Literary Fiction

Is there anyone else who is frustrated by reading literary fiction? I recently picked up a Pulitzer Prize winner, intending to, uh, broaden my horizons, if you will. I can't manage to get past the first chapter. The book jumps from head to head, past to present tense, is full of authorial intrusions, and is 99% narrative.

Granted, it's one book. But there have been others which disappointed me as well. Cold Mountain comes to mind, with it's conspicuous lack of quotation marks. Then there was a short by Annie Proulx where a young girl has a series of conversations with a rusting tractor.

Honestly, give me Stephen King any day. I don't want to have to work so hard to understand the nuances and subtleties of literary fiction. I just want to be entertained.

Or am I just that dense? :head

I love literary fiction. I really do. It's ridiculous how excited I can be in lit. class. I feel like a freak! (;

But in all honesty, a lot of that "appreciation" comes from sitting in the class and taking in all of the analyzation, etc. Plus I've had some really amazing, amazing teachers in the past.

Now that high school is over, I'm more apt to pick up literary fiction in the bookstore than anything else. I think they tend to have better, more original stories. More character driven, if you will, which I really love.

Of course, when a book doesn't have quotation marks... I don't know - that's something which bothers me!

I see literary fiction as pretty much of a genre, some of it clicks, some of it does not. Some authors are preferable over others.

This is true of any genre. For instance in fantasy I enjoy David Eddings, but one David Eddings is enough.

My problem is with the elitist attitude of so many literary writers which often shows in their writings. Literary writing is not innately "Superior" to any other genre.

I personally enjoy Kafka. But I do not enjoy him any more than I enjoy Edgar Rice Burroughs or Margery Allingham. One is not better than the other. Either you enjoy one or the other or some or all or none. It is as simple as that.

literary fiction

I love literary fiction. When done right, I think it's the best reading out there.

But literary fiction or genre fiction, you have to remember Sturgeon's Law: "Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of everything is crud."

Try the short stories of Raymond Carver or John Updike or Joyce Carol Oates.

Re: literary fiction

A man after my own heart... I adore Updike and Oates

>> I see literary fiction as pretty much of a genre,<<

I totally agree. "Literary" is a genre, a type of fiction; as with any genre, it embraces a wide range of quality and style, and not everything in it is worth reading. A given reader may prefer it to other genres, but it isn't better or more worthy than other genres.

"Literary" is also a quality of writing. In that sense, you can find literary fiction in just about any genre.

- Victoria

I tend to look for the characters rather than the genre...although I do tend to hang out in the scifi/fantasy sections. I like books with kids or young teens as POV characters. I read a book called Spendthrift (phylis somebody lol can't remember the author) because their was a boy who was my age. This was some years ago mind you. I'm not sure how much I enjoyed the book, but I finished it and that's a good sign.

I just remembered the last name. I believe it was Whitney.

For instance in fantasy I enjoy David Eddings, but one David Eddings is enough.

Click to expand...

That's because if you've read the first set of five, you've read them all.

I love fantasy, but one of the problems with the genre is that authors who only have one book in them seem compelled to write twenty or more. :ack

As to "literary" fiction, I like some of it and I don't like some of it. I tend to like writers who have strong characters, a strong story, and a unique voice.

Toni Morrison comes to mind as a prize-winning author who does this. And she uses all the conventions, too.

I worship at the feets of Oates, but my head is with William Gibson, Alfred Bester, Ross Macdonald, and Ed McBain.

I love Toni Morrison.

literary

I believe the fiction in any genre can rise to to the level of literature in the hands of a good writer, but I'm mixed on whether literary fiction is just another genre.

Whether it is or isn't, I think there's a major difference in either characterization or situation. Most "literary" fiction is about ordinary people in ordinary situations.
If not, then it's about ordinary people in extraordinary situations. "Grapes of Wrath" is an example of this. But even there, even when the situation is not something that occurs everyday, it's a real situation portrayed realistically.

Literary fiction is most often about everyday people leading everyday lives. It's realistic front to back.

I do think it takes better writing to pull off stories about everyday people in everyday situations than it does to pull off stories about extraordinary people in extraordinary situations.

Genre fiction almost always protrays situations that are extraordinary, and most often has characters who are extraordinary.

Stylistically, genre fiction is much more action oriented, and the language used reflects this.

Re: literary

I don't know if that's true, James. Wambaugh pulled off somethin close to poetry, when he talked about everyday cops in everyday life.