Quote:
Originally Posted by jgaiser
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.
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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.