People keep confusing literary fiction with just being boring

I've noticed in our last few book club debates, a bunch of members keep calling any slow-paced book 'literary fiction' when really it's just poorly written. I sat through a three hour meeting last month where half the group argued that The Goldfinch was literary because nothing exciting happened for 200 pages. But literary fiction isn't about being slow. It's about the writing itself, the language choices, the way the author builds meaning through sentences. I picked up a book called Gilead last year that moves at a crawl but every paragraph has weight to it. That's literary. A book with flat characters and random scenes is just a boring book, not a literary one. Has anyone else dealt with this mix-up in your group's discussions?

4 comments

4 Comments

taylorellis18d ago

Oh man, this hits home hard. I read an article a while back that said literary fiction is like poetry in prose form, and it stuck with me. Every sentence has to earn its keep, you know? It's not about action or plot twists, it's about the rhythm and the weight of the words. I tried reading a book that was supposed to be literary last year, but it was just a bunch of long paragraphs about a guy staring at a wall. That's not literary, that's just boring. The Goldfinch argument you mentioned is wild, that book definitely has literary moments but it's also a straight up thriller in parts. I think people use 'literary' as a shield for anything they don't want to admit is slow or poorly put together.

lucasschmidt12d ago

That wall staring book you mentioned, I had a similar experience with one that was all about a woman watching rain hit a window for like thirty pages. I kept waiting for something to click and it never did. But then I found this old beat up copy of "A River Runs Through It" at a garage sale and that book, man, every line just flows. My dad used to fly fish and he always said it's not about catching fish, it's about being in the water and reading the current. That book gets that same thing with words. So yeah, sometimes people slap the literary label on stuff that's just self indulgent, but when it works it really works. The Goldfinch thing is a good example, I think a lot of popular books have literary parts buried in them but nobody wants to admit they read something entertaining.

kevin_west12d ago

Man, people really overthink this stuff. Literary fiction isn't that complicated. It's just books that focus on how people feel and think instead of what they do. That wall staring book you mentioned sounds like bad writing, not deep meaning. I've read plenty of literary novels that have a clear story and move along just fine. People act like a book is better because it's hard to get through, which is kind of silly.

dianaanderson18d ago

Exactly, slow isn't the same as literary.