Dog Ear Diary has just managed to define literature for us, using “Madame Bovary” as an example:

I know this is great literature, meticulously constructed by the author, full of symbolism, details and profound portrayals of human nature. But I just couldn’t sympathize with or like any of the characters, and I got bored.

The post before this insight provides a brief description of “A Leg to Stand On,” by Oliver Sacks. I read another book of his, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” for my Writing with Style class, but it’s nonfiction.

Perhaps the things we read in school and can make little sense of are literature, and everything else isn’t?

One of my favorite books is “Girl, Interrupted” by Susanna Kaysen. It, too, is nonfiction, but is written in what could be a literary style. Ignore the Winona Ryder movie, it’s totally different.