors, car mechanics or literary theorists - people who have spent a considerable time developing their expertise -
You have to admit... there's really not a whole lot of subjectivity regarding triple-bypass surgery or carburetor rebuilds.

"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."

You have to admit... there's really not a whole lot of subjectivity regarding triple-bypass surgery or carburetor rebuilds.


Well, I certainly acknowledge it. Are you claiming that professional literary critics and theorists have no more expertise than you or me or the bloke down the pub. We have, after all, all read novels, so we are all equally qualified to think analytically about them, is presumably the thinking, (to stretch the meaning of the word), going on with this kind of argument.

Are you claiming that professional literary critics and theorists have no more expertise than you or me or the bloke down the pub. We have, after all, all read novels, so we are all equally qualified to think analytically about them, is presumably the thinking, (to stretch the meaning of the word), going on with this kind of argument.
That's all on you, man. I'd never presume anything of the sort. But I do reserve the right to assume that there just may be a handful literary critics (and doctors and mechanics, too) out there who are full of shit up to their eyeballs. Stands to reason, right? Their background, education and expertise only guarantee that I'll listen to their assessment... not kneel before it and accept it as gospel.

But I do reserve the right to assume that there just may be a handful literary critics (and doctors and mechanics, too) out there who are full of shit up to their eyeballs.

Oh, one finds people full of shit everywhere.

Incidentally, what is it that is on me, man?

We have, after all, all read novels, so we are all equally qualified to think analytically about them

But you just said... oh well.

But you just said... oh well.

See first line of my previous post.

Incidentally, what is it that is on me, man?
The assumption that I embraced/suggested/implied the following notion:
Are you claiming that professional literary critics and theorists have no more expertise than you or me or the bloke down the pub.

I said nothing of the sort. I, of course, was simply claiming that a professional literary critic and theorist more than likely IS "the bloke down the pub."

I kid, I kid... a little. :D

I gave up on Hesse after he butchered both Hinduism and Buddhism in Siddhartha.

To be fair, Siddhartha is Hesse's most accessible and least substantive work (at least of the half dozen I've read). It gets recommended in New Age circles because it has that shallow, meaning-y aura that characterizes the movement, and it gets recommended in general because it's quite short. Steppenwolf suffers somewhat from a similar excessive conviction of its own depth and importance, but also mirrors aspects of your pet narrative about Western literature and civilization. It won't give you the 'secret Jesus code' erection of C.S. Lewis, but should at least tickle your Grand Narrative receptors.

I find both the above books worthwhile despite their shortcomings, but regardless, Magister Ludi (aka The Glass Bead Game) and Narcissus and Goldmund are much more mature and developed, even mocking the kind of self-importance that informed Hesse's earlier works.

Then again, you may just want to read Don Quixote six or seven times until it starts to make an impression.

The book? Don Quixote without Sophia Loren is just is just words.

See first line of my previous post.

Nah, that's okay. I just had to do a password re-set for someone who wasn't bright enough to write it down or have a HD backup. I've had my dose of silly for the day.

Literary fiction may discard an advancing plot..., specific characters

When did Bobby Ewing's two year dream become literary fiction?

Well, I certainly acknowledge it. Are you claiming that professional literary critics and theorists have no more expertise than you or me or the bloke down the pub. We have, after all, all read novels, so we are all equally qualified to think analytically about them, is presumably the thinking, (to stretch the meaning of the word), going on with this kind of argument.
The problem with thinking analytically about things is that even at our best the average person has personal bias in what they think is good or bad in terms of writing. We all have our own view on things which can lead to blind spots. After all we are only human. So what one person considers literary another might consider dull and uninteresting and what one person may consider a classic may also be considered literary by another person. Many books fit under several different descriptors in that way.

The problem with thinking analytically about things is that even at our best the average person has personal bias in what they think is good or bad in terms of writing. We all have our own view on things which can lead to blind spots. After all we are only human. So what one person considers literary another might consider dull and uninteresting and what one person may consider a classic may also be considered literary by another person. Many books fit under several different descriptors in that way.

I have no argument with anything that you say here - I find many literary works difficult to get on with. However, I do reflect that if these works have been judged to be of merit by a number of people with expertise over a number of years then, that I find them difficult or uninteresting is something to do with me rather than something to do with the intrinsic nature of the works in question.

I have no argument with anything that you say here - I find many literary works difficult to get on with. However, I do reflect that if these works have been judged to be of merit by a number of people with expertise over a number of years then, that I find them difficult or uninteresting is something to do with me rather than something to do with the intrinsic nature of the works in question.
You have a point though we also have to guard against coming to think of the 'experts opinions' as holy writ as well. After all the experts also have their own bias as to what they like. In essence everyone is both right and wrong depending on the individual point of view. Course I imagine the argument over what is and isn't literary has been going on since people have been able to read and isn't likely to end soon. :)

You have a point though we also have to guard against coming to think of the 'experts opinions' as holy writ as well.

Indeed, but if I encounter something by, for example Ernest Hemingway, that I don't like - and mostly I don't like things by Ernest Hemingway - then if I am to express an opinion, given the amount of criticism and analysis that has been accumulated over the years, it is incumbent upon me to say something beyond, "I don't like it because it's literary fiction and literary fiction is rubbish", don't you think.

it is incumbent upon me to say something beyond, "I don't like it because it's literary fiction and literary fiction is rubbish", don't you think.
Absolutely. In fact I think you could go on and on about why you didn't like it without even having to mention the words "literary fiction" at all. Just like I could go on and on about why I don't like Harry Potter without mentioning literary or genre fiction.

And if you peruse this thread, I think you'll find the number of people—who have suggested that everything given the label of literary fiction is rubbish—to be quite small. The fence that some have constructed between what others have deemed literary and all other fiction is what is rubbish.

I could go on and on about why I don't like Harry Potter

Me too! Actually, I thought it was very inventive and fun for kids of all ages, but what bothered me about it was that Harry always wins. I mean, always. All the games and tests--everything. It was very predictable in that regard.

Indeed, but if I encounter something by, for example Ernest Hemingway, that I don't like - and mostly I don't like things by Ernest Hemingway - then if I am to express an opinion, given the amount of criticism and analysis that has been accumulated over the years, it is incumbent upon me to say something beyond, "I don't like it because it's literary fiction and literary fiction is rubbish", don't you think.

Not one person in this thread has said anything at all like that. People have of course spoken in generalities, but all adults understand generalities for the time-saving rules of thumb that they are. Obviously when someone says they don't care for literary fiction we realize there will be exceptions that they do like.

I also think that some of you don't understand the difference between literary fiction and a classic. Bookstores often lump them together in the "literature" section. A classic book does not often have the snooty vocabulary that's generally found in what is termed LF. Sometimes it may seem that way simply because an older book comes from a generation of folk who talked and wrote differently in bygone days. The term "threadbare" which I mentioned earlier would certainly seem snooty if used today; it would have been part of everyday speech in 1750 though.

I think what most of us object to is modern authors writing as though they are anything but modern. It's the books from our own day being placed in the LF category where most of the problem lies. It's in these that we find writers using a thesaurus for all the wrong reasons along with tiresome lengthy descriptions of every bush and flower they see.

Me too! Actually, I thought it was very inventive and fun for kids of all ages, but what bothered me about it was that Harry always wins. I mean, always. All the games and tests--everything. It was very predictable in that regard.

i like happily ever afters :rofl:

Yeah, but Harry never earns his victories. His friends all have actual skills and specialties that they care about, that make them unique people. Harry's only abilities seem to be "being special" and "winning"

I'm not against the happy endings. It's just what Mr. Lewis here said. I think Harry could lose a few games now and then, and the books could still have a happy ending.

One problem with some of the opinions expressed here is that the tolerance they're supposed to exemplify is one-sided. In order to benefit from the apparent open-mindedness of those who dislike the idea of literary fiction, you're expected to dislike it, too. You have to accept their redefinitions of your own priorities, and their dismissal of the honesty and brilliance of writing you might actually like. In order to arrive at the democracy they seem to advocate, you have to disown the very qualities in fiction that made you want to read it in the first place.

One example:

The idea that people who spend their lives studying and understanding literature in the professional academic sense have no more, and usually less, to offer than ordinary readers expressing their opinions. The point is not whether one person's opinion is more valid than another, but whether one might have more information to offer than another. The idea seems to be that academics and literary critics have nothing special to offer.

A few here seem to be saying that, if you place any importance on the project of literature (as writers like Flaubert understood it) and academic criticism, if you allow that a seasoned, industrious and talented academic might have expertise that could prove useful, then you're either an insufferable kiss-ass or a character from The Fountainhead who advocates total acceptance of cliche ideas of high culture, no doubt involving a crinkly anti-Übermensch.

I would argue that critics, linguists and scholars have had tons to teach us: critics as diverse as Cleanth Brooks, William Empson, F.R. Leavis, Ezra Pound and Charles Bernstein; linguists and interdisciplinary critics like Roman Jakobson, Julia Kristeva and Roland Barthes; scholars as different as George Saintsbury and Helene Cixous (whose distrust of the word intellectual some of you might appreciate).

What exactly is wrong with acknowledging their importance?

Another:

The idea that a writer's interest in style and diction makes them inherently boring, untruthful and affected.

Many of the writers I absolutely love were willing to sacrifice story for style and are far from boring or dishonest: Virginia Woolf and John Hawkes, to name but two. Does their willingness make their methods dishonest or my love of The Waves and The Lime Twig an affectation?

If everyone's taste is to be allowed, then so are the preferences of those who prefer "literary" fiction. If I'm not interested in slapping someone around for adoring novels by Chuck Palahniuk, or even important but over-emphasized books by Christian apologists like C.S. Lewis (whose Allegory of Love is, among other things, literary criticism), then it shouldn't be necessary for the OP to poke me on the shoulder to say, "Hey, I'm not telling anyone what to do -- your taste is your taste, and I like a lot of that so-called literature myself -- but 'literary fiction' is nothing but affected twaddle that sexless elitists enjoy rubbing all over themselves. Literary = lack of story, and experts = a bunch of professors pretending their taste is better than mine. I respect your opinion, but everything you enjoy and admire is an utter waste of time."

Indeed, but if I encounter something by, for example Ernest Hemingway, that I don't like - and mostly I don't like things by Ernest Hemingway - then if I am to express an opinion, given the amount of criticism and analysis that has been accumulated over the years, it is incumbent upon me to say something beyond, "I don't like it because it's literary fiction and literary fiction is rubbish", don't you think.
Touche. I do agree that we are all entitled to our own opinion on a given writer literary or genre or whatever. The point I was making (as you aknowledged) was just that we should form our own opinion on said book or said writer's body of work rather than just taking the "expert's" at their word. A given critic might think a particular movie was a complete waste of film for example but at least part of his criticism will be based in if he likes the genre of film or not. And the box office receipts might tell a different story than his opinion on that given film. The 1st Never Ending Story movie (based on Michael Ende's book) was like that. The critics didn't care for it, but 2 sequels a mini cartoon series and at least one DVD of further adventures seems to tell a different tale. I'd guess much the same has happened with books before too. The "experts" didn't like it but the reading public did.

Yeah, but Harry never earns his victories. His friends all have actual skills and specialties that they care about, that make them unique people. Harry's only abilities seem to be "being special" and "winning"
Usually his 'victories' come with a price though. Someone either dies or is badly hurt. He never quite escapes unscathed from his adventures. I think J.K.Rowling used a good deal (if not the total) of the Hero's Journey as the structure of her series on Harry Potter. Dumbledore is the Mentor for example and then there are the trials he goes through to keep Voldemort from winning time and time again.

Another:

The idea that a writer's interest in style and diction makes them inherently boring, untruthful and affected.


Absolutely. I left this one largely untouched, and of course the main thrust of such an argument comes from the least informed, but writers generally come by their vocabulary honestly, by having read a great deal more than the average person, and specifically having read a great deal more of existing canon. Often enough, that knowledge is augmented by life experiences wherein the author has been exposed to specialized vocabularies.

Anti-intellectualism is anti-intellectualism, and serves no practical purpose. It's a strategy for protecting the ego which devalues the ego considerably over time. When applied on a cultural scale, it's a guaranteed ticket to the third world.

Ooh! ooh! Do me next! What was I really saying in my posts? I strongly suspect that I may have been advocating the demise of critical thinking entirely, but I'm not quite positive. I admit that subtext was never my strong suit. A bit of help please?

[W]riters generally come by their vocabulary honestly, by having read a great deal more than the average person, and specifically having read a great deal more of existing canon. Often enough, that knowledge is augmented by life experiences wherein the author has been exposed to specialized vocabularies.

I agree; I'd go even further than that.

Many writers acquire specialized vocabularies despite the fact that some readers might be put off. They certainly aren't trying to discourage their potential audience.

Rarefied diction can happen when a writer zeroes in on the kinds of observations they tend to make and wish to be more exact. It can happen as the result of extensive research that left a mark. It can happen because a writer's childhood placed them in close proximity to a library filled with old, odd and oddly compelling books. It can also happen when the music of language becomes so important that they wish to learn about every sound, every nuance, as a composer does classes of intervals, chords and timbres.

It happens for other equally valid reasons as well.

Whether or not they should privilege some projected normative reader over the joy of writing in their own voice is a question that doesn't come down to populism versus elitism. It can be a question of sales, if the writer is dependent on sales, but it can also be a question of innate talent. Some writers simply can't write in a popular style, and the choice would be between writing pandering swill that would continue to remain unpopular or writing novels that allowed them to develop and perfect the full range of their gifts.

Ooh! ooh! Do me next! What was I really saying in my posts? I strongly suspect that I may have been advocating the demise of critical thinking entirely, but I'm not quite positive. I admit that subtext was never my strong suit. A bit of help please?

I have no clue who or what that was aimed at. Me, agreeing with another poster? Prestidigitweeze, responding to a position stated explicitly and repeatedly throughout the thread? Was crich70 putting words in J.K. Rowling's mouth? Are you just throwing out rhetorical strategies scattershot to see if anything sticks?

but writers generally come by their vocabulary honestly, by having read a great deal more than the average person

All well and good, but I'd venture to say that my own vocabulary is much larger than your average English Literature Prof specifically because the vast majority of what I read is very old. But having a large and old vocabulary, and purposely using it to show how many words you know that others do not, are very different things, and I believe that describes most of the modern LF writers. If that's what great writing is about then I could just write everything in 14th century English, or even West Saxon etc. If I'm writing a period piece, that may be fine, but it's hard to see the point even in that. Shakespeare was often criticized for writing in an archaic language during his own day (late 1500s) just as the King James Bible was criticized for the same thing when it first came out in 1611. People had stopped using words like "thee" and "thou" by the 13th and 14th centuries. (I find it mildly amusing the way people refer to 14th century English as "Jacobean English" when people had stopped talking that way long before James VI.) In the case of the King James Bible, negative critics of it said that it was purposely dressed up in an archaic language to make it seem more regal and flowery. They also said that if it was truly sent by God that it shouldn't need any dressing up. Makes sense to me.

If 14th century English is so grand, why not just write everything in it? I've seen several people claim that the works of Homer are best read in the Lang/Leaf/Butcher/Myers translation for that very reason. I find that totally silly. I'm supposed to think that works from 800 BC Greek are somehow best followed in 14th century English by 21st century readers? I've got those translations of both The Iliad and The Odyssey, but I find my Penguin Classic editions much more enjoyable.

I think that some of you are missing the point, which is, that modern writers who purposely use one out-dated word after another are not only being pretentious (if not outright childish), but they usually don't write good stories. I would say that Umberto Eco would be a great example, but I lay a lot of the blame on William Weaver's translations for the pretentious English. The stories (at least many of them) being boring however, we can put on Eco. I recall starting to read Foucault's Pendulum, and the first thirty or forty pages were devoted to some character trying to find a place to hide in a museum. We couldn't just be told where he hid; we had to first be put through every place he couldn't hide. I was on the brink of tearing my hair out thinking, "Just get on with it already!" It was just bad writing in any language.

I'll muddle through even the most pretentious writing if I think the stories are worth it, but I certainly won't refer to it as great writing if I think the author is being purposely, and pointlessly, difficult. The perfect example there is Charles Williams. I loved all seven of his novels, but what 20th century writer is more difficult to get through than Williams? This is especially true of his poetry, which even his friend T. S. Eliot said he could never make heads or tails of. Almost everyone agrees that he's made the only significant addition to the Grail saga since Tennyson, but almost none of us would understand half of his poetry (both symbolically and the difficult writing style) without his friend, CS Lewis', commentary on it. I can't quote it exactly, but I remember a letter from Lewis to Eliot where Lewis had mentioned talking with Williams right after one of Williams' novels came out saying "Don't think I didn't let into him for all I was worth for being so damned difficult!" In short, as much as I loved the novels and poetry of Charles Williams, I loathed his writing style, which in my opinion, as well as the opinions of Eliot and Lewis, was often difficult just for the sake of being difficult.

And that phrase right there "difficult for the sake of being difficult" is exactly what most of us dislike about much of the modern LF writers.

But having a large and old vocabulary, and purposely using it to show how many words you know that others do not, are very different things, and I believe that describes most of the modern LF writers.

It still just boggles my mind that you think the above is an accurate description of how anyone writes, and that you somehow associate literary fiction with archaic language. This view is simply not founded in reality. Authors use the vocabulary that they have, and while an author of literary fiction may have a broader or less typical vocabulary, few if any now living are hung up on Chaucer.

I'd venture to say that my own vocabulary is much larger than your average English Literature Prof specifically because the vast majority of what I read is very old. But having a large and old vocabulary, and purposely using it to show how many words you know that others do not, are very different things, and I believe that describes most of the modern LF writers.

The thing that amazes me is the attribution of base ethical motives purely because of the style and diction of the writer, which is exactly how fascists in the 30s framed the intentions of writers like Walter Benjamin, Robert Musil, Stefan Zweig, Bertolt Brecht and Robert Desnos, and Stalin did Khlebnikov and Osip Mandelstam.

I would also ask that people stop generalizing about what English lit professors have and haven't read until they actually interact with a few in present time. It's easy to make generalizations until you're face to face with a member of the group you've just been mischaracterizing. Dean of Lit Robert Coover at Brown, for example, who was incredibly well-read in every century. He was also saintly in his support of younger writers (as well as gleeful in his duties: when I visited Brown one summer, the man actually came to my room personally, woke me up with a bugle and read out my itinerary for the day, finishing with the command that I call my mom).

I can't really blame Ransom for those ideas (nor do I wish to show disrespect for his dedication to reading older books), since the person who did more to popularize them than anyone else is John Gardner in his masterpiece of hypocrisy, On Moral Fiction. Never mind that Gardner was a lifelong alcoholic and notorious for feeling up his eighteen-year-old students and getting physical with his wife. The real problem, according to him, was famous writers who wrote in styles he disliked.

Like many people with substance abuse problems, he needed to find a grid of faraway discipline to aspire to and to hold his less-alcoholic peers up to contemptuously. Because of him, reviewers and critics have been derailed into ad hominem about the morality of conspicuous stylists for the past forty years.

Another person I blame for this is not American but British. In Modern English Usage, Fowler tells us a number of useful things (and is funny, too), but he also makes sweeping judgments about the motives of people who do things like pronounce French words with a French accent. It all comes down to Fowler's thesis that odd choices in words, style and pronunciation are the affectations of middle- and lower-class people who do not realize that the upper classes carefully avoid such things. In Fowler's view, the admirable upper classman professes not to be familiar with obscure areas of knowledge because that would be admitting to unseemly and antisocial toil.

Fowler could not conceive of the idea that unself-conscious people, too, might learn other languages and study subjects that lent them idiosyncratic habits of usage. Fowler was himself such an obsequious admirer of royalty that his reflexive imitation of their style prevented his understanding that those who discover their own modes of expression are often not imitating anyone else at all -- least of all British royalty, those gods of leisure and social inequity, some of whom lounged instead of worked, and spent their most ambitious moments riding ponies through marshes and playing patio games in mansions.

Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins were not 14th Century writers, but they did spend lifetimes developing eccentric idioms and ever-more recondite elisions in syntax and metaphor. Yet they were neither showing off, aspiring to be royalty nor demonstrating some sort of corruption of the aesthetic soul. They were writers who grew isolated at the same time their poetry flourished. They wrote in their own voices and did so for themselves alone, with the conviction of persons whispering devastating truths to themselves. To suggest anything else is either an act of projection or a demonstration of unfamiliarity.

But having a large and old vocabulary, and purposely using it to show how many words you know that others do not, are very different things, and I believe that describes most of the modern LF writers.

Why do you believe that? That you do believe it says less about literary fiction than it does about you. One of the things that it says about you, along with later sections of your post, which, for the sake of brevity I will not quote, is that you appear not to have the first idea about what literary fiction is about.

If there's one thing clear from these last three posts, it's that the commentator(s?) have not read much LF whatsoever and are just making things up as they go along. Chaucer? Good grief. Yeah that's what I said—LF is about writing nothing but 14th century English....

Gee, I don't remember Eco or Williams using many terms exclusive to 14th century. I don't remember any 14th century writers using the term--threadbare although that's about the time it was invented. As I said before, had you been paying attention, it's about obscure terms and outdated words whether they be 75 years out of date or hundreds. Boggles the mind is right.

If someone wrote a story about a doctor or a lawyer who used a ton of obscure medical or legal words that you didn't know, would you call that great writing? I've a feeling that you'd be the first to bellyache about it. I fail to see any difference in using legal and medical terms that most people don't know (and which the author can and should explain) and using outdated words that most people don't know. If you read modern LF, you find words like "espy", "remonstrate", "objurgation" etc. that fell out of use a hundred years ago. What on earth is the point unless they're simply putting on airs? It's childish twaddle.

You should always find the simplest way you can to say a thing accurately. To not do so would be the equivalent of a guitarist or pianist actually looking for a more difficult way to play the a passage.

You should always find the simplest way you can to say a thing accurately. To not do so would be the equivalent of a guitarist or pianist actually looking for a more difficult way to play the a passage.

Why? (To the writing)

It is the result that counts, not if it is performed in a difficult or in an easy way. I agree that if it appears simple and easy it is more precious, but that is already on an other plane. (To the music)

It is the result that counts, not if it is performed in a difficult or in an easy way.

You've got a point there. I suppose it depends on what you're trying to convey and how important it is. I read fiction for the same reason I read non-fiction—to learn, not to be entertained. Of course learning can be entertaining of itself. But what I want to say is, that if you're trying to say something of great importance, and it's something that you believe would be good for the largest number of people possible to hear, then it's best to write as simply and clearly as possible. If you're not going to write something important, why write at all? When a guy like Eco goes on and on and on, and yet never says anything, it becomes pointless drivel dressed in obscurity to impress low-brows. How often has Harold Bloom done the same thing in his non-fiction? There are few people who talk so much and say so little as Bloom. But he knows lots of words.

There are few people who talk so much and say so little as Bloom. But he knows lots of words.

At last, something we can agree on. However the rest of your post - which seems to imply that you think literature is primarily about conveying information in much the same way as non-fiction - simply confirms what I said earlier: you are ignorant as to the purposes and functioning of it.

You've got a point there. I suppose it depends on what you're trying to convey and how important it is. I read fiction for the same reason I read non-fiction—to learn, not to be entertained. Of course learning can be entertaining of itself. But what I want to say is, that if you're trying to say something of great importance, and it's something that you believe would be good for the largest number of people possible to hear, then it's best to write as simply and clearly as possible. If you're not going to write something important, why write at all? When a guy like Eco goes on and on and on, and yet never says anything, it becomes pointless drivel dressed in obscurity to impress low-brows. How often has Harold Bloom done the same thing in his non-fiction? There are few people who talk so much and say so little as Bloom. But he knows lots of words.

The problem of Eco is that he does not have a soul. As a writer, because as linguist/philosopher he is good and worth of being studied and followed (at least according to a friend that graduated with him). And as an individual I do not have the faintest idea.

There is a lot of research behind his novels, research performed by a team. There is a lot of work behind the putting in words, wording done by a team of editors. He does not exist. He is an enterprise, a machine to make money. There is nothing human inside Eco, everything is cold, distant. It is not a question of language with Eco but of intergalactic vacuum.

If there's one thing clear from these last three posts, it's that the commentator(s?) have not read much LF whatsoever and are just making things up as they go along. Chaucer? Good grief. Yeah that's what I said—LF is about writing nothing but 14th century English....

Gee, I don't remember Eco or Williams using many terms exclusive to 14th century. I don't remember any 14th century writers using the term--threadbare although that's about the time it was invented. As I said before, had you been paying attention, it's about obscure terms and outdated words whether they be 75 years out of date or hundreds. Boggles the mind is right.

Who was the one going on about 14th century English a couple posts back? It's very difficult to tell when you're employing hyperbole, because you've already stood by several claims that I initially took for deliberately absurd exaggeration.

The 'obscurity' of terms is very much a matter of opinion. Of your examples:

If you read modern LF, you find words like "espy", "remonstrate", "objurgation" etc. that fell out of use a hundred years ago.

The only one that could be called outdated is "espy," which however is not obscure, and the only one that could be called obscure is "objurgation," which cannot really be called outdated given that there was no period in which it was less obscure. "Remonstrate" is both current and commonplace. All of these words are primarily encountered in works of general fiction with weak prose, where the words are employed less to "put on airs" than to avoid repetition.

The only contemporary(ish) literary author you've mentioned is Eco, who is a medievalist, linguist and philosopher, whose work is strongly informed by all of those fields. He doesn't write like a plumber or an English (in his case, Italian) teacher because that's not his background. Demanding that he write for, as Prestidigitweeze said earlier, "some projected normative reader," is asking him to put on airs of populism. Personally, I couldn't get into Foucault's Pendulum, either, but very much enjoyed The Name of the Rose.

Forty-odd pages of Eco aside, it appears that your impressions of contemporary literary fiction are based primarily on a few of the more florid authors of mainstream and genre fiction. You've already mistaken Neil Gaiman, who made his name writing comic books, for a literary author. Please name two living authors of literary fiction (I can probably stop there but...) besides Eco, whose work you've read and found to conform to your allegations of "showing off" and "putting on airs."

I can't wait until authors start using lol, lmfao, j/k, ldo, chillax, f*cktard and many others just so they stay current and don't seem to be putting on airs by using some actual words that apparently no one knows the meaning of anymore. :) That will be real literature written for real men by golly!

As for LF, I do find the category name to be rather vague and unhelpful to me personally but to each their own.

I do find it annoying when someone comes out with "so you mostly just read genre fiction then?" in a tone akin to having realised they have just stepped in something icky. I'm sure it's a massive generalisation but in the circles I mix in it does seem the only judgmental people when it comes to book likes and dislikes are the ones who like LF.

Cheers,
PKFFW

I can't wait until authors start using lol, lmfao, j/k, ldo, chillax, f*cktard and many others just so they stay current and don't seem to be putting on airs by using some actual words that apparently no one knows the meaning of anymore.
F*cktard gained widespread acceptance in the world of literature around the same time as a$$hat, if I'm not mistaken.

However the rest of your post - which seems to imply that you think literature is primarily about conveying information in much the same way as non-fiction - simply confirms what I said earlier: you are ignorant as to the purposes and functioning of it.

You know, it's really pointless to converse with such a thoughtless human. The purpose of all literature is the same as non-fiction obviously—to convey information, and therefore to learn, whether it be about the uses of the various parts of the sperm whale in Moby Dick, or to gain insight into the motives of a murderous mindset as in Father Brown. It is not to sit and look at all the pretty words, which seems to be your only motive for picking up a book. If you aren't picking up a book to learn, then don't bother reading at all. You're just wasting your time just as you've wasting my time throughout this thread.

Who was the one going on about 14th century English a couple posts back?

So? I talked about 19th century lit. a lot more. So? And I mentioned West Saxon which is a good deal older yet? So? Apparently you're incapable of normal reasoning, let alone recondite cogitations. Whoops! there I go showing off my vocabulary. No one will read me, but at least I'll be in the LF section.

The 'obscurity' of terms is very much a matter of opinion.

It's a matter of fact in each example. Your absurd claim that it is not in these three cases, "espy", "remonstrate", "objurgation" will not change the fact. All three words are socially remote and can physically be shown as almost completely absent from both contemporary lit. and speech. I have never heard anyone use the words "espy" or "objurgation" in speech during my lifetime, and neither have you. Remonstrate may still be heard, but only on very rare occasion. (It gave way to reprimand, berate, and reproof long ago, not to mention the many slang terms used in its place.) The same is true of their use in modern books. In a stack of one thousand contemporary books, fiction or otherwise, you will not find these words in more than one or two, and probably not that. That is obscure.

You've already mistaken Neil Gaiman, who made his name writing comic books, for a literary author.

No, I have made no such claim, and you are incapable of quoting a post where I said any such silly thing. I said, and was correct in saying, that it is your own LF crowd that continually singles him out as being an LF author and even gave one of many links to articles saying as much. Why lie to make a false point? Kicks?

Please name two living authors of literary fiction....

Why—so you can lie about it afterwards? There's hardly any point of continuing to post to you. I leave you to conferring with the flowers and consulting with the rain. I doubt you'll have any reason to scratch your head though. Oh look! A turn of phrase! I doubt you'll understand it.

The problem of Eco is that he does not have a soul.

I don't know much about him. Maybe if he did his own translations he would come across better, but I doubt it.

"so you mostly just read genre fiction then?"

The thing is, I doubt that there is a single volume to be found on the LF shelves that I cannot classify to a particular genre (probably more than one) just like every other book. It's a useless category. I'm not saying every book on those LF shelves is appalling. Certainly there are many old classics that end up there which are very good, but I could find a more proper category for them. But it's the contemporary books which end up there which are generally dismal and are continually the butt of jokes.

At any rate, I leave you to find a good book. We've hashed this one around long enough, and I won't be checking the thread again.

You know, it's really pointless to converse with such a thoughtless human. The purpose of all literature is the same as non-fiction obviously—to convey information, and therefore to learn, whether it be about the uses of the various parts of the sperm whale in Moby Dick, or to gain insight into the motives of a murderous mindset as in Father Brown.

As long as you don't expand your vocabulary ;)

It is not to sit and look at all the pretty words, which seems to be your only motive for picking up a book. If you aren't picking up a book to learn, then don't bother reading at all. You're just wasting your time just as you've wasting my time throughout this thread.

Actually, a great many people pick up books to reaffirm existing biases and pet narratives, and experience the sensation of novelty in a predominantly comforting and familiar context.

One generally approaches more literary work with the opposite intent, of genuinely expanding one's horizons with new insight into language, art and/or the human condition. There are other things to be learned from art than "information" communicable in eighth-grade English.

There's hardly any point of continuing to post to you.

But your dogged irrationality is highly engaging :(

Labeling genres is often a tricky task, but I can say I don't like most works that have been dubbed "literary fiction". I find them to be usually quite mundane, and as a sci-fi/fantasy writer and reader, I like my stories with a bit more imagination. For a while, I even considered literary fiction utterly boring.

But, some time ago while participating in an online writing community, I had the chance to review a young lady's piece of prose which I can only define as "literary". It seemed to serve no purpose other than to show off the power of words, and it floored me. It was beautiful - so beautiful that I didn't care that the vast majority of it was spent describing a single kiss. One moment, that we've all experienced, exposed in prose that made the act seem exotic and foreign.

So I can appreciate "literary fiction" as a genre, although I don't seek it out. But any genre can be "literary", depending on the author. I've seen a lot of agents and publishers requesting "exciting fantasy with elements of literary fiction", so there's plenty of room for crossover.

F*cktard gained widespread acceptance in the world of literature around the same time as a$$hat, if I'm not mistaken.

Around the same period as "asphinctersayswhat" no doubt.

Around the same period as "asphinctersayswhat" no doubt.
No, no. I believe asphinctersayswhat preceded both f*cktard and a$$hat by nearly a generation.

ramsey_isler:

I liked your post because it gives evidence of the power and importance of style despite your general lack of interest in it as compared to, say, narrative.

That feeling of being floored by the emotion and music of language is the main reason I read, not just for the story or "information" (do people actually read made-up stories in search of factual information and, if so, what are encyclopedias?). I tend to respond to the cresting and ebbing of music in its various forms. My sensitivity to it is one of the main reasons I love so much literary fiction.

Ransom:

The one writer about whom I agree with you is Harold Bloom -- not because he "knows a lot of words" but because he makes a lot of bad and arbitrary judgments. Bloom seems to have nothing new to say about Shakespeare despite his parlor-game theory of misreading and his pseudo-Shakespearean way of writing about the subject. Charles Lamb has a wrought and latinate style, too, but is more accomplished and original. De Quincey's famous essay on Macbeth does mimesis better as well.

Bloom's also dead wrong about Yeats.

If you read modern LF, you find words like "espy", "remonstrate", "objurgation" etc. that fell out of use a hundred years ago. What on earth is the point unless they're simply putting on airs? It's childish twaddle.

(1) Coincidentally, your choice of objurgation is an unfortunate one, as it's commonly used in heroic fantasy. I recall reading an entire Jack Vance novel as a kid and finding that every other paragraph seemed to end with "Cudgel uttered an objurgation." This was intended to be a funny and excessively polite way of referring to a person doubled over with pain and screaming a four-letter word. That use of stylistic irony -- writing about low-lifes, murderers and vagrants in the most flowery language possible -- seems to be a trait of Vance's and is shared by other writers in that genre.

(2) You would do well to avoid attributing base motives to other writers -- in literature and even on internet forums -- whenever you're not privy to their intentions or disbelieve the intentions they've stated overtly, since you have no way of knowing whether your suspicions/misgivings are correct.

If someone wrote a story about a doctor or a lawyer who used a ton of obscure medical or legal words that you didn't know, would you call that great writing? I've a feeling that you'd be the first to bellyache about it.

(1) I'd judge the writing by its effectiveness, not by its avoidance of unusual terms. In fact, I'd probably find the excessive use of odd terms interesting.

(2) Again, not a great example, as lots of specialized terms from legalese and the DSM-IIIR became popular because laypersons do enjoy the sound and special meanings of specialized language in context.

Besides which, one of the great books of all time is Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, which uses medical terms and situations to demarcate his spiritual beliefs. It's a beautifully written book -- one that I've enjoyed reading ever since I first discovered it in my parents' library.

You should always find the simplest way you can to say a thing accurately. To not do so would be the equivalent of a guitarist or pianist actually looking for a more difficult way to play the a passage.

As a classical pianist and studio musician, I can pretty much assure you that that analogy doesn't work. You're better off comparing the writer to a composer who goes out of her/his way to write music which is difficult to play, or a musician who looks for such music to perform. You could then argue there was no reason for writing/playing a difficult passage where an easy one would do.

However, the analogy would still be a bad one, since great composers do write intentionally difficult pieces all the time and they are called things like studies and etudes.

You know, it's really pointless to converse with such a thoughtless human. The purpose of all literature is the same as non-fiction obviously—to convey information. . . . It is not to sit and look at all the pretty words, which seems to be your only motive for picking up a book. . . . Why lie to make a false point? Kicks? . . . Why—so you can lie about it afterwards?

Here's where the disquieting generalizations you're making about LF writers, lit professors and others become personal and unpleasant.

You have no right to call other members "worthless humans," nor to assert they're "lying," which degrades the discussion to some sort of post-Jerry-Springer, post-Fox-News accusation tournament, which is exactly what a thread with a title like this one's is in danger of becoming. I'm going to ask you politely to reign it in a touch and speak to others here as if they were worthwhile human beings. Everyone here is worthwhile in the fairest sense.

You know, it's really pointless to converse with such a thoughtless human. The purpose of all literature is the same as non-fiction obviously—to convey information, and therefore to learn, whether it be about the uses of the various parts of the sperm whale in Moby Dick, or to gain insight into the motives of a murderous mindset as in Father Brown. It is not to sit and look at all the pretty words, which seems to be your only motive for picking up a book. If you aren't picking up a book to learn, then don't bother reading at all. You're just wasting your time just as you've wasting my time throughout this thread.

Which demonstrates my point - the purpose of literature is no more restricted to the conveying of information than the purpose of painting is restricted to conveying information about what, for example, sunflowers look like, or the purpose of music is to covey information about what, for example, a bassoon sounds like. Your promise, which you broke subsequently, to take no further part in this thread is to be welcomed.

Well, that was straight-up rude.

Well, that was straight-up rude.

In response to, "You know, it's really pointless to converse with such a thoughtless human." You thought, 'I'd rather not talk to you, either,' was rude?
:blink:

Well, that was straight-up rude.

What was rude about it?

Diap was probably responding to the spam that was there but was deleted.

In response to, "You know, it's really pointless to converse with such a thoughtless human." You thought, 'I'd rather not talk to you, either,' was rude?
It's hard to grasp the reasoning, isn't it? ;)
Even though leaving it unexplained would amuse me on a certain childish level...

... I was responding to a spam post (before mine and after TGS's) that has since been removed by a moderator. Leaving my "rude" comment rather orphaned.

EDIT: Thank you odiakkoh. ;)

... I was responding to a spam post (before mine and after TGS's) that has since been removed by a moderator. Leaving my "rude" comment rather orphaned.

EDIT: Thank you odiakkoh. ;)

Feeling rather sorry for your orphaned post - take a stroll over to the Politics and Religion thread, I'm sure there's a good home for it there :D

Feeling rather sorry for your orphaned post - take a stroll over to the Politics and Religion thread, I'm sure there's a good home for it there :D
That's no place for a poor little orphaned post. :eek:

I don't know much about him [Umberto Eco]. Maybe if he did his own translations he would come across better, but I doubt it.


Then, if you do not know much about what you are talking about, why talking about it?

... I was responding to a spam post (before mine and after TGS's) that has since been removed by a moderator. Leaving my "rude" comment rather orphaned.


It might be time to master the "reply with quote" buttons--third time in this thread I've been at a loss for which way your post was pointed, though I'm sure this time would have been clearer if things hadn't been rearranged on you.

ETA:
Then, if you do not know much about what you are talking about, why talking about it?

He is convinced that he has inferred the gamut of 20-21st century literature from an obscure Modernist, C.S. Lewis, and some fantasy novels (plus those 40-odd pages of Foucault's Pendulum).

It might be time to master the "reply with quote" buttons--third time in this thread I've been at a loss for which way your post was pointed, though I'm sure this time would have been clearer if things hadn't been rearranged on you.
I assure you that my mastery of all things button-y and quote-ish are quite complete. I oftentimes choose not to use to use the quote button—mostly because I find it so tiresome, but also because I consider the technique to be a bit of a conversational "crutch." Surely, someone as astute as you is not opposed to a little closer (or repeated) examination of the written word to discern hidden, obscure or even simply contextual meaning?

In this case however, I didn't think it would be appropriate to quote almost two full pages of solicitation. I don't care for clutter. :p

I oftentimes choose not to use to use the quote button

Was the use of the double "to use" an example of the much vilified literary bravura which, apparently, literary fiction is much prone to? :D

That was an echo. :o

I just find that in a conversation involving multiple people, it helps not to direct your statements to the lefthand ceiling-corner of the room.




DIAPDEALER!
;)

I've been coming to the conviction over the past couple months that it's just best practice, when responding to specific statements in a thread on any forum, to quote those statements, or at least some representative sample. Otherwise I end up creating miscommunications or finding intervening posts (or mod actions) have changed the context of my statements, or going on longer than necessary trying to be clear just to get around the necessity of quoting.

Also, now I'm curious what kind of spam runs two pages :blink:

Also, now I'm curious what kind of spam runs two pages :blink:

Some noir magazine guy. Tl;dr lol. He posted in like ten different threads too.

Also, now I'm curious what kind of spam runs two pages
Happy now? ;)

It was posted in many different threads. I'm sure it was appropriate for a shameless self-promotion thread, so perhaps they allowed it to exist there. But it was basically an SEO-grubbing post for a start-up crime/noir ezine looking for submissions and traffic.

You know, it's really pointless to converse with such a thoughtless human. The purpose of all literature is the same as non-fiction obviously—to convey information, and therefore to learn, whether it be about the uses of the various parts of the sperm whale in Moby Dick, or to gain insight into the motives of a murderous mindset as in Father Brown. It is not to sit and look at all the pretty words, which seems to be your only motive for picking up a book. If you aren't picking up a book to learn, then don't bother reading at all. You're just wasting your time just as you've wasting my time throughout this thread.
No, it's not :smack: Who told you that? :blink:

If you are only picking up books in such a utilitarian frame of mind, you are certainly sure never to be entertained or enlightened - which is other primary purposes of fiction.

I see much alike between literary fiction and modern art. Both are/can be difficult to understand and require you to approach it with an open mind and making an effort. Some background knowledge of the topic typically helps too. That's why I don't read much literary fiction - im lazy :p But when I do invest the time and attention, I usually find it a more rewarding, enlightening and enriching experience than just plain, "low", entertaining fiction.

No, it's not :smack: Who told you that? :blink:

If you are only picking up books in such a utilitarian frame of mind, you are certainly sure never to be entertained or enlightened - which is other primary purposes of fiction.

I see much alike between literary fiction and modern art. Both are/can be difficult to understand and require you to approach it with an open mind and making an effort. Some background knowledge of the topic typically helps too. That's why I don't read much literary fiction - im lazy :p But when I do invest the time and attention, I usually find it a more rewarding, enlightening and enriching experience than just plain, "low", entertaining fiction.

Excellent point. I have to say that I like some historically-set fiction that could be said to be literary like The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which I raved about, or would that just be historical fiction? I don't like the "historical fiction" that is actually romance, though.

Excellent point. I have to say that I like some historically-set fiction that could be said to be literary like The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which I raved about, or would that just be historical fiction? I don't like the "historical fiction" that is actually romance, though.
I think it's too limiting to think we can only apply one label to each book. I don't know the book you mentioned, but I can't see any reason why it couldn't possibly be literary as well as historical fiction. "Anathem" is IMHO both sci-fi and literary - as an example. For me it comes down to the quality of the book and its purpose (to entertain, to enlighten, to be an artistic expression), not what genre it is.

I think it's too limiting to think we can only apply one label to each book. I don't know the book you mentioned, but I can't see any reason why it's possibly literary as well as historical fiction. "Anathem" is IMHO both sci-fi and literary - as an example. For me it comes down to the quality of the book and its purpose (to entertain, to enlighten, to be an artistic expression), not what genre it is.
If you're not careful, you guys are going to come full circle to the one and only point I was ever trying to make: the term "literary fiction" is not very helpful in describing a book. ;)

You've just finished a book that you thought was fantastic, insightful, innovative and artistic. When someone inevitably asks you what kind of book it is, how many of you can truthfully say that the very first words out of your mouth will be; "Well, it's literary fiction!" ?

If you're not careful, you guys are going to come full circle to the one and only point I was ever trying to make: the term "literary fiction" is not very helpful in describing a book. ;)
I wouldn't go that far. Generally for me "literary" means intellectually challenging, with high quality prose and story-telling. I don't think you can describe those qualities through other genres.

You've just finished a book that you thought was fantastic, insightful, innovative and artistic. When someone inevitably asks you what kind of book it is, how many of you can truthfully say that the first very first words out of your mouth will be; "Well, it's literary fiction!" ?
Would your first words be, for example; "Well, it's historical fiction!" (or sci-fi or crime or thriller etc.)
If it is a book that can best be described by "literary", then yes, of course I'd describe it that way.

Would your first words be, for example; "Well, it's historical fiction!" (or sci-fi or crime or thriller etc.)
Absolutely. "It was historical fiction.... with literary elements/qualities... I think you'd probably like it."

If it is a book that can best be described by "literary", then yes, of course I'd describe it that way.
And would the person who asked the question be satisfied with that answer, in all likelihood? Or would you probably have to elaborate further?

Absolutely. "It was historical fiction with literary elements/qualities... I think you'd like it."
I thought you literally meant to say: "Well, it's historical fiction!" ... In any case, yes, I'd say it's literary (a Danish equivalent thereof, of course), if it's a person who reads literary book themselves. If it's someone of whom I know they don't read anything but the most trivial literature, I might talk about what the story is about instead.

And would the person who asked the question be satisfied with that answer? Or would you probably have to elaborate further?
That would depend entirely of the person. In most cases I am asked to explain what I read - in the rare case that anyone asks at all, that is - because I often read books that no-one else around here reads, by authors no-one has heard of because they haven't been translated into Danish. Usually people are just too baffled by the ebook reader that they forget to ask about the actual book...

Fair enough. :D

Indeed. :D

[Insert single word and grinning emoticon.]

[Insert single word and grinning emoticon.]
No no no. I was already down to one word. You have to go lower, like this:

. :D

Yes, but your word was still two syllables.

I meant to say single-syllable word, but was annoyed that that would take six syllables. Yes seemed too agreeable and no too arbitrary.

I think it's too limiting to think we can only apply one label to each book. I don't know the book you mentioned, but I can't see any reason why it's possibly literary as well as historical fiction. "Anathem" is IMHO both sci-fi and literary - as an example. For me it comes down to the quality of the book and its purpose (to entertain, to enlighten, to be an artistic expression), not what genre it is.

Exactly.

And what is the difference in Literary and Mainstream?

(apologies if this was already discussed. I'm jumping in without testing the water first)

Exactly.

And what is the difference in Literary and Mainstream?

(apologies if this was already discussed. I'm jumping in without testing the water first)

As you've seen, the waters are mostly becalmed. I think it's worth discussing meaningful distinctions between mainstream and literary fiction, but it doesn't get far before people get defensive about their own reading preferences or try to declare all categories that lack fixed, empirical boundaries (which is to say, all categories) null and void.

My own position, put forward in my first post, is that literary fiction is distinguishable from mainstream fiction mainly in terms of ambition--or experimentation if you prefer--rather than quality. Anyone with a taste for literary fiction will have encountered works clearly written with literary aims, but just as clearly falling short. Mainstream fiction is discernible mainly by reliance upon formula; in Pop Culture studies, there's a lot of discussion of the ratio of invention to convention. We expect some invention in mainstream fiction, but when a work confounds our expectations beyond a certain threshold, we begin to recognize that we're dealing with something different, something that will very likely require greater intellectual engagement if we want to see what the author is getting at. Exactly.

And what is the difference in Literary and Mainstream?

(apologies if this was already discussed. I'm jumping in without testing the water first)

I think I've basically agree with what you are saying. Mainstream has certain 'middle of the road' requirements.

I agree it's more useful to make distinctions in classification than quality or inferred attitudes.

However, I wonder how mainstream Calvino intended to be when he wrote Cosmicomics and T Zero. And I also wonder whether perceptible modesty is the most important quality with which an ambitious writer should be concerned no matter what their classification. There's a certain enshrined ostentation in science fiction -- a look-at-me inventiveness -- which I don't mind at all. I think it's a positive attribute in books like Anathem. I also don't mind it when Pound interrupts the Cantos to say "I shall have to learn more Greek, but so shall you [the reader], drat you." Pound thought he was trying to save civilization when he wrote that. I'm glad he cared about civilization in the first place.

In other words, an eclectic vocabulary, latinate style or difficult system of reference is not necessarily a defect, nor need it be proven crucial to the work in which it is used to be tolerable. It's a feature and nothing more or less. If that writer happens to hear the work in that way and his work has that feature as a result, then sobeit. Eccentricity is not necessarily a defect, nor difficulty an affectation.

I agree it's more useful to make distinctions in classification than quality or inferred attitudes.

However, I wonder how mainstream Calvino intended to be when he wrote Cosmicomics and T Zero. And I also wonder whether perceptible modesty is the most important quality with which an ambitious writer should be concerned no matter what their classification. There's a certain enshrined ostentation in science fiction -- a look-at-me inventiveness -- which I don't mind at all. I think it's a positive attribute in books like Anathem. I also don't mind it when Pound interrupts the Cantos to say "I shall have to learn more Greek, but so shall you [the reader], drat you." Pound thought he was trying to save civilization when he wrote that. I'm glad he cared about civilization in the first place.

I have to say this paragraph is confounding me. I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but neither do I see how any of it constitutes a "However" to the line above. Calvino almost certainly gave no consideration to producing mainstream work, and if anything I suspect his aims for his early works were even more experimental than the end result. Still, there's little argument that his works are experimental in a manner that defies convention, in keeping with my characterization of literary fiction. Yes, science fiction authors are expected to employ inventive premises, but if easily recognizable archetypes don't trace predictable orbits around those premises, we cease to see the work as sci-fi, the easy example being Vonnegut.

I have to say this paragraph is confounding me. I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but neither do I see how any of it constitutes a "However" to the line above. Calvino almost certainly gave no consideration to producing mainstream work and if anything I suspect his aims for his early works were even more experimental than the end result. . . . .

However is in this case a rhetorical consequent to the antecedent in a previous post. I could have quoted that bit, but I thought the quote was implied by my echo of the word mainstream:

My own position, put forward in my first post, is that literary fiction is distinguishable from mainstream fiction mainly in terms of ambition--or experimentation if you prefer--rather than quality.

Perhaps I should have said this to make the point more clear:

However, even unprejudiced categorization is usually a matter of practicality and not exactitude.

T Zero and Cosmicomics are known to appeal to science fiction readers and could therefore be considered crossover (or genre-audience-friendly) books. However, I doubt Calvino was thinking of them that way. Additionally, science fiction is often written with a kind of literary ostentation and, whatever the merits of the end result, is often quite ambitious. However, I doubt those writers are thinking of the books as literary in the sense of occupying some literary niche. Thom Disch was a science fiction writer so literary in temperament that he was at one time an editor of the Paris Review. However, his books seem only to be considered literary by fans who dislike that aspect of his writing. Ellison and others thought him precious, which he was not.

Additionally, SF has traditionally been the genre in which one could play with experimental (or quasi-experimental, if you prefer) style without alienating or disappointing one's audience. J.G. Ballard's middle period is a famous example of this, and the experimentation in Atrocity Exhibition seems the side-effect of his temperament rather than literary ambition.

I make these distinctions to qualify, not refute, your provisional definition. Compartmentalization is useful and I don't mean to dismiss its usefulness. But it also can be arbitrary, even in Roland Barthes. (Luckily, Barthes knew that, which is why he had so much fun.)

I mention post-50s science fiction because of specific parallels to literary fiction. But SF isn't the only genre subject to placement ambiguity.

Years ago, I wrote a book that won an award for best contemporary fiction but was also nominated for the two biggest horror awards. For years after that, sellers placed the book in the horror and mainstream sections of their bookstores.

I found I didn't care where they put the book. I was thankful they chose to carry it in the first place.

Re your mention of Kurt Vonnegut:

We cease to see the work as sci-fi, the easy example being Vonnegut.

Vonnegut's literary classification had far more to do with his accessibility and embrace of crossover status than his eventual subject matter. Crap Artist didn't change Philip K. Dick's status as a science fiction writer, nor has Chip Delaney's later work changed his: Both felt at home with the idea of being consigned to what Wm. Gibson calls "the golden ghetto." Whereas Vonnegut was delighted to find his way out of a genre he seems to have considered intrinsically flawed and gaudy.

[People] love to stay up all night, arguing the question, "What is science-fiction?" One might as usefully inquire, "What are the Elks?"

The lodge [called science fiction] will dissolve. All lodges do, sooner or later. And more and more writers in "the mainstream," as science-fiction people call the world outside the file-drawer, will include technology in their tales, will give it at least the respect due in a narrative to a wicked stepmother. Meanwhile, if you write stories that are weak on dialogue and motivation and characterization and common sense, you could do worse than throw in a little chemistry or physics, or, even witchcraft, and mail them off to the science-fiction magazines.

-- Kurt Vonnegut, "On Science Fiction"