The Library is a splendid destination for those of plentiful time and negligible money. It’s an excuse to leave the house and seek out the society of books, in a very public display of intention and affection, which will not cost you the solar system and it’s many moons.
Twas in the library late yesterday as I browsed the shelves for a read not entirely Literary, in that virtually unreadable Virginia Woolfe-Kafka-Joyce sense, but one that’s blurb didn’t begin “Mary Little thought she knew what love and life was about until she met Ryan, her husbands estranged brother....” Oh! The Espionage! I sought something funny, but not pitifully lame, something to delight in that would not suck the will to live from my wavering eyes... In short – I went in search of a good book.
It was in this quest that I noticed that some books on the alphabetised shelves were ‘Fiction’ or ‘Romance’ while others were ‘Literary Fiction’. This term I had heard before, but I got to wondering, what on earth does it mean anyway? Are those books better, or just more nose-to-sky intellectual? For it seems we attach that term to the hefty, critically-acclaimed, multi-award winning books that make the majority of us go....
What?!
They are the kind of books that you might conceivably purchase to line a shelf in your house labelled “Oh yes, I’ve read that.” They are the name-droppers, the no-idea-what-it-was-about-but-ha!-I-read-it type of books.
A confession: I own many of these. I have read most of these. I usually don’t understand why they have been adored for generations.
Why do I read them? Because they are the books that are referenced by books that wish to be cool by association. They form the extensive body of those books referred to in sentences such as “This book is reminiscent of Henry David Thoreau’s timeless essay Walden...” I read them to broaden my mind. Usually, I get a headache. Literary fiction is all about the imagery, the intense layers of meaning, the unforgettable characters and usually, the fact that we have NO IDEA what the author was smoking at the time but, hey, it must have been good.
In the end the book I picked was labelled Literary Fiction. But what I’ve discovered is a gem of a book, a book that makes you go “Aww” and giggle, get teary and wonder how to go on when it’s over. And then, next time I need to sound like a wanker, “Oh, have you read this..?”
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