Chels

It might be shameful to admit as someone who studied literature and runs a literature blog, but I still don’t know what literary fiction actually is. I mean – isn’t all fiction literary? It’s literature, right? My gut instinct is that it’s a catchall term for books that don’t fit into our pre-defined genres. If it’s not quite a thriller or a comedy or a romance, then it’s literary fiction. This week, I’m putting my research skills to use and finally getting to the bottom of literary fiction.

So, what is literary fiction?

Most of the definitions of literary fiction describe it in opposition to genre fiction, as a category. Rather than being plot-driven, literary fiction is character driven. There’s less emphasis on getting to a certain point, rather, actions are given space to breathe, the narrative takes a slower pace. There’s a real focus on style – from what I can tell, literary fiction is concerned less with what is being said, and more how it’s being said.

Literary fiction often focuses on social commentary and political criticism. That makes sense to me – with less emphasis on plot, of course there’s more space to explore real life concepts through fiction. However, as part of a definition of the genre, it’s not entirely helpful. Dystopian literature highlights political and social inequalities, and fantasy is often used as a mirror to interrogate real life social dilemmas. Taken on its own, this doesn’t help to differentiate the genre, however, dystopian and fantasy fiction often involves complex plots.

The key, then, to literary fiction, is the emphasis on character and atmosphere over plot.

The Classics

According to my research, all classic literature falls under the literary fiction umbrella. That is, any book considered part of the Western canon. Of course, I want to nitpick this statement. While it’s true that most classic literature I’ve read does fit the definition of character driven, rather than plot driven, some outliers do come to mind. Does The War of The Worlds become literary fiction rather than science fiction based on its merit as a piece of classic literature? While it does exemplify social and political criticism, it would be wrong to say the plot is secondary to the themes of the story.

Maybe I’m just being pedantic. 

It does make sense. Woolf and Austen are listed as two key figures in literary fiction. Austen’s works are often described disparagingly as ‘people going to other people’s houses’, which is a fair criticism. They’re packed with interpersonal relationships, and while a lot of things do happen, the main plots of her novels can be summed up as couple gets together. I suppose that’s the crux of literary fiction, then. It’s all the things that happen within that crude couple gets together summary. The things that make these novels complex, where a cynic may see them as simple.

Literary fiction is interpersonal relationships, slowness, long conversations between characters that seem to add nothing to the culmination of a plot, but matter so much for knowing characters.

On Culture

Something that cropped up a lot during my research was the association of literary fiction with high culture. Synonyms for literary fiction included serious fiction and high literature. I really hate the term high culture in general, and the elitist way we separate popular literature from ‘serious’ literature. You see it a lot in conversations around classic literature (which, I suppose, is inherently about literary fiction). The idea that ‘genre fiction’ is of a lesser quality because it … is part of a genre? It makes no sense to me. Why does following the conventions of a genre and having a discernable plot make a novel less respected than one that isn’t about much at all. It surely isn’t about writing quality – there are some fantasy and sci fi novels with beautiful descriptions. I mean, is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein of a lesser quality than her Mathilda, just because the former deals with science and the latter with interpersonal relationships? In that case, you’d think Mathilda would be more highly regarded. It’s not though, it’s relatively unknown, especially in comparison to the enormous popularity of Frankenstein. 

Some would argue that the popularity of Frankenstein contributes to this argument – high culture is opposed to popular culture, after all. Which leads me to think that literary fiction is by definition an elitist category. 

That, then, leaves me in a dilemma. The genre of books that I find myself most drawn to happens to be borne from a concept that I fundamentally disagree with. Even the name implies elitism – how come all fiction is not literary fiction? 
I have a lot of conflicting thoughts on literary fiction, now that I’ve explored the definition. It’s not that I don’t agree with the genre – most of my favourite novels come under the literary fiction umbrella – but I do disagree with its association with high culture, and a kind of academic elitism. It fits in with the kind of opinions that I think prevent people from picking up certain books – an intimidation of sorts. I really dislike the dichotomy of popular fiction vs serious fiction – why can’t we accept that genre fiction can be beautifully written and interrogate social norms, and that popular novels can be complex and important. I think if we unpack these elitist thoughts, we would also be able to accept that the idea of high culture is a little redundant.