Quote:
Originally Posted by Ransom
The trouble here is that your definition of LF is simply not that of most other people.
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"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.