Ashlinn,

funnily enough, I was thinking of starting exactly such a thread the other day, as I have the same concerns as you do, and have the same reservations about defining literature as you do.

I haven't read either of the Ians but I know what you mean about style versus content. Often, i feel that these authors generally accepted as "literary" have a greta gift for language or words, have mastered th eart of linguistic pyrotechnics, but don't have much to say, and don't have a story to tell. Often the whole book is little more than a character sketch - I'd like to mention Brick Lane in this respect; a novel whose story could be told in one sentence.
In the past few years I've coem to almost avoid any book labelled as literary simply because literary has coe to mean, for me, boring.

Yet literary should mean a great read; a book that not only engages you fromn the first word to the last, but draws you into the story, makes you identify witht he characters and care what happens to them, and keeps you thinking about it for days and weeks afterwards. It has to have meaning, uncover hidden depths within yourself, make you think about life. All of that is what I would like to call literary. I see no reason why such a book should not be ALSO highly commercial, because it speaks to something universal in all of us; it can be easily understood and resonate with someone of little education, as well as an Oxford garduate.

AND it is well written, using original language, but not necessarily anything spectacular. Plain words are best; if you find youself saying , oh this is brilliantly written, very often you'll find that the brilliant writing is little more than a smoke screen.

Putrely commercial fiction, on the other hand, is so often instantly forgettable. One store becoes another; much of chick lit fiction can be thus classified. Think of a title you read a week ago, and you can't remember the heroine's name (unless it is Bridget Jones!)
Genre doesn't necessarily mean formulaic. John Lecarre is for me one of the best writers of the English language, though he writes "spy thrillers".

Love has always been one of the great themes in literature; and yet I get the feeling that any book with a great love story is automatically dismissed as "romance" or "women's fiction". Why is that so? I noticed the other day that none of the new Booker and Whitbread prizewinners have love stories at their heart; sex, gayness, all kinds of risque themes are allowed, but good old-fashioned love is out.

Terry is right; there is a literary elite who seems to think it can define what is literary and what not, and very often it's a question of style over substance.



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Once again, I have to beg you to excuse the many typos! I think you can guess what they were supposed to be. I really need to re-read all I write more carefully, but I get carried away and post too early. Sorry!

... and to answer your question on how to market yoursef to agents: in my query letter I say "...bridges the gap between literary and commercial".
I remember my editor askinhg me years ago how I wish my books to be seen, and I said, "as long-sellers rather than best-sellers" She liked that, and it's still true.

Very interesting discussion.

I think the reason most of us want to be published is because we want other people to read our work. If we make money from it, that’s great. I'm with you, Ashlinn, in that I'd love to make writing my full-time job, but that’s not possible yet.

Our ultimate customers are readers. Spend some time watching people in a bookshop and you soon see that the regulars, those who know the layout of the shop, go straight to their favourite section. Those unfamiliar with the shop quickly scan it to find the section they’re after. They may not even glance at anything else. Because of this, the shop’s buyers, faced with new authors, will ask themselves which shelf the novel will fit on. They’ll also ask the wholesaler. Knock the question far enough back up the line and you have an agent asking you, the author, where your novel belongs in a bookshop.

Dee


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Aruna, long sellers. Yes, I like that too!

Fascinating thread.

I think literary and commercial shouldn't be thought of as a binary opposition. A book is 'literary' for me if I find more in it - about the world, about language, about human nature, about art and story and things to think - every time I read it. A book like that can slip down easily and be swallowed whole in a glorious evening, or be knotty and baffling and frustrate me for days. It can be any genre - crime, thriller, rom. com., sci fi, history, whatever - or none. But because there's more to get with each reading, a first reading often leaves the reader feeling that something of the book is inaccessible. Some people (including some reviewers and writers who should know better) therefore think that the more inaccessible a book seems, the more 'literary' it is, which isn't true at all. Accessible shouldn't be a dirty word, but nor should we automatically scorn writers who have things to say that honestly can't be expressed in an easily-swallowed form.

'Commercial' fiction in the book trade's sense, I think, mean writing which doesn't risk frustrating the reader like that: the reader knows what they're buying (which is why 'commercial' fiction is mainly sold in genres), gets what there is to get straight away, and has a great read. If you must set up a literary-commercial opposition, that's it: with commercial fiction, there's nothing more to get, after the first read. With literary fiction, there is.

Whether it's commercial in the sense of selling lots of copies is neither here nor there to whether a book is literary. It might well be, particularly if by appearing under a genre heading, it doesn't put off people who are daunted by or invertedly-snobbish about the 'literary' label. Of course, this means that people who are snobbish about 'genre' because some of it doesn't have literary depth, are missing other, terrific stuff (I'm a huge Rankin fan).

Personally, I write what I write: that's my business. It's an agent's and publisher's business to decide what box to put it in so they can sell it to the trade.

Emma

Yes, this is a definition that works for me. (I'm only mad that I didn't think of it myself!) It takes the debate away from whether or not one enjoyed the book. There are 'commercial' books which I've enjoyed a lot (e.g. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes - lighthearted, chick-lit stuff but well-done) but I wouldn't read them again. There are ones that I would and do read again and again and the reasons for going back vary from book to book. For one it might be the emotional power, (A Prayer for Owen Meany) for another it might be the characters or story, (The Grapes of Wrath) for another it might be the authorial voice (everything by George Orwell) or even the music of the words (John McGahern, Martin Amis).

And there are 'literary' books that I didn't 'enjoy' but I would be prepared to give them another go because I suspect there's more to it than meets the eye.

What about the 'literary' books that I don't like at all though? I have a friend whose opinion I respect who assures me that Anita Brookner is an immensely worthwhile literary writer but nothing could force me to read another one of her books never mind the same one again. Does this mean that 'literary' is in the eye of the beholder? I'll have to think a bit more about this.

As for the personal angle, I admit that that was a red herring. I am basically an argumentative type and arguments for the principle rather than for any personal stake are the best kind of arguments of all.

Thanks for the provocative answer, Emma.

Ashlinn

It's definitely in the eye of the beholder. I love Anita Brookner and my vote for the most over rated novelist of all time would be Iris Murdoch but there are people out there who do get something from her work even if I have no idea what it is !

Would it go on forever if we had a thread for voting for over rated literary novelists!

Jane

literary to me is always shown in the attention to language. if language is paramount and then themes etc over plot then to me it is literary - nothing to do whether it sells for as Ani says McEwan sells. but much other literary work does not.

literary i how it handles the story and how much attention it pays to language. you'll find in genre novels (more likely to sell) language isn't so important. in fact I can no longer read many genre novels because of the way they are poorly written. they are more concerned with page turning, plot, story rather than the way it is expressed.

There's a great short story by Martin Amis (I can't remember the name of it but it's in the Heavy Water collection) where he deals with the trials and tribulations of two very different writers working in an imaginary world. In it, he has reversed the attitudes to 'literary' and 'commercial' work. One of the writers is a very literary poet who is admired by all, who travels first-class everywhere, at whom Hollywood throws millions of dollars. On the other side there's the long-suffering, poverty-striken screenwriter who is writing a sci-fi, horror, all-action movie who can't get anyone to take any notice of him but refuses to compromise his vision. Not only does it question our attitudes to artistic effort but it's also very funny.

Ashlinn

I think I've heard of that book and always planned to read is. It The Information, by any chance?

Jane - I think the over-rated list would be lengthy, but different for each reader, so maybe we should all admit that we're hopelessly subjective in our judgements. At the moment I'm reading Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower and Anthony Burgess's Dead Man in Deptford. They're both highly (even self-consciously) literary novels about real historical characters. I suspect Fitzgerald's is the better book by any objective literary measure (if there is such a thing), and I'm sure people who rate it aren't wrong, so I couldn't say it's overrated. But Burgess is the one that's gripped me. I think as writers it's often more fruitful for us to talk about others' work qualitatively - how and why a book works - than quantitatively - about where it ranks on the scale of Cartland to Shakespeare.

Ashlinn - couldn't agree with you more, about arguments in (on?) principle. I'm hopeless at online small-talk, and only get interested enough to reply when I find myself reading someone's post and thinking 'yes, but...'

Emma

I think the over-rated list would be lengthy, but different for each reader, so maybe we should all admit that we're hopelessly subjective in our judgements.

I don't have any problem admitting it, Emma - for me subjective is not a bad word. Just as we as writers each have our own natural, individual way of expressing ourselves, so do we as readers have different needs which some books fill, and some don't - no matter how literary they may be.

I find that in our times the emphasis has shifted to innovative uses of language as well as character portaits. That's why so many modern literary novels leave me frustated, undernourished, and I can't finish them. It's a subjective judgement, yes; but there's nothing at all wrong with that. It would only be a problem if I was made to feel somehow inadequate, or lacking in some essential quality which prevents me from understanding what this author has to say; where in fact it simply means THIS author has nothing to offer me.

What I like most is a good all-rounder: great storytelling combined with wonderful chgaracters, atmosphere, and language that rings.

I believe that time alone can tell whether a novel is objectively good; that's why in an earlier post I used the word "long-sellers". To be truly, objectively good, a book must satisfy in the way good music does; it is timeless, it's appeal is not a Zeitgeist phenomenon, and thus lasting; it touches something essential in all of us. A really good book does not die, but becomes a classic.

Which of course does not mean that some really good books never get published; but that's another story altogether, and another Zeitgeist phenomenon.

You're right about the zeitgeist, Sharon. And the time-lapse that is the real test. When my mother read English at Oxford in the mid-50s, nothing was studied that had been written after 1830!!!! No Brontes, Dickens, Eliot, James, Joyce - and that's just the novelists. Partly because the show was run by Tolkien and cronies, who thought that it was more important to know Anglo Saxon and Middle English well enough to study it properly, but also because they felt that it took 100+ years to be sure who were the truly great writers, and why should you study anything less than Great? Of course, they'd had to start by persuading Oxford that English Lit was a subject as noble and worthy of study as Classics, so they weren't likely to go for the latest bit of froth by that young upstart Mr G. Greene. It seems a ridiculous attitude, but when every new pretty literary face is hailed as a great writer on the strength of an ill-edited but promising debut novel, I find myself grumbling to myself that Tolkien and Co. might have had a point.

Emma

Emma, When one reads the blurbs on newly published novels it becomes painfully obvious how easily words lose their meaning ina jungle of hyperbole. When every second new novel is described as "Unputdownable! I stayed awakle all night!" they might as well say "this is a nice read."

Emma, it's interesting to hear about your mum's experience. I was part of the Oxford Modern Languages class of 1991 (as a not very mature, mature student) and for French and Italian, anything post-1960s was shunned, so it seems that things had moved along a bit by then. Even so, books like Lampedusa's The Leopard were not part of the canon ("nothing but badly strung together set-pieces", according to my, I think, misguided tutor) whilst Natalia Ginsburg's extremely slight works were included (although I was grateful for this as they were very easy to read).

Also, in my final year, an optional paper in European film studies was started (I went to the movies - lots of Fellini and Pasolini - but felt I had enough work without volunteering for another paper) and I remember my French tutor being extraordinarily sniffy and dismissiver about this.

However, if I were writing to please my former tutors, I would never set pen to paper (or finger to key).

Adele.



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Rogue 'however' at the end there - God, I'm tired!

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And that should be Ginzburg with a 'z' - how quickly we forget...

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Perhaps I should also say that my Oxford experience is the reason I haven't joined in this thread, as I fear the answer to "What is literature?" is "2hatever those who make the rules say it is."

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whatever, whatever, whatever!!!

Jane (way back there), I would be very interested in knowing what you see in Anita Brookner. I'm not being smart, she seems to divide her readers into those who love or hate her work. There doesn't appear to be any middle-ground with her which isn't necessarily a bad thing for a writer. I would love to know what you, being a writer, think her strengths are.

As for the modern versus classics debate, I'm not sure that I agree with the necessity of a time lapse before we can determine the quality of a book. If what makes for 'good' literature is subjective and person-specific then I don't need to wait thirty years to know which books I find worthwhile and enduring. A time-lapse is necessary for a novel to gain the approval of the 'literary establishment' but you have to admit that there is a lot of 'fustiness' about their attitudes which turns a lot of people off and inhibits potential lovers of literature.

I am not advocating going to the other extreme (some secondary schools these days seem to get young students to study instuction manuals or comics or commercial rubbish just to get them to read at all) but what is wrong with selecting thought-provoking, well-written, recent literary novels to study modern and eternal questions within a modern setting? (Obviously as well as not instead of the classics)And if some of them end up not having the enduring appeal they were thought to have at the beginning, is that such a disaster? Why do all the works put forward for analysis have to be sacred texts that can only be praised and never criticised?

I would like to add, in defence of modern writers, that they are not the ones creating the hyperbole around their books. This comes from the publishing industry and it doesn't seem to me that writers have much say about what happens to their books, how they are positioned, how they are marketed once they hand them over. Is that a good thing?

Ashlinn