Ambiguity

Back in September, friend of the blog Marcus Geduld posted a long, thoughtful essay in response to an essay I wrote about Kazuo Ishiguro’s novelNever Let Me Go. That essay was my response to a literary writer turning to a science fiction trope, and necessarily involved theorizing about the differences between literary fiction and genre.
Among the many intelligent comments Marcus made had to do with ambiguity, which literary works tolerate more than does genre. I’ve been thinking about this eve...