A Question of Genre - What is Literary Fiction?

Recently I read an article where a literary editor posed the question “is literary fiction dead?” In the article the author argued that contemporary “genre specific fiction” was dominating the market, with literary fiction becoming increasingly niche. So much so that the relevance of literary fiction in a wider context needed to be reevaluated. This interested me, from the perspective of both a book enthusiast and a writer who has previously struggled with grasping the meaning of genre as it relates to my work. Reading between the lines I concluded that the editor was in essence, suggesting that literary, or in other words well written fiction, was on its way out. I found the notion that literary fiction as a genre might be suffering quite perplexing, as for many years I’d felt compelled to place the novel that I was working on in the literary fiction category. Yet, at the time I could not articulate exactly why I felt that my novel should be considered “literary.” I have come to suspect that it had much to do with the prestige that this particular genre inferred.  Thus, I was somewhat bemused when a portion of my book was read by a published author who whilst praising my writing style casually commented that he saw the novel commercial, albeit with a “literary edge”.  This threw me a little, and whilst I eventually came to embrace the idea of my novel being deemed commercial I initially couldn’t help but wonder whether my book was more basic and less deep than I had hoped.

That I experienced such ambiguous feelings relating to where my novel, when published, would sit in the market, suggested to me that perhaps I had unwittingly developed what I have come to refer to as literary snobbery. A phrase that came to me eight years earlier when reading a degree in English and Creative Writing. Back then, as now, my reading was varied and my assumption was that anyone who loved literature would expose themselves to a wide range of genres. As if purposely setting out to prove my assumption wrong, my then Creative Writing tutor, in response to my enthusiasm for Stephen King’s earlier works, stated that he had never read a Stephen King novel. In response, and oblivious to my tutor’s slightly pompous tone, I exclaimed “really, well you should give Misery a try, it’s brilliant.” He smiled thinly and commented that he “couldn’t envisage himself ever reading Stephen King.” In the first instance, and due in part to naivety on my part, the inference that King’s work represented commercial, distinctly un-literary clap trap was totally lost on me and I reasoned that my tutor simply had an extensive reading list, one that did not feature King. It wasn’t long before I realised that my tutor had decided that he only had time to read real literature. My tutor had formed an opinion on books he had never read, based solely on preconceived ideas pertaining to the merits of commercial fiction. But then, by insisting that my writing be consider literary I was, in effect, subscribing to a notion not dissimilar to my tutor’s, one that placed literature in hierarchical form, with commercial novels residing far below those highly prized, award winning, literary gems. Now, I’m not suggesting that someone who has never read King or who does not like King’s work, are missing out on anything. There are many bestselling authors whose popularity I really don’t get, and then there are certain novels, like Fifty Shades of Grey, that I have felt justified in dismissing completely.

To this end, whilst it maybe misguided to dismiss a whole genre of writing, thereby subscribing to a type of literary elitism, surely everyone one would agree that there is such a thing as good and bad writing. Or is there? For me, Stephen King’s Pet Sematary and Cormac McCarthy's Road are both classics and reflect good writing because, regardless of their theme, genre, and so on, the plots are well developed, the description and dialogue original and the execution meets literary standards. Unlike Fifty Shades of Grey, which although one of the world’s biggest selling novels, contains numerous spelling and grammatical errors, the description and dialogue are basic and clichéd and the plot predictable. All in all this particular novel, which I gave up after the first two chapters, reflects bad writing and therefore could never be described as the least bit literary. Hmmm… there I go again injecting my old nemesis, the literary snob, into my considerations, passing judgement on a novel that I failed to complete. And anyway, is the term "literary" really another way of describing good and bad writing? Thereby suggesting that there are certain literary standards in place that work to determing which books make the grade? To answer this question perhaps we need to take a moment to clearly define what is meant by literary fiction? Goodreads.com describes literary fiction as follows: 

Literary fiction is a term that has come into common usage in the early 1960s. The term is principally used to distinguish "serious fiction" which is a work that claims to hold literary merit, in comparison from genre fiction and popular fiction.

With the above definition in mind, novels that can be described as literary fiction are obvious and must surely include works such as: Alice Walker’s Colour Purple, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Sarah Water’s Fingersmith, Jean Rhy’s Wide Sargasso Sea, Rani Manicka’s Rice Mother, and of course all the Brontè, Dickens and Victorian classics, to name but a few. For me, when considering the above titles, what they all have in common is there timelessness. These are serious novels that transcend time, place and to an extent culture by exploring universal themes and also present the reader with an emotional and intellectual challenge. Interestingly, when I searched the net for novels that fell into the literary fiction genre none of the books that I had considered so highly were present (or even nearly present) and the majority of those favoured were one’s that I had either never heard of or immediately decided ‘were not my thing.’ It would seem then, that no matter how hard I try to accurately define literary fiction as a genre, when seeking to the identify serious novels that may fall into such a category, we continuously revert back to what can only be described as a matter of an opinion.

Ironically, this brings back memories of a piece I wrote for my end of year English Language project. I submitted a short story which my then tutor, the lovely Mrs Ball, allocated a grade A, describing it as an excellent example of original and compelling fiction. The person charged with marking the piece saw things differently and allocated it a Grade C, stating that whilst she could see what I was attempting to achieve, I was being too cleaver for my own good and thus hadn’t achieved it. Outraged, Mrs Ball insisted that I resubmit the piece and, low and behold a different marker agreed with my tutor and it was allocated a final grade A. That experience suggested to me that literature, like food, is good or bad dependent wholly on the palette of the person tasting it.

Surely, by accepting that literary fiction is simply a genre, one that does not connote the value of a piece, meaning that the term literary and serious/good are not mutually exclusive, the task of categorisation will prove much easier. It could also mean that the editor was correct and literary fiction is indeed dead, not due to a drop in standards of writing but due to the world producing less and less literary snobs. In conclusion, I remain unconvinced that literary fiction as a genre is real and alive in ways that do not promote it as superior to other genres. On the other hand, if we are to preserve the very best literature for generations to come, then perhaps a certain hierarchy is needed. Would Hard Times or Wuthering Heights have survived without the great English cannon. Or does the great English cannon mean that certain books were lorded whilst others, which maybe have been just as worthy, fell by the wayside, deemed forever too commercial to make the grade? So, what do you think of the term literary fiction, and what does the genre represent for you?

Written by Michelle Shakespeare @ Ready2Write.co.uk