Quote:
Originally Posted by spellbanisher
Sometimes, as in the case of James Joyce and Ulysses, writers do use techniques to direct attention to the use of language itself.
While I agree with the drift of your post, I would place a caveat on your last point. Yes, one can say that a technique is faulty if it detracts from the authors main purpose, as long as the readers understand when they pick up a work of literary fiction that it will use unconventional styles to achieve a purpose. If their perspective, is, however, that deviation from conventional style, like omitting quotation marks, is ipso facto pretentious, then I wouldn't say that the author has failed in his purpose, but that the reader read the book expecting it to be something that it was never intended to be. In that case, we are in a situation similar to someone who hates alcohol complaining that there is alcohol in his budweiser.
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The point of literary fiction is not that it will use unconventional styles, but that it may use unconventional styles, and if so it will be done with purpose.
I'd also argue that when it's done well, the reader's expectations don't matter much. The work does its own talking.