I have this book in storage, so when I wanted to check it out at the library for my son to read, I found that it was categorized as non-fiction. What? Why? Do they think this conversation between demons really happened? Bizarre. I looked, and it’s categorized this way at both the Omaha Library and the Council Bluffs Library. I don’t get it.
Anyway, this is one of my favorite books, so I do encourage people to read it. I guess you may have to look in the non-fiction section for it, though.
Wow…that’s kind of weird! I just checked-it is in my library system too, but it’s under the ‘religion’ numbers of the Dewey system, so I guess they think of it has philosophy rather than fiction.
But The Fountainhead (which was the first novel-that’s-actually-philosophy that sprung into my head: it’s not a sign I liked it) is under fiction. Odd-very odd.
When I read it a few years ago, I thought of it as “philosophy”? Now that you mention it, what a challenging book to classify! I didn’t really think of the demons as “characters” as much as I did with Roark, though…? Interesting…!
That is interesting! I think I’m with Eva that religion would be the right place, not fiction exactly but not strict nonfiction either. . . I’m not sure what C.S. Lewis would say to this.
I think it has to do with the book being a series of letters. This is a fairly common way to frame a philosophy book. Letters or a dialogue of some kind. Think of The Prince and even Plato’s Dialogues.
I’ve never read The Fountainhead, but I always understood it to be closer to a plot driven novel with lots of philosophy thrown in.
The Foutainhead read like a novel to me. I never thought of it being considered nonfiction. But there’s another title that feels ambiguous on this note to me: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Reads like non-fiction, but half of it is made up.
Probably because of the philosophical bent. Still weird, though.
I thought of Zen and the Art… too. That one is definately a story. It’s a road trip novel with an entire road trip in it.
The narrator reviews all the philosophy in his head while he rides along, basically ignoring the needs of his son who rides on back.
I did not like, if you haven’t guessed already.