TMP

Marion says: There's good literary fiction and then there's pretentious dreck.

Kathleen Valentine: I would submit that if a book is not good it is not literary fiction. 

Meghann: This would work if "good" was a term that had a objective and universal meaning. My "best book ever" might be your "unreadable and pretentious." What would you call a work that exhibited the hallmarks of literary fiction but was unsuccessful?

How about "unwanted"?

Shelagh Watkins says: Maybe we should ... kill off the term literary fiction and coin something new that would put an end to all the disputes.

Or perhaps we should get rid of the worthless specimens claiming to produce "literary fiction" by bringing back  the standard value judgements of literature.

Kathleen Valentine says:

I thought this was a good breakdown and I posted it to a forum for writers for discussion. I was shocked at the firestorm of hostility it unleashed about literary fiction being snobbish and unreadable. One writer wrote: "It's the snobbery I can't stand. I read all about the big shot academics complaining when Stephen King got that American Letters award... I read because I enjoy a book, not because I want to impress anyone. I write with the intention of appealing to Joe public, not the stuffy academic and his chums. I am that man in the street. I know how he thinks and what he does."

I've been seeing reactions like that for years now and, I admit, while it upsets me to know so many people have such a hostile reaction to literary fiction, it also upsets me that so many people write really bad, unreadable stuff and then excuse it by saying it is literary fiction. That is why I avoid books by unproven writers who self-describe themselves as literary fiction writers. If A.S. Byatt and Margaret Atwood want to call their work literary they have certainly earned that right. When someone tells me they think my work is literary I am deeply flattered and appreciative. But when relatively unproven writers pronounce their own writing literary, I am cautious. I'll read their sample if I'm drawn to the story but if it isn't what they are promoting it as, I, for one, go elsewhere.