First off, this isn't meant to be a genre vs literary thread.
So, I'm almost finished reading Andrew Miller's Pure, which won the 2011 Costa Prize [and believe is shortlisted for The Walter Scott Prize too.] It's old style Gothic [think Great Expectations or Wuthering Heights], set in the years preceding the French Revolution.
As I was reading last night, I was finding the plot becoming more, and more convoluted, my supension of disbelief going right out the window. At which point I thought, 'you wouldn't get away with this in a genre novel.'
Yet this book has won a big literary prize.
So what do you think? Do we let literary fiction stretch believability further than genre?
So, I'm almost finished reading Andrew Miller's Pure, which won the 2011 Costa Prize [and believe is shortlisted for The Walter Scott Prize too.] It's old style Gothic [think Great Expectations or Wuthering Heights], set in the years preceding the French Revolution.
As I was reading last night, I was finding the plot becoming more, and more convoluted, my supension of disbelief going right out the window. At which point I thought, 'you wouldn't get away with this in a genre novel.'
Yet this book has won a big literary prize.
So what do you think? Do we let literary fiction stretch believability further than genre?