Genres are always tricky and there are often a lot of problems with assigning a genre. Recently River City Reading (a fantastic blog if you are not following it) was asking about historical fiction which was interesting but I have been thinking about something different. I am curious to know how people choose if a book is contemporary fiction or literary fiction. Most people may agree that literary fiction covers a wide range of different genres but when it comes to contemporary fiction there is a very fine line between the two.
I know that when it comes to genres, everyone have a different opinions and we can spend time arguing about each one. So I thought, why not create a space where we can argue contemporary fiction verses literary fiction. For me, I think contemporary fiction focuses on the modern life and all the moral and relationship dilemmas that we face as humans. Literary fiction can cover the same topic but executed a little differently. When it comes to literary fiction it is all about the proses, beauty and how thought provoking a book can be.
Which does bring up an interesting problem; should literary fiction be considered a genre. If you think about it, literary fiction tends to blend into all other genres, to the extent that I’d rather call it a category not a genre. You can have literary fantasy, literary detective fiction and it will go on and on. So why do people insist on making literary fiction a genre? I tend to think most people refer to contemporary fiction as literary fiction however I think they are separate.
Genres are confusing and often are easily mixed up, it would be great if we can throw them away all together but they still have a use. I thought I would write this post to ask people what they think, how do people separate contemporary fiction and literary fiction. Do you even try to separate them, or do you have a technique to work it out? Furthermore, do you think genres are essential and what would a world be like if we just separate everything as fiction and non-fiction?
I use contemporary fiction when a book is set in the present and I can’t figure out what genre to put it in. It’s sort of my word for ‘other’
That is a good point, I tend to do that as well
Good question – should literary fiction be considered a genre? There is great writing in all genres (just as there is bad) so why is some considered literary fiction while others are sci-fi? Contemporary fiction is a little easier to define, since I’d say it should deal with contemporary issues. Such a tangled knot of a question and I have no answer.
It is very confusing, I would be happy if we didn’t have genres at all but there seems to be a need for them.
I guess the way you described them is the way I would as well. It’s often hard even assigning genre what with so many sub genre it all gets a bit confusing
Sub genres and genres are very confusing; we should get rid of them all
I tend to think of contemporary fiction as being on a timeline, so it seems like more of a category to me. As for literary fiction, I use it more to delineate what I don’t read (or at least read less of)…which would be those sub-categories you mentioned: fantasy, sci-fi, detective fiction. There have been times where I’ve replaced “literary fiction” with “general fiction”, but have had people assume I regularly read the all of those genres as well. It’s definitely a tricky thing, but interesting to discuss.
Thanks for the nice mention!
I don’t like the idea of using literary fiction to mean general fiction. I prefer to use contemporary fiction to mean general fiction.
I’m happy to mention your blog, I hope everyone knows about it already
Ooh great question. I think contemporary is definitely here and now while literary is more timeless? But it is a fine line.
Very fine line
Great discussion idea. I always think of classics when I think of literary fiction, probably because of your description above, which I like. Contemporary always seems to be the “new and popular” to me.
That is a pretty good way to define it.
You are inside my head. I’ve been pondering this over the past few weeks. 🙂
For a long time I’ve used contemporary and literary fiction interchangeably and I defined it as ‘serious’ fiction that aren’t classics. So I guess another what I would think of it would be ‘modern classics’ But lately I’ve been revisiting those definitions. I do consider literary fiction to be deeper and more ‘difficult’ than ‘beach reads’ – but it’s a weird fine line.
As far as being a genre unto itself, I agree with a lot of what Andi said in this blog post of hers:
http://estellasrevenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/twisty-twisty-books-literary-fiction.html
I prefer a ‘difficult’ read over a ‘beach read’, I guess that makes me weird. You are right, it is a weird fine line.
I generally prefer the more difficult read myself. But it also depends on what kind of beach read we’re talking about. 🙂
I’d go to the beach and read War and Peace or Infinite Jest because that is who I am 😛
Actually I wouldn’t go outdoors, too busy reading.
Beach read is a term of art for me. I don’t like the outdoors or the sun. 🙂
I’m with you, that sun is too hot and annoying and there are people outside
Plus bugs. 🙂
I think of literary fiction as focusing more on the writing, whereas contemporary focuses more on the characters and/or plot. The contemporary label is for the books that aren’t quite literary, but don’t fall into one of the clearly defined genres. At least, that’s how I use it.
That is a good way to define it
I have no idea. I think “literary fiction” sounds sort of snobbish but anything that has “literary merit” would fall under it (although that would point would be highly debatable). I personally put anything that has a timelessness (a modern-day classic?) in litfic. Contemporary fic is where I put all fic that is set in the present-day. Like I said, I have no idea 😉
I’m ok with something sounding snobbish, just means I’d read it 😉 it is hard to define and it is highly debatable.
Hahaha! Snobbish yeah 😉
I’ve been using the terms interchangeably on my blog. There’s only literary fiction and all non-genre modern fiction falls into that bucket.
It’s a good point that you make about literary being more timeless than contemporary, but I am not sure that’s a distinction that we can make in this point in time? I mean maybe 30-40 years from now, we could say that this book is going to stand the test of time and that won’t but there’s really no way to say for sure when the book is just published, is there?
It is hard to tell if a book will stand the test of time now but we might about to speculate. Isn’t that how we pick genres anyway?