A Few Questions

I've spent a literary lifetime trying to figure out what comprises literary fiction and what defines popular fiction. The definitions shift constantly, and seem to rise from whatever academics and critics believe to be the case. My confusion only deepens when I see titles that seem to contradict the classifications.

The cynical answer is that literary fiction consists of those novels published by eight or ten old-line distinguished New York publishers, and all the rest is popular fiction. Another cynical answer is that novelists who earn royalties and make a living produce popular fiction, while those who are supported by other income, especially from universities, write literary fiction.

My notions are reinforced by the sight of the Pulitzers and National Book Awards for fiction routinely going to several familiar publishers not just year after year but decade after decade.

The whole pigeonholing enterprise seems ossified and timid, and I think it will vanish eventually. Some author of alleged popular fiction will write a grand novel that will sweep the literary awards, and then, with luck, a few thousand hidebound literary critics and academics will retire.

Meanwhile, please help me by defining the essences of literary and popular fiction for me. I'm eager to learn.