This article asks the question, “Is Literary Fiction A Sham?”
I can answer that question. The answer is yes.
I’m always fascinated to read articles about ‘literary fiction’ that presupposes that such a genre exists. There is no such thing as ‘literary’ fiction. Yes, there are different stylistic choices that authors make. Yes certain stories rely more on plot than others do. But the idea that some authors write literary fiction and others write genre fiction isn’t just incorrect or insulting, it’s stupid.
You cannot categorize taste. The genre of literary fiction is a category of taste. You can try to sell it any other way. It’s the ‘these are the intelligent, thought-provoking books’ category. Genre books are the dumb hoi polloi books. The books that people don’t think about when they write and don’t think about when they read. The guilty pleasure books.
Literary fiction is worthy of college classes and term papers.
Genre fiction is worthy of movie adaptations and fan fiction.
Can we stop this ridiculousness?
You want to know why there is a genre called literary fiction? It exists because it is marketable. Publishing companies can package books that are marketed to the intelligentsia and their sycophants. If a category exists only because it is marketable then isn’t it—by it’s very nature—existing in opposition to the aims of art and style?
There are plotty mystery novels that I could analyze with the same depth that I might analyze Joyce or Woolf.
There are examples of ‘chick lit’ that are more substantive than most of Ernest Hemingway’s body of work.
The above referenced article does a great job of listing alternatives to how we categorize novels, so I wont go into that here. All I want to convey is the simple notion that the type of novel you write does not determine the quality of your writing. Why someone should be surprised that a writer of ‘real literature’ should also write fantasy is beyond me (as the author in the above article indicates some would be).
All I ask is that people who defend the works that they think are legitimately good do so with reasoned analysis and evidence. As long as we can enter a conversation on the merits of a work on those grounds, then I don’t care what ‘genre’ a publisher categorizes that work as.
Hear, hear!