John Hawkes is one of my favorite authors. He is famously quoted as saying:
I began to write fiction on the assumption that the true enemies of the novel were plot, character, setting and theme, and having once abandoned these familiar ways of thinking about fiction, totality of vision or structure was really all that remained.
In my mind this is what differentiates a more experimental and possibly vital form of fiction from the traditional form of fiction which might be considered as much for its entertainment value as it is for its artistic value.
Some writers refuse to be called “experimental” even when they obviously are twisting, extending, and experimenting with fiction: a good, if not as active, description then is “unconventional.”
A Celebration of Reading 