Up until very recently, really elaborate plotting has only been possible in comedy, where you don’t mind being reminded of the existence of an author by the absurd artificiality of the structure of events. Real life isn’t, on the whole, especially well plotted, and as soon as the good plotting in a story begins to get obtrusive we lose that essential impression of a purely internal logic governing the progress of events within the story. It’s only in the last few decades that serious fiction has begun to make serious reference to its own fictitiousness, which is how novels like The Affirmation, Little Big, or If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller can come into being.

is among the most ignorant things ever written by a smart guy. Serious fiction has made serious reference to its own fictitiousness for about as long as it has existed in the English language. Elaborate plots, ditto (I refer you back to the Tom Jones link).