t puts on the hat of Talking About Things Other People Know More About
The publishing machines behind the two halves, as it were, recognize themselves as very different. The f/sf, so I've heard from Plaidder's tales of trying to get herself published
[btw? If you haven't read www.plaidder.com/wof Women On Fire yet, even checked it out, please please please do so because it's really lovely. Ignore the ugly-ass webpage. It's good and it gets even much *better* from that first chapter.]
is much more conscious of itself as a big old corporate thing. The lit world is to some degree more coy.
Plus there's the whole small-press-movement thing; but that's not really quite applicable to the question. Because it really
is
marketing, and the aesthetics that grow out of (are forced out of) that.
Okay, so that's the definition I've heard before -- but it's not a definition. I still have no way of telling what's literary fiction, what's fiction, and what's science fiction.
I'm not sure I get the distinction between "literary fiction" and just plain "fiction." I've seen some bookstores that have a "literature" section and a "fiction" section, and the distinction seems to be that "literature" is stuff that's commonly assigned in high schools, but I don't really get how "literary fiction" is a genre, or how it's defined.
t x-post with ita
Hil, you make me feel better. Because, really, my complete and utter lack of comprehension of these distinctions make me feel quite illiterate, but I know you're not. So I'm saved.
Giles isn't sexy.
Do I have to say it again?
My favorite Lizard, CHAIRS find Giles sexy!
Well, no, because then you'd be able to see what's so terribly obvious.
cereal:
Really, I mean, it's circular. Is Octavia Bulter a literary-fiction writer? Is Alex Shakar?
No, you are a sneak who has a verrrrrry interesting interest on LJ...
And here I thought there was only one LJer who listed "teppy" as an interest...
ita, you're not illiterate.
The definition of "literary fiction" is a complete construct, made up by the publishing industry. I can take any novel you point at as "literary fiction" and make an argument that it belongs in another genre, and vice versa. Just like the hard lines around the ghettoes of "romance", "mystery", and "science fiction/fantasy", the line around "literary fiction" is very very hazy.
Dunnett's stuff was once filed exclusively under Romance. Then Historical Fiction. Now it's Literature. WTF? Same books, different shelf.
How come Auel gets to be in literature but Neal Stephenson is science fiction? I'd say "Cryptonomicon" is closer to scientific plausibility than "The Clan of the Cave Bear". ::shrugs and wanders off to find a beer::
