I’ll come straight to the point. I have always believed that the term “Literary Fiction” should be applied retrospectively. In other words, once others have read and assessed it they can choose to bestow the epithet upon a work.
This was the case in the nineteen-sixties when the term began to be used. Nowadays, however, it appears that some people are actively engaged in promoting their own work as “Literary Fiction” (and, yes I do plan to put inverted commas around the term each time I use it).
“Literary” is an attributive term relating to literature, “…especially of the kind valued for quality of form or associated with literary works or other formal writing…” The OED has a definition that identifies the term when applied to writing as “…having a marked style intended to create a particular emotional effect…” Curiously, none of my dictionaries even has an entry for “Literary Fiction” but then, they were written a while ago.
We all know the argument that works of “Literary Fiction” have no plot but I don’t believe this is entirely true. There is a plot – there has to be – but such as it is, it is subject to the author’s intentions regarding character, emotion, sensibility and so, frequently takes second place, a fact that seems to have escaped many film-makers. Think of all those literary novels that become feature films and ask, why are they so dull? Mind you, I suppose a best-selling book, extant is a pretty good advert for the film.
Now, this falling away of plot, appears to have led to a number of people who did well in English at school, coming to believe that they need not worry about stories at all and still become a writer. No research, no tying up of loose ends, no “arc”; just… literature.
This would not be a problem were it not for the fact that so many authors of “Literary Fiction” believe that their work rises above the mundane world of what they like to refer to as “Genre Fiction” (i.e. everything else). They would contend, one supposes, that their work is literary in nature – that is: “of literature” and so is to writing what fine art is to graphic design.
A trawl of writing sites turned up the following: “Literary Fiction” novels:
…employ a wide vocabulary.
…are character driven
…explore the human condition.
…are “serious”
…are “multi-levelled”
…and my own personal favourite from Robert McCrum “…those serious-minded novels of high artistic intent by writers with a passionate commitment to the moral purpose of fiction…”
So if “Literary Fiction” is to be defined by these terms, then “Genre Fiction” ipso facto possesses none of these attributes. I pause whilst you take that in…
Well, I’m convinced.
Authors of “Literary Fiction” are clearly better than the rest of us and we should prostrate ourselves in their presence. Except…
A very great amount of that which purports to be “Literary Fiction” (and by this, I mean that which is recognized as such by no-one, save its perpetrators) is really not terribly literary. I would quote but I don’t want to get into trouble so I’ll finish with my own guide to those who would like to sit down and write themselves a “Literary Fiction” novel.
1 It is vital to use convoluted sentences, whose meaning is lost beneath a welter of inappropriate (and occasionally made-up) adjectives and adverbs:
“Charles takes solace in his lovesome Proust, this one last, needful time as Jennifer promptly regales him with the vagaries of her day.”
Oh, and use present tense whenever possible and sometimes, even when it isn’t.
2 Make sure that you use inappropriate and unnecessary similes and not using punctuation:
“The immensity of his words struck Abigail enormously like a heavy weight bearing upon her very soul”
3 Remember to use words whose meaning you only vaguely understand:
“It was as though, metaphorically, Jane’s death had been the progenitor of his distress.”
4 Never display humour.
"...so deeply engaged in contemplation of his own anomie, Nigel failed to notice the discarded yellow fruit-cloak, already displaying evidence of brown, foetid decay, in his path. Suddenly, it was as though he had been ejected from the very planet; thrust upwards in an arc, which echoed the bow of Athene on the bas-relief which he could now see as he turned ninety degrees from the perpendicular. The sense of loss; the grief and torment. Gravity would not, could not allow him his freedom and, as he returned to her, he could almost sense the relief, the joy, the sheer grateful Wunderbarheit of the tired World, as she once more enfolded him in her arms..."
5 Employ, whenever you can, all of the above:
“…and here it was, beneath this portentious, loathsome, vertiginous, monolithic rock, overlooking the deep profundity of Devil’s Tarn, that the golden child drew her ultimate sussuratory gasp like the balloon she had been given on her birthday that turned out to have a hole in it.”
fin
Got any examples?
This was the case in the nineteen-sixties when the term began to be used. Nowadays, however, it appears that some people are actively engaged in promoting their own work as “Literary Fiction” (and, yes I do plan to put inverted commas around the term each time I use it).
“Literary” is an attributive term relating to literature, “…especially of the kind valued for quality of form or associated with literary works or other formal writing…” The OED has a definition that identifies the term when applied to writing as “…having a marked style intended to create a particular emotional effect…” Curiously, none of my dictionaries even has an entry for “Literary Fiction” but then, they were written a while ago.
We all know the argument that works of “Literary Fiction” have no plot but I don’t believe this is entirely true. There is a plot – there has to be – but such as it is, it is subject to the author’s intentions regarding character, emotion, sensibility and so, frequently takes second place, a fact that seems to have escaped many film-makers. Think of all those literary novels that become feature films and ask, why are they so dull? Mind you, I suppose a best-selling book, extant is a pretty good advert for the film.
Now, this falling away of plot, appears to have led to a number of people who did well in English at school, coming to believe that they need not worry about stories at all and still become a writer. No research, no tying up of loose ends, no “arc”; just… literature.
This would not be a problem were it not for the fact that so many authors of “Literary Fiction” believe that their work rises above the mundane world of what they like to refer to as “Genre Fiction” (i.e. everything else). They would contend, one supposes, that their work is literary in nature – that is: “of literature” and so is to writing what fine art is to graphic design.
A trawl of writing sites turned up the following: “Literary Fiction” novels:
…employ a wide vocabulary.
…are character driven
…explore the human condition.
…are “serious”
…are “multi-levelled”
…and my own personal favourite from Robert McCrum “…those serious-minded novels of high artistic intent by writers with a passionate commitment to the moral purpose of fiction…”
So if “Literary Fiction” is to be defined by these terms, then “Genre Fiction” ipso facto possesses none of these attributes. I pause whilst you take that in…
Well, I’m convinced.
Authors of “Literary Fiction” are clearly better than the rest of us and we should prostrate ourselves in their presence. Except…
A very great amount of that which purports to be “Literary Fiction” (and by this, I mean that which is recognized as such by no-one, save its perpetrators) is really not terribly literary. I would quote but I don’t want to get into trouble so I’ll finish with my own guide to those who would like to sit down and write themselves a “Literary Fiction” novel.
1 It is vital to use convoluted sentences, whose meaning is lost beneath a welter of inappropriate (and occasionally made-up) adjectives and adverbs:
“Charles takes solace in his lovesome Proust, this one last, needful time as Jennifer promptly regales him with the vagaries of her day.”
Oh, and use present tense whenever possible and sometimes, even when it isn’t.
2 Make sure that you use inappropriate and unnecessary similes and not using punctuation:
“The immensity of his words struck Abigail enormously like a heavy weight bearing upon her very soul”
3 Remember to use words whose meaning you only vaguely understand:
“It was as though, metaphorically, Jane’s death had been the progenitor of his distress.”
4 Never display humour.
"...so deeply engaged in contemplation of his own anomie, Nigel failed to notice the discarded yellow fruit-cloak, already displaying evidence of brown, foetid decay, in his path. Suddenly, it was as though he had been ejected from the very planet; thrust upwards in an arc, which echoed the bow of Athene on the bas-relief which he could now see as he turned ninety degrees from the perpendicular. The sense of loss; the grief and torment. Gravity would not, could not allow him his freedom and, as he returned to her, he could almost sense the relief, the joy, the sheer grateful Wunderbarheit of the tired World, as she once more enfolded him in her arms..."
5 Employ, whenever you can, all of the above:
“…and here it was, beneath this portentious, loathsome, vertiginous, monolithic rock, overlooking the deep profundity of Devil’s Tarn, that the golden child drew her ultimate sussuratory gasp like the balloon she had been given on her birthday that turned out to have a hole in it.”
fin
Got any examples?
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