Literary Fiction vs Genre Fiction & Is Fiction an Escape?

I just finished reading yet another blog concerning the long winded argument between literary fiction and genre fiction, an argument that falsely aligns itself with good fiction vs bad fiction.

In that blog the writer said that all fiction serves as some form of escape. This is the real point where I began to disagree with the writer. I used to think of fiction in this way and I see where the viewpoint comes from but I don’t think that it’s all about escape. In fact, I think that if escape is all you’re reading for, then you’re either reading sub-optimally or are unaware what you’re really doing.*

I think fiction is an exercise. We might read a high fantasy book because it takes us to a different time or place, but notice how we always relate to the characters that appear the most human, that elicit the strongest thoughts and feelings from us. This is not coincidence.

We run to another place and time to be human somewhere different than we are, to reflect on the same principles and concepts that have, will, or can affect us. We escape into a different character, but notice that these characters, even if not human or us, always exhibit some aspect of humanness or human condition. We superimpose fictional realities onto our own in an effort to reflect life back onto ourselves. Escape? Sure, but you’re escaping into something no less real than where you are, figuratively or otherwise.

This ties back into the whole literary vs genre fiction debate. It isn’t the same as good fiction vs bad fiction. Good fiction will elicit that process of discovery and empathy, a knowing and feeling of something that you did not previously have (or that you did previously have and challenge that/force you to struggle with the issue). It is that exercise that massages the muscles of understand not only at the level of logic, but of emotion as well. Catharsis is the goal, purging that emotion, drawing from ourselves answers and questions that make us sit back and take a moment.

If you don’t think this is the case, think back to the last really good book you finished. I know many people will think about that book long into the next book they read. Sometimes they won’t be able to pick up another book until they’ve digested the one they’ve finished. Sometimes they will talk about it, share in that exercise.

Fiction can be an escape, but it’s more an exercise of being human, that is to say an amalgamation of our greatest faculties: imagination, emotion, and logic.

*For those who want to say that they know how they read, understand that if introspection served as an appropriate marker of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviour, that we would have mastered the field of psychology long ago. This isn’t meant to discredit your claim entirely but to remind us that we handle and respond in many ways that go unnoticed – subconsciously, so to speak.

Written by Malum