On Tuesday, I was in a lecture in which we compared the features of popular and literary fiction. To be entirely fair to the speaker, they gave equal time to both and discussed both as having merits and drawbacks. However, underneath this, there was an underlying tone of ‘looking down’ on popular fiction. I know this isn’t uncommon in the community of publishers, writers, editors, reviewers and even readers to take this view, and I am not saying I am surprised, just curious. I am going to try and work out what it is about popular fiction that gets it relegated from ‘literary’ circles and generally viewed as less.
Firstly, I should say, I read both and enjoy both. I also write both, which gets very complicated sometimes, but that’s another post. They do indeed both have merits and faults. Like most people, I started off reading a form of popular fiction: YA fiction. I am still technically a young adult (20 counts, right?) and still enjoy reading and writing this type of fiction, but I see and accept its faults.
YA fiction, whilst entertaining, mostly deals with a lot of the same themes in its books and uses a selection of stock characters and situations to tell its story. The romance side of things is often repetitive and, for LGBTQ+ teens (particularly of my age, beginning in around 2011) largely heteronormative. However, some YA novels deal in heavily emotional and realistic stories. One that sticks in my mind from recent months is The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett (Chelsea Sedoti). Whilst typically far fetched in terms of featuring a young girl getting involved in a missing persons investigation, the crashing realisation that Lizzie has not become a werewolf as the dream-loving Hawthorn first anticipates, rather she has (spoiler/cw:suicide) killed herself is shocking and very emotional.
YA novels, though, in particular YA fantasy, have one undeniable perk. I don’t know anyone that does not know someone who got into reading through Harry Potter or, if you are a bit younger, Twilight or Shadowhunters. Novels like this have innate value even if they are not ‘literary’ because they entice people into reading and appreciating the work of others (because, whatever you think of any long fantasy series, writing 6-8 300+ word novels takes some work). However, this is not all that they are. Popular fiction is not just a gateway to ‘better’ fiction, it is entertaining, insightful and uniting in its own right and, I think, deserves to be seen as such.
Now, adult fiction is a bit different because this is where we see the emergence of real ‘literary fiction’. The expansion of organisations like The Booker Prize (formerly The Man Booker Prize) to include a more diverse and experimental selection of works has led to a resurgence of literary fiction, alongside the success of novels like Normal People, The Girl on the Train and Little Fires Everywhere, which straddle the line between popular and literary fiction.
I think this is the best type of fiction for adults. My reasons for this are a few:
- ‘Literary’ fiction in its purest form is time consuming: I am currently reading Zadie Smith’s NW for an assignment and it is not the longest of books. But it is taking me ages. It’s fantastic but as an experimental novel even 50 pages can require two hours or more of rereading, pausing and orientating yourself with the layout on the page. This is time that most people do not have (if I weren’t doing it for my course, I certainly wouldn’t have the time) and makes a wonderful plot inaccessible.
- At a certain point, being literary doesn’t add anything to a story: Angela Carter is one of my all-time favourite writers, but not many people can pull off her style of over-description and still have an effective story. Beautiful description has a place and can be very effective, but sometimes the emotion and realism of a story can be lost beneath clever description.
In addition to this, fiction that is both literary and popular is uniting. Book clubs and friends in coffee shops the world over will have discussed Gone Girl or Elizabeth is Missing. The messages are real and deep but are not lost beneath thickly-laid philosophy or wordplay.
I am not saying there is anything wrong with literary fiction. It has its place and is usually very insightful, but the view that one is not ‘a reader’ until they read time-consuming and difficult ‘literary’ texts is an outdated one that does not consider the wealth of excellence that popular fiction contains.
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