Lit Lite

My latest copy of Mslexia (rotten site - forgive them, they clearly run the magazine on a shoestring, and they do it very well, but the budget doesn't extend to a proper web designer) arrived this morning.  It has a thought provoking (or should that be alarming?) article by the magazine's editor Debbie Taylor called The Rise of Lit Lite.  Normally I find these 'state of the publishing world' articles a bit dull, but this one is interesting in quoting named individuals and citing actual figures. 

Surveying the publishing world, she echoes a view that I seem to be reading with increasing frequency:

"The traditional arbiters of literary success - fiction editors, prize judges, broadsheet book reviewers - have been replaced by a completely different set of people.  The new literary arbiters are the central buyers of bookshop and supermarket chains and the controllers of the new media book clubs that have sprung up on TV, talk radio and in every half-way serious newspaper.

The shift in power in the bookselling world - from publishers to retailers - was crystallised recently when a publisher was overheard protesting to a head buyer: 'I remember when we used to sell our books to you.  Now you sell your shelf space to us.'  According to Liz Bury of the Bookseller, inclusion in a Waterstone's '3 for 2' offer can lift sales from 50 copies to 5,000 'in a single step'.  The converse is also true: 'Rejection by such a conglomerate is enough to kill a book's chances,' says ex-Chair of the Society of Authors, Anthony Beevor.

Then speaking to literary agent Pat Kavanagh:

" 'It's tough very very tough at the moment,' she told me.  'Tougher than I've ever known it.'  Kavanagh specialises in literary fiction - clients she represents include Helen Simpson and Julian Barnes - and there is growing evidence that challenging novels with a minority readership are particular casualties of the rationalisation in the industry."   

Other agents concur with this view, although, paradoxically, sales are healthy and a representative from Book Marketing Ltd who monitors the sector, claims that 'the market for general fiction is thriving.'  How can this be?  The answer, fellow reader, is not necessarily encouraging. 

"It is more difficult to get literary fiction into print, but those books that are getting out there are being hyped like never before.  And this is where it gets interesting.  Because the kinds of books that are being chosen by the new literary arbiters are a very particular subset of literary fiction, a subset that is challenging enough to satisfy the little grey cells of the committed 'heavy book buyer', but not too off-putting to the intelligent Richard & Judy viewer who might only buy five books a year.  It's a subset that I'm calling 'lit lite'.  And it is big (big) business these days.

Lit lite is the kind of book beloved of the reading group: sufficiently approachable and gripping to engage everyone in the group, yet still offering something - some stylistic quirk, some moral dilemma, some social issue - for members to discuss when they meet.   ....

So what exactly is lit lite?  Andrea Levy's Small Island, with its sassy dialogue and political-historical content (and sales of over half a million) is quintessential lit lite: a ripping yarn with lots of meaty issues to discuss.  So is Yann Martel's Life of Pi, another perfect reading group book, with its exotic setting and philosophical musings - and sales now nudging a million.  Zadie Smith's Man Booker shortlisted On Beauty is another example: 'an important book dealing with important themes,' according to the Daily Mail, yet 'just as readable and addictive as White Teeth' - and an immediate strong-seller, compared with the lacklustre performance of her clever-clever Autograph Man.

Does lit lite imply the existence of its opposite, lit heavy?  Yes, to some extent - though I'd prefer to use a less pejorative term, something that alludes to the complex pleasures of difficult literary fiction.  These novels might be better termed 'slow reads', the literary equivalent of 'slow food', that takes time to savour, and appeals to a smaller, more committed, readership.

When a slow read wins a literary prize, sales do improve - but only modestly.  When a lit lite novel wins, sales skyrocket as an already approachable book is given the stamp of literary approval.  That's why the 2005 Booker shortlist was so welcomed by the book trade - because it contained crowd-pleasing authors like Kazuo Ishiguro and Zadie Smith, firm favourites of the parallel 'people's panel' - and why they felt so deflated when John Banville's The Sea, with its glum subject matter and clogged syntax, was chosen by the official judges.

Banville's book had sold just 866 copies before its shortlisting, and racked up a mere 17,328 in the weeks after the prize was announced, compared with the 400,000 quickly achieved by Margaret Atwood's winning page-turner The Blind Assassin (another great favourite with reading groups).  Banville is reported to be turning to thriller writing - and who can blame him?

Who indeed.  And as for me, well, now I feel vindicated in my decision never to join a reading group.  It's like making decisions by committee, you merely find the lowest common denominator, the outcome is always everybody's third choice.  Unless you have a dictator on board.  Welcome to the totalitarian state of Book World, dear reader.

Comments

[Steve Clackson]

Very interesting perspective.

[Ron]

This is sad. I had a feeling things were headed in this direction. I've been in book shops when these reading groups were taking place. It's hard to listen to...people talking AT each other rather than WITH...and about what?

I'm torn though. Shouldn't we be encouraging discussions of any kind?

Maybe Lulu.com has a big future.

[Sandra]

Yes, I'm torn too. I feel that the books cited are probably very good and unfairly slighted (I confess I haven't personally read any of them) but equally I do have a sinking feeling about how homogenised literature will become if this trend continues to its logical conclusion. The article I cited has a list of 7 elements of lit lite that are painfully true and painfully a parody. I'll try and post them later today.

Re Lulu - where will those books find their readers?

[Ella]

I think all bloggers are really closet dictators, aren't we? I know I am.

Also, that's interesting about john Banville. Makes me want to see if I can get ahold of his book now.

[Sandra]

Yes, I feel a sudden rush of sympathy for Banville too. But what if we read his book and find it, gulp, too hard?? We'll label ourselves lightweights for ever.

[callie]

thank you for posting these exerpts and highlighting the implications in your post. wow. i'm saddened. though i also feel vindicated for never participating in a book group. i almost have on several occaisions...but i can never wrap my head around the idea of someone else telling me what to read and then what to think about what i've read. a sad state of affairs for those of us who are writers...but i guess we must deal with reality at some point!

[Susan]

I think lite lit must be heavier in England, because the titles listed would NEVER be chosen in any of the book groups I've belonged to.

I do think the books that appeal to both the more mainstream or genre readers and the ones who read literary fiction build great bridges. Everytime I pass a The Historian or Poisonwood Bible on to my mother-in-law and she can't stop talking about how much she loves it, the more likely she is to tackle a book that she has to work at little harder at and then pass it along to everyone else in her Sunday school class.

[Stefanie]

I agree with Susan. Lit Lite can be a bridge to something more difficult. Readers just need a bit of encouragement and cheerleading to venture into the deeper water. I know some smart people who are afraid to read anything more difficult than Lite, they are afraid they won't "get it" but once in a while will dip in a toe to test the waters. Sometimes they get scared back, sometimes they see it isn't so bad after all.

And as far as book groups go, you have to put up with quite a few insipid books chosen by others, but then you eventually get to take a turn at choosing the book too.

[Sandra]

And do they hate you forever when you choose something very literary and obscure?

[Stefanie]

Hate me forever? No, they just grumble about reading a "hard" book and then thank me for it later :) They did rebel when I tried to get them to read Mrs. Dalloway though. So far that's the only one they have refused to read.

[iliana]

Well I'm a junkie for book groups but I do agree that a lot of them go via the lit lite road. However, one of my book groups which has been going strong for 10+ years is really not typical of what you'd think book groups are about. We read books that are challenging (we usually go by nobel prize winners, classics), we read books by non-American writers (so as to have a different perspective), and we all nominate books so it's not always someone dictating what everyone has to read, etc. Because of this group I've discovered J.M. Coetzee, Kenzaburo Oe, and many other writers whose works I might not have picked up at first sight.

[Sandra]

Ilana, your book group sounds amazing. I am very envious. I feel I could try something like that - but how did you find it/they find you?

[Kate S.]

I think that sometimes which books are "too hard" for a broad readership is determined by the media coverage. Of the Booker shortlisted books from last year that I've had a go at, Banville's "The Sea" is the one that most readily drew me in. It certainly isn't "lite" but I didn't find it difficult either. I think if there was less media moaning about how difficult it is and more people just picked it up, they'd be drawn in just as I was.

[Sandra]

What annoys me is the knee jerk reaction of some reviewers or readers to label any book as difficult just because it does more than present a straightforward narrative in straightforward language.

I've actually just started The Sea and I love it already. I find Banville's language so seductive that it would be difficult not to read on.

I think the only books I find truly difficult to read are the bad ones. Da Vinci Code? Nope. Not read it. Too awful. Too hard to drag yourself kicking and screaming through a book so bad and so pointless.