How do you write the sound of a raspberry? Pbbththtbtththt?

Last night, while checking on my regular blogs, I found this letter at The Library Diva.  She's also written a fantastic post about the letter, which I really encourage you read.  The basic point of the letter is bullshit, which is Kelly's point in her post.  (If you don't go read it, the gist of it is that a certain group of authors are begging Oprah to restart her book club with contemporary books, because literary fiction is in a slump.)  Again, Kelly's post is wonderful, and she addresses, I think, most of the main points that need to be made about the letter.  So I'm not really going to talk about how insulting it is, and I'm not going to talk about my ambivalence towards Oprah's book club.  I'd like to address literary fiction.

First of all, let me say that I don't consider literary fiction a "genre", per se.  Literary fiction is what is left when you take the genres out of fiction.  I don't believe, therefore, that it is appropriate to read literary fiction during a reader's advisory class.  In fact, I can't imagine how we can possibly begin to identify the appeal factors of literary fiction when you can classify The Time Traveler's Wife and Everything Is Illuminated in the same genre.  They're not similar, I don't think.  And then add in a book like The Little Friend, and try to make sense of it.  It's basically impossible, I think.  In fact, the thing that unites literary fiction is that its authors take themselves far more seriously than they maybe should.  At least in my view.  (I'm sorry, but I have nothing nice to say about authors who look down their noses at authors in the romance genre, for instance.)

The truth is, literary fiction is losing readers because it's not always very fun to read.  I usually think of literary fiction as the kinds of books that I read about half-way through and then put down, never to be picked up again.  (Evidence:  The Little Friend, Brick Lane by Monica Ali, Everything is Illuminated, The Russian Debutante's Handbook and various other books that now lay unread upon my shelves.)  I think that people who read literary fiction tend also to look down on people who read genre fiction--as if we're not "serious" readers.  As if we don't know how to recognize good books.  But I wonder if we aren't overlooking popular genre fiction.  We're so damn good at dismissing its value, and dismissing the authors who write it.  (In fact, Jennifer Weiner has pointed out much the same point in various posts on her blog.)  We're so caught up in the idea that the "real" word artists are the authors who write literary fiction, but I can barely ever read that sort of fiction.  Hardly ever.  It's pretentious crap, a lot of the time.  It assumes that you must be intelligent to read it, and I hate that.  What happened to simply writing good books?  Oh wait, that's happening in other segments of fiction right now.

Maybe that's why people aren't reading literary fiction.  You're not writing good novels, idiots.  It's like lamenting the state of the music business, and the idea that nobody is buying music.  Well, yeah, you idiots, because you're not putting out good records.  Maybe try doing that and see what happens.  Honestly, I can't remember the last book of literary fiction that I bought.  Oh wait, yes I can.  Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Copeland.  But that's one author that I read compulsively. But in general, I don't buy literary fiction.  I buy romance and mystery, non-fiction and chicklit.  Literary fiction  isn't worth the price I have to pay for it.  (And really, I didn't buy the Copeland book.  It was a gift, because I couldn't justify the purchase to myself.  Not that I'm not happy to have it; I am.) 

Anyone want a collection of half-finished literary fiction?

Comments

[C]

I think instead of bring books to Oprah's fans, they need to bring books back to children and teens. So ,amy people don't read because there are more options and they haven't been shown the world of books. Therefore, I think all parents should REQUIRE their children to pick up books and read them. I am not saying they need to become as crazed about them as I or you, but read at home and such. If kids love reading through their childhood, it will grow with them. However Oprah's club did sell a lot of books, but remember how the husbands would say that the wives never finished the book? What's the point?

[C]

sorry for all the bad typos in the comment...

[tim]

as i don't often check up with you on the weekends, i am generally hit with a series of posts on monday morning. which works out well as i'm allergic to work. i found it interesting to read your last two posts back to back. in the book post you seemed to champion populism, which i thought clashed with the following (i don't read them chronologically when catching up on a couple days) shots at playing video games, a very populist pursuit. particularly interesting to me, a reader of almost exclusively non-genre or literary fiction (when i read fiction) and a player of video games (but almost always sports games, with someone else who's in the room---i can excuse it that way as a frustrated twentysomething outlet for competition). i think you're giving extremely short shrift to literary fiction, and i think there is a difference in that those books aspire to greatness (or transcendence), something that can't be said of grisham or whatshername with all the romance novels. to say that that isn't important is to agree with the "dumb as chic" movement that seems to be sweeping the country. whether or not you like lost in translation, it's more important than sahara. dylan is more important than the monkees. i don't know why books should be different. but i do think that we can all agree that safran foer is pretentious.