On Popular Fiction

A widespread literary paradox

"Popular fiction" is by definition meant to appeal to a large, if not the largest, part of the reading public in literate societies. From the Bible (or even Homer) to Walter Scott and from Goethe to Raymond Chandler, the nature of this literary phenomenon presents a considerable range of variations according to the historical background of each era. What in particular seems to correspond to the term in question the last two or three centuries, and especially during and ever since the Industrial Revolution, consists mainly of a secondary, "unofficial" kind of literature with less, or, sometimes, no literary value (to the extent, of course, that such an attribute can be objectively assessed), easy to read and highly digestible, usually doomed to oblivion after a meteoric success. From this rule must, of course, be exempted the works which, due to their own exceptional merits, managed to resist time and establish themselves as classics, like those of Balzac, Dickens or Zola.

Literary critics generally tend to accuse this kind of "lighter" novel of superficiality in its characters, lack of verisimilarity in situations, simplicity and even mere facility - or, sometimes, crude artificiality - in plot, poverty of style, in a few words, to dismiss them as "shallow pulp". Yet shallow though it may seem, the "pulp" or "easy-reading" novel seems to have become profoundly rooted and to be still profusely blooming in modern societies where hybrid classes of parvenus are continually emerging. Popular fiction in its modern sense must be seen as deeply connected with the relatively recent rise of a powerful middle class in most parts of the world, reflecting social reality in every country which had to undergo the direct or indirect consequences of this societal rearrangement. This reality may be too obvious to demand any philosophical contemplation, but at the same time intricate enough in itself to feed a common reader's curiosity, if more or less elaborately brought down to the level of most people's eyes. It is a reality, however, which in its turn serves as the looking glass in which the reader will easily recognise his or her own portrait reduced to its roughest, elemental lines, deprived of complications, and, maybe, endowed with much desired yet not easily acquired qualities.

Popular fiction is therefore a mirror, and a deforming one too. It is admirable how the levels of real life and of fictional reality become (con)fused in it. It is almost incomprehensible how so many contradictions and so much complexity can exist in something so lightweight, in a literary production so much absorbed in, and heartily devoted to, exorcising complexity. And first of all, how can something that so openly, sometimes impudently, keeps repeating itself, continue to attract a rather worrying majority even in societies where the cultural level is supposed to be high? How can a reader who, even before turning over to the second page of some-best seller, knows already how the story will end, go on reading the book with the same fervent interest and then buy and read another one? A probable explanation is that the often exasperating predictability of the plot brings the reader to a privileged position from where he or she can contemplate the described world in panoramic view, become master of every detail, know in advance what the characters cannot yet suspect, perhaps experiencing the childish triumph of being able to ruminate and retell the story even more accurately than the storyteller. Rarely is there a surprise, an unexpected reversal: everything must follow its suspiciously straight and far from narrow path, circumstances and reactions are taken for granted, the reader is safely guided through familiar ways (the potential alternatives, or simple variations, of which are a priori limited) by a number of stage directions, if one might call them so, addressed to the characters as well as to the readers themselves: Now you feel sorry for the heroine. Now you worry about the missing witness. Now you cry. Now you laugh. Now you feel sympathy. Now fear. Now relief. Now everything is settled. The End.

A very peculiar kind of contract seems to exist between the writer and the reader of this sort of books. A considerable number of those who read them are ashamed to admit it, thereby acknowledging the existence of "better" books; yet they still go on buying them. Certain writers, for their part, continue producing hundreds, not to say thousands of almost identical novels, admitting, all the same, that they could have done better than that. Both sides have, on this occasion, put their cards on the table. The only ace writers keep hidden up their sleeve is the moral deal between themselves and the readers that everything must be yielded by one side to the other. The writers yield intrigue, mystery, the pleasure of a surprise from the very titles of their novels, usually promising, always eloquent, guaranteeing that the prmise will be kept. The readers, in their turn, are expected to let themselves be taken away on a trip in shallow water, pretending, like in a children's game, that they are ignorant. And in return they get a polished, embellished, exhaustively simplified, sometimes even vulgarised, version of reality, an adventure certain to end happily making up for all the anxiety it has caused, a safe dose of routine-breaking, perhaps some hastily collected and reproduced historical information, or even the men and women of their dreams in the best editions possible, sterilised and in air-tight packages. An Eden of illusions reflected in the mirror of common sense the same way it reflects back the most commonplace reality, in a vicious circle of reciprocities where the slightest embellishment is achieved not through transition to superior spheres, but through ruthless amputation or grotesque exaggeration.

Modern popular fiction might therefore be considered as a particular genre of self-subversive intellectual production destined for self-denying readers who wish to fight reality with its own weapons. It is an amazingly absurd phenomenon which should be seen as a sign of the times, a desperate hide-and-seek where one flees from oneself and the real world only to find refuge in a cheap, gaudy imitation of it.