It's salutary to remind oneself that, not so long ago, there were mass market novels, explicitly written as part of political project. In today's climate, the very idea sounds unthinkable.

Yes, I know what you mean about in today's climate the very idea of mass market novels with political intent sounds unthinkable. Except two recent bestsellers, if not 'mass market novels', spring to mind that are arguably part of a political project - Christos Tsiolkas's 'The Slap' is I think strongly politically motivated, by spirit of socialism or at least questioning of capitalist materialism, and Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' surely motivated at least in part by climate change/global warming/impending apocalypse we're unleashing on ourselves? And fact that these works of 'literary fiction' (a meaningless designation as far as I'm concerned) became bestsellers suggests to me that there are thousands of readers hungry for political meat in their fiction.

Jeanne - I totally agree with you about The Slap but I think The Road would be easy enough for a reader to read as a horror/sci fi/literary novel and not necessarily consider it political - that said, I agree with you that it is. And that readers enjoy political relevance in their work.

And I agree with you about 'The Road', that it wears its politics close to the skin and has sci fi elements, but I've always thought sci fi an extremely politically motivated genre. I guess it all comes down to what you consider political, because I'm capable of arguing 'The Da Vinci Code' is political, if not politically motivated, which would probably get me crucified.

God yes (pun intended) - Da Vinci Code is political -but not in a controlled way. By which I mean I'm not sure if the author would see it like that.

You know, a novel that keeps coming to mind here is John Birmingham's Without Warning which is very political, despite the babes with machine guns.