Monday Musing- The fictional debate

This week my fellow authors (Christine , Kirsti, Tess ) and I are exploring the topic Literary vs. Genre Fiction. Genre can also be known as Popular fiction.

First impressions (free association really) when I started thinking about this topic:

Literary: (sometimes) boring, insightful, symbolic, school, themes, complex, deep, real life characters, awards, To Kill a Mockingbird, subtle, school, okay I'm repeating myself.

Genre fiction: paperback, straightforward, fast pace, cookie cutter, then I drew a blank because genre fiction is really quite open...

I don't care to promote one above the other since I think they each have their place. Personally it depends upon my mood and how much work I want to do as the reader. Do I want to be whirled away from the troubles of my life or do I want to dive into and examine the troubles of life?

I also have a looser definition of literary than I'm guessing most people do. Literary shouldn't mean critically acclaimed with awards. For me it means, did it make me think? Do I view the world slightly different because of it? Literary work is often subtle, and doesn't answer all your questions with a pretty pink bow. It asks "why" but doesn't offer an answer. It may leave many unanswered questions.

The timing of this topic is perfect since I just read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, (who is by the way my new favorite author.) I harassed my husband enough into reading it because I wanted another person's opinion on it, especially the ending. He even pulled a late-nighter to finish the end despite it being a work night! Normally he reads a chapter before going to bed and I'm the one huddled under the blankets with the mini reading light until 3 am. The next day we held an impromptu book discussion in the kitchen.

I won't give anything away since I recommend it as a good read. It's not a very long book and it's a Dystopian novel, similar to 1984, in a sense. But after watching the movie together over the weekend, the literary pieces really stood out to me. Since the movie was made in 1990 and still heavily influenced by the 1980s, I did my best to ignore the awful hair, music etc.

We all know that books and their movies are rarely exact, and are often quite different. In this case, some key points were very different, and afterwards my husband put it pretty well: "If I hadn't read the book, I wouldn't have really known what it was about."

Of course you get that it's Dystopian, the handmaids wear red, they're supposed to bear children, and so on with the basics but many of the literary elements were ignored OR the movie took the liberty to answer some of the unanswered questions that the book poses (and not in a thoughtful way).

 Again, I don't want to give anything away, but the movie ramped up a few scenes, adding events that were not in the book, probably to add more drama and give the audience that feeling of connecting the dots. Oh, this happened, so that's why that happened. Oh, and just to make you feel better, we'll add this so you're content with the love, motherhood, and survival aspects of it.

As the credits were rolling, I told my husband I didn't like how they did it. I'd just eaten pink cotton candy when I was expecting Mackinaw Fudge.

The movie was genre fiction and the book was literary fiction- evoking two very different feelings and experiences.

I'm not saying that genre fiction is unable to be deep or complex. But I would argue that in order to be considered literary (even my broad definition of it), it needs to be more than cotton candy.

I'd been internally debating the subject for a few days so it was nice to unexpectedly experience the difference, rather than simply thinking and writing about it.

Feel free to share your own thoughts below on the subject or The Handmaid's Tale. Remember to check out Christine , Kirsti, and Tess 's blogs to get their thoughts on it!