Literary vs. Mainstream, in genre and out

[sartorias]

david_de_beer linked to this fascinating riff about so-called literary fiction vs. science fiction, which includes some definitions of what many mean by "literary" and examples of what might be considered "literary science fiction." If you read the article, do take in the comments, though there are over a hundred. Most are short, and you won't want to miss

Comments

[jtglover]

Some books that are considered literary I find mainstream because everyone is predictably dysfunctional in ways I see over and over

Guh-ROAN! This drives me up the wall. Literary = upper class Manhattan midlife crisis, now with extramarital affairs and rediscovery of ethnic roots. Though this is but one example, I think what you describe is sort of a hallmark of trendy literary works that tend to be inseparable from one another and are appreciated decades later only for being part of X group. e.g. the Bloomsbury circle, Splatterpunk, the bulk of Arthurian romance, etc.

[sartorias]

Yeah...following what's in and out in various timeframes can say a lot more about those who perceived themselves as literary arbiters than about the actual stories themselves.

But I find it interesting when writers engage with one another through ideas. Diana Pavlac Glyer talked so fascinatingly about that in her book on the Inklings.

[scbutler]

Tom Shippey's book, Tolkien: Author of the Century, has a very interesting analysis of Bloomsbury and their effect on 20th century literature. He points out that, because they thought nothing else was as remotely interesting as themselves, they shifted a lot of English writing towards self-absorption with predictable consequences, good and bad. Eighty or ninety years later, we seem to be left with the extremes.

[sartorias]

Leading Virginia Woolf to "reinvent the human" meaning character, meaning no longer (necessarily) morally admirable. Oh yes.

[scbutler]

Was Tom Jones morally admirable? Faust? Odysseus? I'm not sure she invented anything at all, other than the miserable Mary Sue.

[marycatelli]

Yeah, I don't think Woolf invented the less than admirable main character.

[sartorias]

Well, in the eyes of her Bloomsbury compatriots (and their admirers) she did.

But yes, I quite agree: I have a Spectator article that in 1711 points out the lamentable publick taste for highwaymen and other low ruffians as heroes....

[jtglover]

"And the highwayman came riding-
Riding-riding-
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door."

I'm not certain, but I believe Alfred Noyes also predates Ms. Woolf.

Gotta love those ruffians.