Inspired by this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=363836
In the early '90s, some big-box bookstores had one section for (non-genre) “Fiction,” and another section for “Literature.”
I always wondered how they decided where a given book belonged.
Why did they discontinue that, I wonder? Or are there some stores that still do it?
The bookshops here still have separate *fiction * and *literature * sections.
Yes, I’m always off to the literature section to see if Iain Banks has put out anything new.
Borders still has Fiction and Literature sections. As do most of the local places around here.
True. However, most of their “Literature” isn’t really all that literary, it’s just not genre fiction.
It depends on the store, but generally “Literature” refers to books by dead authors or by live authors writing in the literary genre*. “Fiction” is more given over to modern authors who write in the best-seller genre,
*Yes, literary fiction is as much of a genre as science fiction, romance, self-help, or sudoko puzzles. It is bound by the rules and premises of its genre (e.g., contemporary stories, avoidance of happy endings, etc.).
Slightly off topic, but I once visited a store which had its fiction seperated into a dozen or more categories, as in:
“Historical Fiction–Americas”
“Historical Ficton Europe/Asia”
“Contemporary fiction–Women’s”
“Contemporary Fiction-- Thriller”
“Sci-Fi-- Space/futuristic”
“Sci-Fi–Alternate History”
etc.
I thought I must have died and gone to heaven. It was so easy to find new books in genres that I love, rather than going through them alphabetically, looking for a title/font type that indicates a paticular genre. I catagorized my personal library in imitation, and have vowed if I ever have my own bookstore, I’ll do the same.
There is no such genre.
!!! Whose standards are those? English profs’, or publishing execs’, or book reviewers’, or bookstore marketing consultants’?
Certainly there is a “best-seller” genre. Right now, it’s conspiracy thrillers a la Dan Brown.
Take a look at the best seller list at any given point and you’ll find dozens of other similar novels written in the best seller genre – some making the list, but others copying books on it (even to the extent of having similar cover design).
Some english profs, all literary magazines, and most publishing execs, of course (the bookstores use whatever category publishing execs choose, BTW). You don’t see anyone in those groups considering someone like Neil Gaiman literature, despite the fact his books are better written than 99% of literary fiction today.
Is there any place one can find a more or less definitive (by general consensus of the above) list of contemporary authors considered “literary”?
Yes, look in the literary section of a bookstore.
I’m not being facetious, at least not entirely. There is obviously no “official” definition of what is literary and what is not. Like pornography, it’s more a case of “I know it when I see it.”
However, virtually everyone in the business would agree on most authors most of the time. Pick up the latest New York Times Book Review and you’ll see separate columns for Crime and Science Fiction, even though occasional books get individual reviews. Most of the fiction reviewed there is literary fiction, except when they review a bestseller.
And yes, absolutely without qualification, bestseller is a genre. Check Amazon for titles like How to Write a Bestseller in Forty Days or Less: An Agent’s Guide to Writing a Novel, by Barbara S. Debolt or How to Write a Best Seller: Secrets, Techniques and Success Formulas of Best-Selling Authors, by Horst A. Mehler.
All publishing today is about marketing. All marketing is about categorizing. Categorizing is as much about prestige as sales, because prestige can sell since genre usually gets ignored at a national level. Authors from Kurt Vonnegut to Lewis Shiner to Jonathan Letham yelled and whined and screamed until they were taken out of the science fiction genre to be literary. Dean Koontz went from sf to bestseller. Margaret Atwood and Doris Lessing hurled imprecations at anyone who said that their science fiction novels were science fiction instead of literary. Note that nobody ever goes the other way, although Ursula LeGuin, who for a while flirted with mainstream status, has re-embraced her acceptance of the field. Why? Science fiction writers don’t get reviewed in the major newspapers, don’t get invited onto tv shows, don’t get invited to literary events and conferences and the speaking circuit. And science fiction writers mostly get shelved together, have a limited, if assured, number of buyers, and have a short shelf life with little to no backlist. Even general fiction does better than science fiction in these areas.
So to return to your question: who makes these decisions? Everybody. Everybody but the author, with a couple of tiny exceptions.
And where is there a list? Everywhere books are sold. These categories take in thousands of names, with new ones coming in every single day. Look at the packaging, lost at the shelf location, look at the reviews. That’s the only way to tell.
Here’s a real category for you, in a Berkeley bookstore (The person in the picture is humor author Dave Barry) http://blogs.herald.com/photos/uncategorized/higgybabyanddave.jpg
What is “Earth Based Spirituality” you ask. Well, I don’t know either but nearby shelves are labeled Judaism and Mysticism.
Even the publication of “literature”? I thought that was supposed to be written with, you know, higher aims in mind . . .
I recall a hilarious short story by Harlan Ellison: Ellison’s alter ego, writer-superhero Cordwainer Bird, is so furious at finding his new literary novel in the neglected “Sci-Fi” section at Brentano’s that he wreaks righteous havoc on the evil New York Literary Establishment. Blood flows, body count mounts. I really loved the scene where he tortures the manager of Brentano’s by reading to her from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet.
Not that Ellison is bitter or anything! 
To answer more specifically to the question (if you aren’t willing to accept Exapno’s excellent explanation of book genres), literary writers include people like John Updike, Margaret Atwood, William Kennedy, Philip Roth, Toni Morrison, Anne Proulx, Anne Tyler, T. C. Boyle, Joyce Carol Oates, etc. Note that when Atwood or Roth write pure science fiction novels, they are not shelved with science fiction. That’s because they are automatically in the literary genre. Oates writes some fantasy, but her work is never shelved there.
For best sellers, there’s Dan Brown, of course, Stephen King (though there’s movement afoot to consider him literary), John Grisham, Jackie Collins, Danielle Steele, James Paterson, Mary Higgens Clark, etc.
The clearest indication that these are genres was the Jonathan Franzen vs. Oprah flap. Franzen wrote in the literary genre, and was upset that his book was going to be put into the best seller genre due to Oprah’s endorsement.
I recall my horrified reaction the first time, around 1990, I saw a section labeled “Addiction and Recovery”: “Is this what the '90s are going to be like?!” :eek:
And in hindsight, I guess they were . . .
That is also one of the definitions of a genre, of course – that it is written to fulfill a particular purpose.
The problem is not that “literature” is a genre – it’s that the people who write in the literary genre do no recognize it as such. Sturgeon’s Law applies to the literary genre, too, and many books published as “literature” are as forgotten as quickly than the latest Dan Brown rip-off. But the assumption of the genre is that only those working in it are creating “literature” – works with depth that remain worth reading by future generations. This is untrue; there is work in all genres that will prove to be literature.
And remember, the most honored American literary author of the 19th century, one who got glowing reviews by all who read her work and who was the darling of most intellectuals of the time, was Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth.
It’s very dangerous to declare any work as literature until long after the author has died.
What in the world does the writing of a book have to do with the selling of a book?
For another take on the issue of literature and the genre of “Best seller” see the March 20 issue of Time Magazine. There is an article on James Patterson, who writes four best sellers a year.
The article goes on to discuss how Patterson writes, and co-writes novels, the fact that reviewers ignore his books, and his irritation that he doesn’t get more respect for what he does. It bugs him that he doesn’t get respect, because if what he does is so easy, more people would do it, but on the other hand, he is enjoying his life, and the money he earns from writing these books.
No one will ever read it or hear of it if you can’t find a publisher.
Based on what others have posted in this thread, it appears that nowadays even “literary” fiction often is written “to order” – i.e., the writer doesn’t start work without first conferring with publisher or agent about what is desired and marketable.
But WTH, even Shakespeare did that, more or less. (Though I doubt Homer did.)
So, high-school students in future generations might be assigned novels to read that you’ll find in sections other than “Literature” today? Seems hard to believe . . .
