Genre and Literature

To start off with, I want to make this clear that this isn't a scholarly essay of any sort- I'm just blathering about something that's been on my mind lately. For the last month or so I've been coming across various blog posts and web pages discussing the differences between 'genre' fiction (science fiction, mysteries, romances, etc.) and 'literary' fiction (a bit of a redundant term meaning anything that isn't sf/f, mystery, etc.) and why the two are for some reason considered to be antithetical to one another.

Now wait just a damn minute.

While I agree with everything Hal Duncan says on his examination on literary fiction (not all that surprising- I tend to agree with him on most things) I can't help but wonder- why isn't anyone else talking about how literary fiction is, by it's very nature of being fiction, a fantastical genre? That's right, I said it- literary fiction is the same basic thing as that oft-derided 'genre' of fantasy fiction.

Why do I make this claim? Well, it's an argument of semantics, really. Fiction is made-up. You can dress is up as 'contemporary' or 'classic literature', you can call it slipstream or urban literature or whatever-the-fuck-else, but at the end you're still left with fiction. Fiction isn't true. Non-fiction is true (don't get me started on that 'creative non-fiction' crap. That's a separate blog post of fussiness) and can be considered to be in the same realm of literature as, well, literary fiction. However, if you're writing non-fiction... and unless you're writing 'creative non-fiction'... you're writing something that's well researched and created in order to inform or incite, and you're presenting it as truth and usually not as entertainment. There are exceptions to this, of course, in the form of gossipy bio-pics and collections of trivia and humorous tales that have no point other than to amuse. But, I'm wandering. My point is that while non-fiction can be just as literary as, say, Hemingway's Farewell to Arms, fiction in general is a sort of fantasy by virtue of being made-up, no matter if it contains dragons and elves or soccer moms and knitting clubs (which is another trend which pisses me off- but again, different topic).

And do you know what? There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. The whole swords-and-sorcery connotation associated with the fantasy 'genre' is off-putting to many readers, I know, but at the heart of every novel, regardless of its literary aspirations, there is an echo of the word 'fantasy'. Hal Duncan mentions the suspension of disbelief being vital to reading fantasy (as we know the genre), but I can't help but ponder about all those slightly odd 'contemporary fiction' novels, those classified as 'strange fiction' or slipstream'. Does 'legitimacy' in the more 'literary' fiction depend on being 'predictible' and 'realistic'? Or can we admit that simply by being fiction, even the most literary novel has a little spark of the fantastic at its core?