I used to be more of a purist about literature. I thought, 'If it's a really propulsive story, then maybe there's something unliterary about it.'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Fiction works when it makes a reader feel something strongly.
You're more likely to finish a book you enjoy, than one that feels like literary drudgery.
A great literary work can be completely, completely unpredictable. Which can sometimes make them very hard to read, but it gives them a great originality.
I don't read a great deal of fiction, to my shame, other than the classics.
There are people out there who genuinely love literature, who genuinely love to read and read widely, who will never like, or even necessarily get, my books. That was a hard one to swallow, to not feel slighted by.
The novel, as a genre, was once considered a diversion every bit as frivolous as Facebook, but over the years, we've managed to convince ourselves that reading fiction is as important to our mental digestion as fresh fruits and vegetables are to the processes that take place a little further down.
I get upset about what is taken as great literature and what is cute and exotic.
Don't get me wrong, I love literary fiction. It's faux literary fiction I can't stand.
I generally find fiction without some move to the weird, less imaginative, dull, prosaic. Not all of it, of course, but a lot of it. I suppose it's just a question of taste.
Literature at its fullest takes human nature as its theme. That's the kind of writing that interests me.