Popular vs Literary Fiction

Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre for Books has an impressive range of events listed in their promotional brochure, so recently I went to check out one of their Lunchbox/Soapbox talks.  The title of the talk appealed to my funny bone as it was “In Defense of Trash Fiction” and given the huge sales of books by authors such as Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer, there are many people who read this type of book but don't admit to it.  The session was led by Toni Jordan, a Melbourne based author whose debut book, “Addition” which was published in 2007.

Toni was an amusing and eloquent speaker and made some interesting comparisons between popular (she thought that was nicer than “trash”) and literary fiction.   Firstly, what popular fiction is not.  It is not read for the “beauty of its narrative or the poetry of its sentences”.  The characters in popular fiction are not deeply developed.  Where popular fiction wins is in the story.  Most people will finish a popular fiction book as the aim of the author is to ensure that the reader keeps turning the page. Toni uses the example of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code to demonstrate, as the main characters seem to running for the lives in every chapter leaving us wanting more.  We read popular fiction to be entertained and taken away from what we are doing now, be it caring for young children, working in a stressful job, or lying on a beach on holiday.

In comparison, literary fiction is seen as beautifully written with vivid and dialogue, “complexity of themes”.  and maybe, a thought provoking message to deliver. However, this can mean that sometimes it is hard to keep with the plot.  I have to confess that I have been known to skim whole paragraphs in my desperation to get back to the story in some books.  Reading literary fiction has a certain snob appeal for many of us, to show how clever we are, and often we start one of these books but never finish it.  I can relate to this with A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Tolz which was not my cup of tea at all.  In literary fiction, the characters are often not likeable or are generally of the odd variety and I quote from Toni's talk, “literary fiction has characters that if they were real people sitting next to you on the train, you would get up and move to another carriage”.