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