BonaLibro

Literary Agent Nathan Bransford, poses the the question, “Is Literary fiction losing its place in the culture? In my experience, literary fiction has always struggled in a pulp fiction world. So news of its demise, as the humorist said, has often been greatly exaggerated. As Bransford correctly notes,  there has been such talk before, though not that long ago in his mind, and he wonders if it’s really and truly dead. I would argue that it isn’t dead, and that Bransford is merely looking for it in all the obvious places, but not in the last places one would look, which is always where one finds things. Do you have a slush pile, Mr. Bransford? If you do, I would suggest you read through it, as you’re bound to find a few gems in there among all the genre gravel. I’m being tongue in cheek, of course, though I read nothing but literary fiction and I’m always able to find a good book by taking a lesson from the classics I’ve read. What the classics have in common is:

Number one, readability; the stories themselves are approachable to the ordinary reader. Classic writers tend to display their mastery of language by writing stylish, communicative prose. What they don’t write is obscurantist stuff which displays a surface profundity that frequently conceals a hollow core, the sort of book one pretends to get because it wouldn’t be hip to admit that you don’t. The writers of such are akin to the tailors in The Emperor’s New Clothes. Does Don DeLillo come to mind?

Number two; characters that readers know personally in their everyday lives, unlike the digital avatars we encounter in… Don DeLillo. Finally, for those that dig, they do have a base of ideas, which often come across subconsciously even to the less astute reader, who finds himself influenced without quite knowing why or how.

So before posing the question, is literary fiction irrelevant, I’d suggest Mr. Bransford peruse that stack of unread manuscripts or the shops for something other than best sellers.