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Popular Fiction or Literature? 1

One afternoon while marking papers around the large table in the common room of a minor English public school, the question of what was popular fiction and what was literature came up.

One of my colleagues, now a distinguished novelist, said, "Popular fiction is about money, sex and death. Literature is about God, sex and death."

I've considered that definition over the intervening decades, and have come to the conclusion that it is more satisfactory than most. It's simplicity is deceptive. 

The line between the categories is sometimes very fine, good writing can make the difference. It's not about being profound; it's about expressing ideas clearly; creating memorable scenes and characters.

Here, in no particular order, are some books that will probably still be read a hundred years from their first publication, though they may be out of favour now:

  • The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk, 1951
  • 1876, Gore Vidal, 1976
  • The Last Convertible, Anton Myrer, 1978
  • The Rector of Justin, Louis Auchincloss, 1964
  • Ada, Vladimir Nobokov, 1969
  • To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, 1960
  • Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote, 1958
  • A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles, 2016
  • The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison, 1952
  • The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, 2001
This will start the ball rolling, and future posts will look at several of these along with other classic favourites that may or may not be "literature".

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