Armchair BEA: Literary Fiction

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Literary Fiction.  The genre title alone is enough to inspire fear and aversion in most readers.  This is most often because many of our first encounters with works deemed literary fiction occurred as part of the dreaded required reading component of our middle school and high school English classes.  The archaic language and puritanical themes of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter do not translate well to today's contemporary tenth-grader.  The overwhelming prose of William Faulkner is tough for a graduate student to decipher much less a student who is used to conversing in 140 characters or less.  Personal experience has taught me that most classical literary fiction is worth a revisit and a re-read due to the more mature life experiences and perspectives I can now bring to a work.  Does that mean I don't think literary fiction should be taught as part of the middle school and high school curriculum?  No.  I do, however, think that educators can structure their curriculum to build a bridge between readers and more challenging texts by broadening the definition of "literary fiction" and incorporating more accessible texts with similar themes into the classroom.

Before I expand upon this theory, let's attempt a working definition of literary fiction.

According to Merriam-Webster, the term "literary" means "of, relating to, or having the characteristics of humane learning or literature" or "of or relating to authors or scholars or to their professions," which means literary fiction would be fiction with these qualities. But what does that mean? Through my experience, this broad and very vague definition refers to books that have been esteemed as possessing merit by critics of note. Still broad and confusing, eh? Most classics fall into this category, but that doesn't mean contemporary novels and novelists are not also considered literary fiction.

Examples of classic literary fiction by author:
The Bronte Sisters
Mark Twain
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Henry James
William Faulkner

T. S. Eliot

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Virgina Woolf 

Examples of classic/contemporary literary fiction crossovers by author:

Toni Morrison

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Examples of contemporary literary fiction by author:
Nicole Krauss*
Jonathon Safran Foer*

Don DeLillo

J. M. Coetzee 

John Updike

A. S. Byatt

Philip Roth

Jeanette Winterson
*ironically these two are married

There is something exclusive about literary fiction.  In an attempt to narrow down the definition and put some meat on its bones, I often find literary fiction to be meta-textual. It makes allusions to other (often prestigious) works, which creates two audience camps, those who "get" the references and those who do not, thus, heralding those in the know as literary experts and excluding those who do not as simpletons. Literary fiction can be very alienating that way. Similarly, literary fiction is often meta-cognitive. It talks a lot about itself and literature in general and the writing and reading processes. Personally, this is one of the draws for me. I love a book within a book, and I can't deny that when an author makes an allusion to a favorite book/author/play/poem etc. I feel a sense of kinship. Bonus warm and fuzzy feelings if the reference is to something obscure, and I still get it.

However, literary fiction endures despite its snobbery because it delves into the recesses of the universal human experience. It is this complex dichotomy of exclusion and inclusion that makes literary fiction such a compelling if challenging read. Literary fiction often deals with over-arching big issues from companionship to racism to aging. Therefore, the closer your experience to these issues, the more likely that piece of fiction will resonate with you, which is why I stand by the observation I made above:

Personal experience has taught me that most classical literary fiction is worth a revisit and a re-read due to the more mature life experiences and perspectives I can now bring to a work.

It also highlights the struggle then with teaching more classic and literary texts in a classroom full of students with limited life experience.  What is the solution?

Tandem teaching or pairing a contemporary work and a literary work that have similar themes.  The contemporary work acts as a bridge for students to understand the more complex literary work.  This pairing also opens the door for discussions on tone, writing style, and exploration of common rhetorical modes like compare and contrast and analysis.

One of my favorite pairings, and actually the one that inspired this post, is Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Laurie Anderson's Speak.  The two texts have many parallels in terms of theme, imagery, and character and relationship development.  Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings would also be excellent additions to a unit including the two titular novels.  Also, When She Woke by Hillary Jordan is a contemporary espionage tinged re-telling of The Scarlet Letter that may spark interest, or at least understanding, of this century old text.  Rick Riordan's acclaimed Percy Jackson series would make an excellent introduction to a unit on classical mythology, and there are numerous contemporary revisions of Shakespeare's works.  Similarly, The Help by Kathryn Stockett would be a wonderful companion to traditional texts discussing race relations.  Another pairing rich for comparison and exploration would be Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Megan McCafferty's Bumped, which reflects on present-day attitudes towards teen pregnancy.  Incorporating Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and Don DeLillo's Falling Man into a historical unit to trace attitudes towards war and national security.

What are your feelings towards literary fiction?  Love it?  Hate it?  Proceed with caution?  I want to know!