/lit/ - Literature

What an idiotic question.
This thread will be awful.

do you want me to list them? are you functionally handicapped?

fantasy
it's always a rehash of the same canon that was in the Tolkien novels

>>6181151
literary fiction

>>6181151
Good ones.

>>6181188

fantasy is a genre

define labels

Infinite Jest is a sci-fi story, as is Gravity's Rainbow. Mason & Dixon and V. are historical fiction. Inherent Vice is a detective novel. Borges and Calvino write fantasy and fairy tales, respectively.

Features of a genre:
-successful business model
-strict boundaries of form
-dedicated fanbase who can be counted on to buy new product

Crime fiction and science fiction are paradigmatic examples of genres.

The term 'genre fiction' is not really applicable to literary works written before the emergence of genre publishing in the 18th century. Don Quixote is fiction in a certain genre (parody of pastoral romance) but it is not 'genre fiction.'

'Literary fiction' is a genre label originating in the 60s to distinguish 'realist' novels from those in other genres. It is not the opposite of 'genre fiction.'

>>6181202

>has science or history in the book
>is necessarily contained within the genres of sci-fi or historical fiction


top pleb

>>6181251
Have you read Infinite Jest or Mason & Dixon?

>>6181309

yep, both of them. neither are 'genre' fiction as they transcend the boundaries of genre on pretty much every page

>>6181314
For the sake of this retarded OP they adhere to the tropes associated with the genres they are similar too, they're just really really good.

>>6181243
>Don Quixote is fiction in a certain genre (parody of pastoral romance)

Pastoral romance? Wtf?

>>6181372
I meant 'chivalric and pastoral romance.' See http://www.ems.kcl.ac.uk/content/pub/b013.html

>>6181193

Literary fiction is focused more on themes than on plot.

>>6181383
Ah, now that you added "chivalric" it makes more sense.

And "literary fiction" is fucking bullshit. Just as ridiculous as "genre fiction". There's good literature and bad literature, deep and shallow, but it's all literature.

>>6181412
>either/or
You're a dumb fuck. Plot in literary fiction serves the themes, that's all. The plot in the Iliad is extremely important for the themes.

>>6181243
And honestly literary fiction in the realist genre sense has much stricter formula these days (and a more homogenous fanbase) than, for example, science fiction.

>>6181251
So if it's good, it isn't part of a genre?

That's not how these things work.

>>6181151
THIS is not a prison.
this is a prison!

4chan, monsieur, is an example

>>6181680
>And "literary fiction" is fucking bullshit. Just as ridiculous as "genre fiction".

That's what I was getting at: 'literary fiction' is a branding exercise by publishers and bookstores. I'd hazard a guess that it's with writers like Salman Rushdie, Philip Roth, and Martin Amis that you start seeing books referred to as 'literary fiction' instead of 'literature.'

I found a Guardian article that makes much the same point: http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/apr/21/literary-fiction-clever-marketing-genre-debate

>>6181243
> Crime fiction and science fiction are paradigmatic examples of genres.
Science fiction??

> -successful business model
There's no successful business model in writing science fiction.
> -strict boundaries of form
Certainly not. Among sci-fi fans, arguing whether a particular work counts as sci-fi consumes more time than actually reading sci-fi.
> -dedicated fanbase who can be counted on to buy new product
Again, no. There is no market in writing sci-fi, which is why many sci-fi writers nowadays will release books for free.

Your three points apply to something like e.g. Warhammer 40K novels, but not to sci-fi.

Sci-fi is a literary movement, not a 'genre'. That is, you're a sci-fi author if you hang around other sci-fi authors, visit conventions and awards and post to sci-fi forums.