What Is Literary Fiction, Part 3

This post and its predecessors have been consolidated into and superseded by:

https://www.writingforums.org/entry/literary-fiction-a-consolidated-practical-view.66349/

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The first post in this series defined Literary Fiction in practical terms as fiction that does not adhere to the restrictions, expectations, values, or conventions of popular fiction or its many genres.

The second post took a superficial look at some of the specific restrictions, expectations, values, and conventions that work together to shape Popular Fiction.

Before looking at ways in which Literary Fiction diverges on those comparison points, it's worth naming some in-between categories of fiction.

Upmarket Fiction, also sometimes known as Bookclub Fiction, is a form of essentially popular fiction that caters to a market with a higher reading level and more complex expectations regarding plot and production values.

Alice Seybold's 2002 The Lovely Bones has been described as upmarket fiction, although personally, I might classify it as hybrid fiction. (Though it's been 20 years since I read it.) Lines in this middle area are often blurry, even if the distinction between the poles of popular and literary is always obvious.

Hybrid Fiction, also sometimes known as Semi-literary Fiction, is a form of essentially literary fiction that shows some broader market sensibility, for instance being somewhat more accessible and perhaps written as a wrapper around some more traditional genre treatment. In my recollection, Peter Høeg's 1992 Smilla's Sense of Snow (Edited UK translation titled Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow) is possibly an example of this phenomenon of giving a literary treatment to a traditional mystery. It includes philosophical elements and others often considered literary, but was mainstream enough to be turned into a film that enjoyed some commercial success.