What is the difference between popular fiction and literary fiction? Both obviously are broad categories and every book has its unique characteristics but, if I may generalise, popular fiction employs a simpler vocabulary, uses a transparent, functional style and speeds along telling a compelling story, whereas literary fiction uses language carefully, employs sound and imagery to affect the reader’s emotions and digs deep into character and event. But there’s plenty of overlap; any reader can come up with examples of novels which have most of the traits of popular fiction, but are presented as “literary”.
Frankie, by Graham Norton, though, has no pretensions to be anything other than popular. It’s an eventful story about well-drawn characters, which speeds along in plain prose, largely (and surprisingly) lacking Norton’s typical wit and humour. But it’s compelling, interesting and enjoyable.
There’s a frame tale. Frankie is an old woman, living in London, being cared for by a young Irishman. She tells him the story of her life, narrated as a separate story, which is the heart and bulk of the novel.
Frankie’s early years in 1950s Cork are a William Trevor-esque Protestant youth of quiet despair. These chapters are very reminiscent of, say, Reading Turgenev without any of Trevor’s winsome romanticism – fascinating to compare the very different treatments of similar raw material.
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Beautiful but meek Frankie is married to a nasty old clergyman. Thanks to a passionate sexual indiscretion with a Catholic farmer whom she meets while delivering eggs, she is soon expelled from this west Cork nightmare, whereupon she morphs into a sexy popular novel heroine (her refined Protestantism vanishes overnight). Goodbye William Trevor, hello Barbara Cartland.
Leaving dreary Ireland for glamorous London, then New York, Frankie discovers hidden talents – she’s a genius chef – and embarks on a life packed with millionaires, trendy restaurants, penniless artists of great gifts who become wildly successful. It’s a sensational scenario but one with which I am very familiar thanks to my enthusiastic perusal of the works of Danielle Steel, which I read in foreign language translation because the vocabulary is lovely and simple. I highly recommend her – in whatever you’re Duolingo-ing yourself.
But would you want to read this kind of stuff in a language you know, like English? Well, maybe. This rollicking tale of a little Cork girl getting quite a life is a good yarn, definitely one for the beach or the bed or the train. It’s not challenging, it’s not educational, it’s not remotely convincing. Nevertheless, and I know I sound like a patronising snob, an entertaining story is never to be sneezed at.
