I recently shared a goal of mine to read more literature. Actually I think I referred to classics. Is there a difference? What is literature anyway? This debate comes up sometime at the Virginia Festival of the Book in which genre authors feel compelled to defend their work. Personally, I like genre fiction. I like plots. I like happy endings. Its why I’ve avoided literature. Too often I don’t understand literature and it ends badly. Mostly I read to be entertained. Its how I choose movies. Any movie that ends badly (Pay It Forward, Knowing, Atonement, etc) should have warnings as far as I’m concerned.

I chose the word classics to define my reading goals because I’m not sure that Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, or Sir Conan Doyle would be considered authors of literature. Jane is the original romance writer. And of course Agatha and Conan Doyle are mystery writers. But they are revered. Their books are “classics”. You get a different response from people when you say you’ve read Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) as opposed to The Return of Rafe McKade (Nora Roberts). The same is true in mystery. Reading an Agatha or Conan Doyle book seems more impressive than JD Robb or Janet Evanovich. (BTW… I love Nora/JD, and Janet). So perhaps to seem smarter or just to see what I’ve missed, I decided to read some of the classics.

Today I picked up Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte).  I love the old movie with Orson Wells (he was a looker once) playing the brooding Mr. Rochester. I know it ends well and its a romance, but its Charlotte Bronte so it’s literature or at least a classic, right?

I just finished reading Push by Sapphire which has to be literature. It was just released as a movie (Precious), but I don’t think I’ll see it. It was a very difficult book to read. Its gritty, raw, disturbing, and sad, and yet inspiring too. It’s hard to say how it ends. Its not “bad” because you get the feeling that Precious is going to make something of herself. At the same time she has a serious problem (you can read it to find out what that is) that will affect her life. The hard part in reading the book was in knowing that her story was a reality for many young girls.  If you can get through the book, there is much to think about (another purpose to literature?). But I found myself having to put the book down at times because it was just too intense.

So what is literature? I still don’t know. For me, it’s like that other thing that you can’t define, but you know it when you see it.