# Genre Fiction v Literary Fiction



## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

I found this to be an interesting conversation. I started with Arthur Krystal of the New Yorker writing Easy Writers about the proliferation of low-brow genre fiction.

It was then responded to by Lev Grossman of Time in his article Literary Revolution in the Supermarket Aisle: Genre Fiction Is Disruptive Technology.

This is good stuff and I love the long running discussion between Literary and Genre fiction and how never the twain shall meet. I found Krystal's article to be written from a typical New Yorker perspective that there are classes to fiction and that Literary is the top and everything else is the unwashed masses that should, at best, be tolerated and ignored.


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## Twofishes (May 30, 2012)

Geoffrey said:


> I found Krystal's article to be written from a typical New Yorker perspective that there are classes to fiction and that Literary is the top and everything else is the unwashed masses that should, at best, be tolerated and ignored.


I didn't read that exactly. I generally had the same impression but I thought Krystal was a bit softer. My expectation of pretense from the New Yorker was somewhat unfulfilled.

I can't say where I stand on this. What do you think of the literary landscape today?
I think answering that goes a long way to developing an opinion on the genre vs literary argument.


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## charlesatan (May 8, 2012)

Geoffrey, have you read the nonfiction from this month's Science Fiction issue of The New Yorker? Some of the literary writers read science fiction and influenced them (others not so much...)


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## apbschmitz (Apr 22, 2011)

From what I read of it, the New Yorker's sci-fi issue is pretty much sneer-free. Would have been interesting to be the fly on the wall for the editorial meetings where that issue was proposed. Easy to imagine some forehead smacking at that one. Next up: the New Yorker zombie issue.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

For me, one of the most salient points in the 2nd (rebuttal?) article is the concept that writing clean, easy-to-read prose is not, in fact, easy; and _good_ plotting is as much of an artistic skill as any other of the writer's tools.


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## Alpha72 (May 9, 2012)

For me, the question of literary vs. low-brow fiction depends entirely on the reader's approach. If the reader wants to look at a work of fiction like a lit student, that's great. Anything can be interpreted to have many levels of meaning. I could stare at a painted wall and draw out significance...if only from the fact that we have this need for significance in the first place. At the same time, I could read a classic work of literature as genre fiction.

The division seems a bit silly to me.


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

I think the difference is between books that engage and those that entertain.  Taking science fiction as a genre,  for example, Stanislaw Lem will defiantly engage a reader's mind whereas David Weber can do little more than fill up a few empty hours with droll amusement. But many people will see the science fiction label and downgrade Lem to the Weber level without thinking.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## BRONZEAGE (Jun 25, 2011)

Geemont said:


> I think the difference is between books that engage and those that entertain. Taking science fiction as a genre, for example, Stanislaw Lem will defiantly engage a reader's mind whereas David Weber can do little more than fill up a few empty hours with droll amusement. But many people will see the science fiction label and downgrade Lem to the Weber level without thinking.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Yes.

( & Both essays seem self-indulgent.)


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## smallblondehippy (Jan 20, 2012)

Ryan Britt from Tor.com has written an interesting commentary on The New Yorker's science fiction issue.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/05/genre-in-the-mainstream-the-science-fiction-issue-of-the-new-yorker

For me the New Yorker issue smacks a little of a high-brow publication trying to slum it with us genre ruffians. The debate is fun though isn't it?


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## MartinStanley72 (May 17, 2011)

NogDog said:


> For me, one of the most salient points in the 2nd (rebuttal?) article is the concept that writing clean, easy-to-read prose is not, in fact, easy; and _good_ plotting is as much of an artistic skill as any other of the writer's tools.


I totally agree with both these points. Good, clean sentences and descriptions can be just as powerful as long, clause-heavy ones that are rich in poetic meanings. Its all about the writer, to be honest. Good writers are good writers, regardless of genre. Snobbery on both sides does nobody any good.


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## Twofishes (May 30, 2012)

MartinStanley72 said:


> I totally agree with both these points. Good, clean sentences and descriptions can be just as powerful as long, clause-heavy ones that are rich in poetic meanings. Its all about the writer, to be honest. Good writers are good writers, regardless of genre. Snobbery on both sides does nobody any good.


I cannot agree with this. I have a hard time comparing hypothetical sentences. It seems to me that this is getting down to easy reader vs complex reader(as opposed to the original: genre vs literary, which I think carries a more nuanced opposition).

It's hard for me to express this thought clearly. I think an easy-reader can be held in the highest regard. I think a genre piece can as well. I've read brilliant, well regarded books that almost didn't have a plot too. It's subjective and it's objective all at once.

I like to think fiction has a cutting edge. I like to think authors stand on each other's shoulders. I like to think sometimes books are published that are actually meant for the future. And to myself I like to think that in 2012 and beyond if you want to be on the cutting edge of fiction you have to be (at least) somewhat speculative. Which means(in my mind at least) genre writers are in the queue to have something put into the immortal lexicon of greatness(qualifying that is an entirely different conversation).

My original comment


> ...What do you think of the literary landscape today?


Maybe Neil Gaiman got there with _ American Gods_, maybe the jury is still out. Anyway I didn't read Gaiman's next two but I was told he went away from it(immortal lexicon of greatness). Gaiman is a good example here I think. Chronic speculator who writes a book (_ American Gods_), with a lot of speculation that gets a good amount of love from the literati. But Gaiman went away from it(or so I'm told) and I don't see any other genre people making the leap(into the immortal lexicon of greatness).

But that just means I'm missing out on something everyone else has caught onto already. _ American Gods_ is what? 10 years old. Something great had to come out since then worthy of encapsulation. What was it?

Edit- This topic would be a good way to frame a book klub.


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## Thalia the Muse (Jan 20, 2010)

I think there's been quite a bit of genre-bending/genre-dabbling lit fict out in the last few decades -- Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake trilogy, Lev Grossman's The Magicians series, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Super-Sad True Love Story, A Visit from the Goon Squad. Literary darling Colson Whitehead just wrote a zombie book, Cormac McCarthy did The Road, Michael Chabon wrote an entire book of essays about his love of science fiction, horror, detective stories, and comic-books.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

Literary vs. genre is a totally false distinction. There are great writers who work in genres, and awful writers who are counted as literary. The only people who really think this kind of approach is valid are lazy, snobby book critics who say things like (The Guardian) "all science fiction is rubbish," thus discounting Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Wydham, Ballard, and numerous famous 'literary' writers (Amis, Atwood) who have tried their arm at a science fiction novel. (Tell me, do such authors become bumbling illiterates when writing their occasional science fiction books, then turn back into brilliant authors when they've stopped? I think the critic who said "all sf is rubbish" should explain to us how that works).


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

I think Lit vs Genre is an argument which is becoming irrelevant. Writers and publishers can do their thing, whatever that might be, and readers can choose whatever they prefer to read from a staggering range of ebooks.

E.g. for the past 10-15 years Science Fiction has been an impossible sale to Aussie spec fic publishers. They wanted Fantasy, bigger Fantasy and trilogies of big Fantasy. SF authors had to switch genres or give up, and science fiction went underground. Many hands were wrung and many authors waited patiently for the worm to turn.

Nowadays you can bypass that nonsense and go direct to Kindle.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I hate both writers, critics and fans that want to separate stories into high literary art and into pop fiction or "low brow" fiction.  I just read good stories.  That's all I care about.  I want to be entertained.


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## raychensmith (Jul 11, 2012)

I second balaspa's idea of just wanting to be entertained.  I've read genre books that are so boring that I had to put them down after fifty pages and literary novels that really, really moved for me.  As a general rule, though, I find genre fiction to be better suited to my tastes, especially when I trust the novelist (say, Thomas Harris or Caleb Carr).  Then again, literary novels like Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Blood Meridian can be genres too--the first dystopian sci-fi and the second the western.  I guess it all depends on whether people push the book in one way or another.


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

balaspa said:


> I hate both writers, critics and fans that want to separate stories into high literary art and into pop fiction or "low brow" fiction. I just read good stories. That's all I care about. I want to be entertained.


I don't think people read Faulkner or Pynchon to be entertained with just a good story. There is story, yes, but the story isn't the sole purpose of the book. I expect more from "literary" authors than just story. When reading authors like David Webber or Kevin J. Anderson or any other bestseller, I only expect to while away a few empty hours and gain nothing in return.

And any genre can have its "literary" authors; in science fiction, Kurt Vonnegut, Iain M. Banks, or Samuel R. Delany come to mind. But Webber and Anderson are all story, just story, and nothing but story. Mind numbing if that's all there were to read.


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## John Blackport (Jul 18, 2011)

To truly appreciate an author's contributions, you have to remember the historical context in which that author lived. 

Take Faulkner, for example. He made some of his most significant contributions in the 1920s. Anesthesia was far less advanced in those times than it is today.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

The word "entertainment" is often used as a perjorative, as if it is synonymous with "mindless entertainment". As I see it, story is all there is, was or will be. Everything else are tools for telling a story.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

QuantumIguana said:


> The word "entertainment" is often used as a perjorative, as if it is synonymous with "mindless entertainment". As I see it, story is all there is, was or will be. Everything else are tools for telling a story.


Not sure I agree. You don't have to flesh out characters well, or describe a scene well, or have interior monologues simply to tell a story, but these things can improve a book and make it worth the read. Or are you saying that's all part of 'story'? It's not clear.


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## Figment (Oct 27, 2008)

John Blackport said:


> To truly appreciate an author's contributions, you have to remember the historical context in which that author lived.
> 
> Take Faulkner, for example. He made some of his most significant contributions in the 1920s. Anesthesia was far less advanced in those times than it is today.


ROFLMAO!!! I share your sentiment!


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

Tony Richards said:


> Not sure I agree. You don't have to flesh out characters well, or describe a scene well, or have interior monologues simply to tell a story, but these things can improve a book and make it worth the read. Or are you saying that's all part of 'story'? It's not clear.


If the characters are more fleshed out, the story is usually better.


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## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

Tony Richards said:


> Not sure I agree. You don't have to flesh out characters well, or describe a scene well, or have interior monologues simply to tell a story, but these things can improve a book and make it worth the read. Or are you saying that's all part of 'story'? It's not clear.


Well-fleshed-out characters aren't symptomatic of genre, or literary, fiction, but _well-written_ fiction, where "well-written" can be read as "skillfully executed", I suppose.

IMO there's an unfortunate tendency to conflate literary fiction with _belles-lettres_, when the latter is but a small niche subset of the former. _Most_ literature tells a story. Much of the output of belletrists does as well, but not, alas, all, and it seems to be this minority which has captured the popular imagination, or something...


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

John Blackport said:


> To truly appreciate an author's contributions, you have to remember the historical context in which that author lived.


Very true. Contemporary authors must contend with many potential readers having ADD or ADHD.


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## DavidFWeisman (Jun 10, 2012)

I've always admired the gutsy pretensions of fans of litarary fiction. Most genre writers don't share it, except second hand. Mystery writers may teach you about police procedures - or death and hatred and murder - but they never pretend you will learn more than if you studied actual textbooks. It is the same with romance writers, and sex, romance, and seduction. At most, mysteries or romances might claim to be 'real literature' and share second hand the pretensions of litarary fiction. Not so literary fiction itself.

Some science fiction does something similar, claiming to think in narrative form about things which may be vital to our future, and are considered seriously in no other forum. Now who would have the nerve to claim that?


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## pamstucky (Sep 16, 2011)

I tend to agree with the idea that literary fiction is itself a genre, and thus is on par with all the rest; just another form of fiction. And I agree with Tony:



> Well-fleshed-out characters aren't symptomatic of genre, or literary, fiction, but well-written fiction, where "well-written" can be read as "skillfully executed", I suppose.


It's problematic to suggest that literary fiction automatically trumps genre fiction. That's like saying mysteries are better than romance. They're simply different, they're written for different audiences, they serve different purposes, they make us think in different ways. But none is better than the other.

The New Yorker article is titled "Easy Writers" but the URL title is "'Fifty Shades of Grey' and Guilty-Pleasure Reading" - which in itself is quite telling. Fifty Shades' popularity is a question that is entirely different from any question of literary vs. genre fiction.


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## mcoleg (Jul 13, 2012)

Oh boy! One of my favorite topics! 

I don't really see the literary fiction as a genre. The original meaning for it was "Good writing that was recognized by awards." Anything can be in that particular category.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

Geemont said:


> Very true. Contemporary authors must contend with many potential readers having ADD or ADHD.


These being the medical terms for 'having your attention span messed up by TV.'


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## Twofishes (May 30, 2012)

QuantumIguana said:


> The word "entertainment" is often used as a perjorative, as if it is synonymous with "mindless entertainment". As I see it, story is all there is, was or will be. Everything else are tools for telling a story.


Is this something you can elaborate on? I mean, can a novel without a traditional plot be "entertainment"?



Tony Richards said:


> ...'having your attention span messed up by TV.'


Do you think television has groomed American society to accept only serial content?


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

Twofishes said:


> Is this something you can elaborate on? I mean, can a novel without a traditional plot be "entertainment"?


There's not much point in reading if it isn't entertaining.


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

Twofishes said:


> Do you think television has groomed American society to accept only serial content?


Holmes and Hornblower were serial content before TV, but I think series have become epidemic in genre fiction. It's hard to find new crime or mystery novels that aren't series. I remember a mid list author saying something along the lines of "If you want to be a successful author you need to write series with reoccurring characters." Personally, I find that type of writing typically weak, repetitive, and unsatisfying and almost always avoid them--though authors like Janet Evanovich can essentially rewrite the same book thirty times and still have a readership.


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## Twofishes (May 30, 2012)

QuantumIguana said:


> There's not much point in reading if it isn't entertaining.


I imagine we're talking about only fiction and you're using the word "entertaining" as a catchall for satisfaction. So if a person reading _Tales of the Genji_ or _Dubliners_ is satisfied by and expanded knowledge of 11th century Japan or Ireland in the 1920s, that person is also entertained.(?)



Geemont said:


> Holmes and Hornblower were serial content before TV, but I think series have become epidemic in genre fiction. It's hard to find new crime or mystery novels that aren't series. I remember a mid list author saying something along the lines of "If you want to be a successful author you need to write series with reoccurring characters." Personally, I find that type of writing typically weak, repetitive, and unsatisfying and almost always avoid them--though authors like Janet Evanovich can essentially rewrite the same book thirty times and still have a readership.


I wouldn't say serial content is always weak. The mystery genre is almost naturally episodic. And series aren't new or limited to this time. It just seems to me that American society(I live in the United States and cannot comment on other cultures, although I have assumptions) cannot digest anything that isn't serial.


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

Twofishes said:


> I wouldn't say serial content is always weak. The mystery genre is almost naturally episodic.


I would have to disagree. In real life detectives and PIs lead mostly retune jobs and can have long careers But in fiction, one of the important rules of good fiction is the characters are changed by the events of the story, but that's not often the case with series. For example, a strong series is Charlie Huston's Hank Thompson Trilogy or James Ellroy's Underworld U.S.A. novels. They each follow a story, but each book builds on the previous one and the characters progress and grow into something different or die in the process. But in weak series the characters more or less remain constant, returning again and again to do basically the same plot with minor variations. The episodic series are, in fact, unnatural and contrary to realistic human nature.


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## Twofishes (May 30, 2012)

Geemont said:


> The episodic series are, in fact, unnatural and contrary to realistic human nature.


I wasn't reaching that far. Good series do occur in every genre. Mystery tends to be episodic because it isn't character driven. I would honestly love to read a detective series that dissected the characters' lives but the characters only ever solved mundane mysteries. I think that would be a trip. That's probably not going to happen because mystery writers write mystery not character studies.

Anyway I think human nature is very episodic. Everyone wants routine whether they know it or not.

Also _American Tabloid _ is a great book, but I've never read the other two. I actually have a friend who thinks _Bloods a Rover_ is the best crime novel ever. So thanks for bringing up James Ellroy.


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

Twofishes said:


> Mystery tends to be episodic because it isn't character driven. ... Mystery writers write mystery not character studies.


Good mystery authors can write good characters. For that I'd suggest Faithful Place  by Tana French. It's about solving a seventeen year old murder, but her characters and suspects are all working class Irish and their motivations and reasons will be found there. May not be totally mundane, but you get the feeling for this is way people sometimes kill other people. Grand conspiracies and international plots not required.

Also, her approach to "series" is unique. She takes a secondary character from the previous book, promotes to him or her to the primary character, and drops last protagonist. More interesting, since her books are first person, the previous primary character might have had a bad opinion of the secondary character, and the read must learn to re-envision the new protagonist in a different way if you read her books in the order the were written. You may want to start with her first book: In the Woods


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

Twofishes said:


> Is this something you can elaborate on? I mean, can a novel without a traditional plot be "entertainment"?
> 
> Do you think television has groomed American society to accept only serial content?


Interesting question. Maybe some people, perhaps, but not a whole society, surely? Everyone has different reading tastes, as a quick browse through the numerous Book Corner threads will tell you.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

Life is often episodic. One thing happens after another. Some people may have that one adventure in their lives, and it may not make sense to have more stories about them. But for others, such as detectives, they are going to have more adventures.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

QuantumIguana said:


> Life is often episodic. One thing happens after another. Some people may have that one adventure in their lives, and it may not make sense to have more stories about them. But for others, such as detectives, they are going to have more adventures.


Yup, some of my favorite series of all time involve such characters as Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer.


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## Thalia the Muse (Jan 20, 2010)

Twofishes said:


> I would honestly love to read a detective series that dissected the characters' lives but the characters only ever solved mundane mysteries.


That pretty much describes the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series! The mysteries are almost always trivial, and the books are really about the main characters' personal, love, and financial lives.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Tony Richards said:


> Literary vs. genre is a totally false distinction. There are great writers who work in genres, and awful writers who are counted as literary. The only people who really think this kind of approach is valid are lazy, snobby book critics who say things like (The Guardian) "all science fiction is rubbish," thus discounting Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Wydham, Ballard, and numerous famous 'literary' writers (Amis, Atwood) who have tried their arm at a science fiction novel. (Tell me, do such authors become bumbling illiterates when writing their occasional science fiction books, then turn back into brilliant authors when they've stopped? I think the critic who said "all sf is rubbish" should explain to us how that works).


Oh, if you want to amuse yourself, read the articles trying to convince us, after _Wolf Hall_ won the Booker, that it couldn't POSSIBLY be Historical Fiction.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> Oh, if you want to amuse yourself, read the articles trying to convince us, after _Wolf Hall_ won the Booker, that it couldn't POSSIBLY be Historical Fiction.


Sounds hilarious ... I will. What crashing snobs some of these 'literary' critics are.


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## vistawriter (Dec 14, 2011)

For me, the story is about the characters and their development. I love a good mystery, but not at the expense of characters growth. I want to see them struggle and grow. If the character doesn't learn something, then it was just another plot-driven series of events. So, I want both, a plot that isn't obvious and characters that have some substance. Basically, I want to care about that character and that will bring me back to that writer.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

A mystery writer, I forget who, but think it was PD James, once said in an interview: "Mysteries are not about murder. They're about fractured relationships."


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## Roz Morris (Apr 12, 2012)

Alpha72 said:


> For me, the question of literary vs. low-brow fiction depends entirely on the reader's approach. If the reader wants to look at a work of fiction like a lit student, that's great. Anything can be interpreted to have many levels of meaning. I could stare at a painted wall and draw out significance...if only from the fact that we have this need for significance in the first place. At the same time, I could read a classic work of literature as genre fiction.
> 
> The division seems a bit silly to me.


Alpha, I agree the distinction seems a bit silly. It seems especially silly to claim that certain kinds of story can't be 'quality' fiction - that comes down to the way the individual writer treats the material. And does lit fiction have to be approached like an academic exercise? What gives it its qualities is surely that it works on many levels, not that it is 'studyable'.


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## Twofishes (May 30, 2012)

Roz Morris said:


> Alpha, I agree the distinction seems a bit silly.


But as a reader and a writer you would say that there is a distinction, yes or no?


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## Roz Morris (Apr 12, 2012)

Twofishes said:


> But as a reader and a writer you would say that there is a distinction, yes or no?


There is, but I feel it's more of a spectrum - many novels that appear to fit into a genre may have some literary qualities. Is it a helpful distinction to make? As a reader I feel not, I'd rather judge each work as it comes. I might enjoy a perfectly straightforward story if it's well told and I care about the characters - those aren't particularly literary qualities. I love a story that explores further than the superficial events, depending on how it's done - I can't stand arty noodling for its own sake because I want to care about what happens. But that's just me - other people are richly rewarded by arty noodling. So do discussions about literary vs non-literary always end up as a matter of personal taste? Perhaps. I don't believe literary qualities have to make a book hard going, or that a simple book is necessarily low brow - which is what I think we were talking about to start with (I'm new here and don't yet know how to look back to the first page without losing everything I've typed). Er, where were we...?


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