Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
I would agree with that (your comment about Austen's work/class & money). Vis: chicklit, that term, which started out derogatorily, has more or less come to mean more-humorous (than less, I mean) LitFic aimed at women. Yes, it can have situational humor or comedy, even slapstick if done remarkably well, but it's still MOSTLY LitFic (a woman managing her life, navigating life's obstacles, and working on her interior development) primarily targeted to/at women readers.
So...happily, I think that Austen would find the entire discussion pretty funny. :-)
Hitch
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This occasions a mini-rant of my own. It may just be me, but I dislike how the term litfic, as short for literary fiction, has been
corrupted altered, seemingly, to mean any kind of fiction that’s not genre fiction. What was a useful, descriptive term is now so all-embracing as to mean nothing at all. What would you call “serious fiction, the kind that’s reviewed in the NYRB etc., what Hemingway and Wharton wrote before it turned classic”? That’s what used to be literary fiction. Now it’s absolutely useless as a sieve.