Book Talk discussion

back on the 'stephen king books wont be around in another 100 years' topic, just for the sake of argument, can you think of any over-rated authors that are still in print, from 100 years ago? or have we really maintained a sense of quality with the longevity you claim literature needs to last over generations. i would also point out that since King is the most prolific and beloved author of our time, AND he is also alive and writing during the introduction of the 'e-book' , that future authors of his like are unlikely to have so many copies of their books in print, but much rather sold as e-books. King rides the crest of a wave that could be the last of its kind. perhaps no future writers will have so many books actually printed?in fact by making the e-book so available, they are probably dooming future writers to ultimate obscurity, a flash in the pan but after a few year or a decade, nobody buys their e-books, then its no longer offered, who can 'come across' an e-book down the line? nobody.there are no used e-book stores.
movies on the other hand, seem to be held in such high esteem (and for the most part, WHY?)and there are so many films by or about king's books that he may be remembered even more for those than his actual books? of course, even films are not safe from the new digital age, as they are being offered streaming over the net, again the desire for a hard copy declines... the very existence of ephemera is endangered!...

Will not.
It will be a miracle if the human race can still read a hundred years from now.

Twittered into extinction.

I ain't going anywhere, Kealan. I'll remember. ;)

You are young, Kealan and have a good deal of writing to do yet. I'm looking forward to it. : )

Do you all think that it would be possible now in our technological age to become as big an author as S. King?
I guess I can think of two that have 'made it big' recently, but they have both written trilogies. Suzanne Collins and Steig Larsson.
What do you all think?

The Stieg Larsson success plan involves suicide......

do it for van gogh!

Kealan wrote: "I think to say that King won't be remembered a hundred years from now is ridiculous. Of course he will. Me, on the other hand? I'm screwed."

There's remembered, and then there's remembered. Somebody always remembers somebody, no matter how obscure. But how effectively "around" are the masters even of the last century?

Who reads Henry James outside of college?

The world is full of English speakers, Americans even, who haven't read Hemingway and don't intend to, and, further, Americans who haven't even heard of him. And he was arguably the most influential American writer of the last century, a much larger than life figure than King, someone whose work got both popular and critical acclaim and even a Nobel prize.

Now put this question up on a game show: "Ernest Hemingway was known for a series of short stories called the 'Nick ______________ stories.'

What percentage of Americans know that missing word? What percentage are likely to have encountered it outside a required school course? Or to know it in the future?

And Hemingway was as big as it gets.

Fame is incredibly fleeting.

I'll go further. Our culture is less and less about the past every year, and more and more about the future. Barring some sort of society-wide censorship to some, our cultural creations are likely to disappear from public consciousness ever more swiftly year by year.

Who suspected reading the Nick Adams stories would ever have to compete with X-box, DVD's, mp3's, Gameboy, Facebook and Farmville, and who knows what new entertaining options will come up in the future?

Being big, even huge, even the biggest now is no guarantee an artist will claim any space in the popular consciousness in the future. Even the near future.

Or perhaps we should just start thinking of the future in terms of what's 10 or 20 years away instead of 50 or 100 or 200. After all, that's the scale of change we're witnessing today, and it will likely only accelerate.

Charlene wrote: "You are young, Kealan and have a good deal of writing to do yet. I'm looking forward to it. : )

Do you all think that it would be possible now in our technological age to become as big an author..."

As big an author as King could come from the world of video games and virtual reality, and their ever-greater integration. Mark Zuckerberg is pretty big, too. He became a brand name writing code.

A long thought out answer, thanks Marc!

As far as an author of video games and VR, I can't speak to that at all. I'll have to take your word for it. : )

I started reading Midnight Rain

Not bad at all!

I just finished The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted: A Psychological Thriller.
I thought it was ok. I guessed the twist at 8% so it was a bit of a letdown. : (

I started on the second novella that I won from Delirium books: Sorrow Creek. I'm only about 20% in but it's very promising.

Kealan wrote: "I'm on Lehane's MOONLIGHT MILE."

What do you think of it, so far?

I hate to say it, but Moonlight Mile was my least favorite Lehane read, so far. : (

I felt it read like Lehane didn't want to write it.

The characters are tired, the plot is tired, Lehane is bored.....

Ahh, so I see I wasn't alone in my thinking.

I'm just keeping your thinking company..... :P

Nice! I find it rather odd that we have the same opinions regarding most books. : )
I'm not sure what that indicates exactly but I'm not going to question it.

My powers are growing.

Soon, the world will kneel to my will......

BWAHAHAHAHA*cough*HAHA!

HA! You wish!

As for popularity being linked to literary merit, I think Agatha Christie is #2 in total sales behind Shakespeare (not counting The Bible). I enjoyed her mysteries but she isn't literature. I think that classifying an author as "literary" may actually work against them for some segments of the population...LOL

Also it is possible for the stories to live on long after most people have forgotten the name of the writer or even the book in which they appeared. Everyone knows Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, and Dracula, but the average person on the street doesn't know who wrote those books. Those shows where they ask people on the street to name a famous historical or literary figure always horrify me.

People on the street horrify me just on principle.

Chris wrote: "As for popularity being linked to literary merit, I think Agatha Christie is #2 in total sales behind Shakespeare (not counting The Bible). I enjoyed her mysteries but she isn't literature. I thi..."

That's the point I was trying to make earlier. I love Agatha Christie too, (have you ever read And Then There Were None?!), but she is by no means 'literary'.

Which is why I asked what, exactly, defines literary.
I actually agree with the statement that you know it when you see/read it, but if literary is the title one must earn to be a lasting force as a writer it needs to be more clearly defined for us to make any predictions.
I think I mentioned Wilkie Collins-I don't know if he would be defined as literary, but his work has certainly stood the test of time.
Or do you think Wilkie was literary?
Or do you think I should just shut up now? : )

Kealan wrote: "Which is why your name isn't John Social Butterfly"

For an author, your spelling is atrocious.

As for your statement, my horror doesn't stem from my social anxiety. That simply creates irrational fear.
The horror is grounded in the actions of the "herd".
I could tell you stories that would shock you speechless.
I have very little faith in the human race.
My money is on the rats.

Charlene wrote: "Chris wrote: "As for popularity being linked to literary merit, I think Agatha Christie is #2 in total sales behind Shakespeare (not counting The Bible). I enjoyed her mysteries but she isn't lite..."

Anyone remember Thomas Wolfe? Literary Golden Boy and general menace to society?
Even the people who threw laurels at him once have moved on.
Being literary is more fickle than being popular.
Nobody would know who Truman Capote was, if not for In Cold Blood and the fact that he was a lisping cliche.

Charlene wrote: "Chris wrote: "As for popularity being linked to literary merit, I think Agatha Christie is #2 in total sales behind Shakespeare (not counting The Bible). I enjoyed her mysteries but she isn't lite..."

One definition separating literary from other work has some appeal to me. I don't remember where I read it. It went something like, literary writing shows care how it is written.

The example given was The Da Vinci Code, which was acknowledged as a page-turner that obviously must have done something right, but was written with at best an indifferently serviceable style and level of attention.

I read somewhere else someone saying that the reason they call a book one you can't put down is because you'd never want to pick it up again.

There are rare cases, like Fitzgerald, that can sit down and dash off a first-class story, right off the top of their heads, in a couple of hours. But what makes something rise to the level of literature generally takes time and reconsideration so as to get everything truly the best it can be. That's why many literary figures take years between books and have careers consisting of only a dozen, a handful, or one or two, while many mainstream writers might put out a book every year or two and some genre writers can crank books out almost as fast as they can type.

Once in a while, you get lucky and find a Shirley Jackson, who can write a genre book so well it's worth reading again and again, and thinking of it as "only" a genre book becomes manifestly unfair.

Recluse wrote: "Charlene wrote: "Chris wrote: "As for popularity being linked to literary merit, I think Agatha Christie is #2 in total sales behind Shakespeare (not counting The Bible). I enjoyed her mysteries b..."

Recluse wrote: "Charlene wrote: "Chris wrote: "As for popularity being linked to literary merit, I think Agatha Christie is #2 in total sales behind Shakespeare (not counting The Bible). I enjoyed her mysteries b..."

That's a very big IF, though. Also, Breakfast at Tiffany's was gigantic, and a movie that was very popular and shocked a lot of people (grapefruit smashed into a woman's face).

He was also simply an excellent writer, truly top notch, to judge by the incredibly clever and good short story of his that I read. I have not read many who even come close to that level of talent.

C'mon, I saw Cagney smash a grapefruit in a woman's face years before Breakfast at Tiffany's was a movie.

He was an incredible writer, but will he be remembered for it, or wind up as a bonus question in a future Trivial pursuit game?

I was only pointing out that the literary can be forgotten as easily as the popular.

Richard Marsh's The Beetle was a more popular book than Dracula when both were originally published. But Richard Marsh is a footnote in horror literature.

We're basically in agreement. I just thought to defend Capote from being given too complete a brush-off. By which I mean to say he wasn't just literary. There's all kinds of stuff that's literary that is all but unreadable. What I'm meaning to say is, this guy was really, really good.

No argument there. ;)

Regarding Capote, if anyone is interested. On PBS there is a show called American Masters and a week or two ago the show was about To Kill A Mockingbird and Harper Lee.
What a JERK Capote was to her. She works on the novel and submits it to 10 publishers all of whom turned her down. She finally signs on with a publisher and works on the novel together with her for 2 years. The novel is sent on to be printed and Harper goes to (was it?) Kansas to help Capote research In Cold Blood.
TKAM was released to critical acclaim and wins the Pulitzer. Capote becomes so jealous he doesn't even talk to Harper anymore. What a jerk!
The documentary was absolutely AWESOME and I learned a lot. Such as the courthouse in the movie? It was an exact replica of the one in Harper's hometown, where her father practiced law.

Capote was a delusional little fruitbat.

A little off topic but related...did anyone see Midnight in Paris? I loved the scene when Owen Wilson's character asks Hemingway to read his novel. Hemingway tells him that he hates it. Wilson complains that he hasn't read it, to which Hemingway replies that it doesn't matter. Either the book is lousy, in which case he hates it; or it is brilliant and he hates it and hates him too because he is jealous---so either way, he hates it. I bet Capote would have agreed.

Capote wouldn't agree with a thug like Hemingway.

Hemingway would have punched your lights out for suggesting it.

Owen who?

LOL! Slightly off topic, but-
Glen Krisch posted this on Facebook. An interview with Stephen King by Neil Gaiman.
http://www.discordia19.com/main/2012/...

And Capote didn't believe brilliance existed outside of his tiny little head.

You are probably right on both counts.

It was a good movie. You would probably like it with all the famous artists, musicians, film makers, and authors that are portrayed from the lost generation and the Belle Epoque. It won a couple of academy awards I think. I don't want to name names of the characters because it is fun to guess who they are as they appear.

Wow. Thanks, Charlene. Great interview by one of my favorite writers interviewing another of my favorites. I wonder what the younger boy writes like?

I've not seen Midnight in Paris, but I will be on the lookout for it.

Owen King has a collection of shorts out:
We're All In This Together: A Novella and Stories. I haven't read it yet, though.

Did you see King talking about Joyland? So on top of Doctor Sleep we have another book to look forward to AND it's about a killer in an amusement park? How great does that sound? : )

Recluse wrote: "And Capote didn't believe brilliance existed outside of his tiny little head."

Apparently he didn't. What a jerk he was to her!
I am left wondering if the loss of their friendship that caused her to become reclusive or if it was just the fame in general?
One more thing-most anything you read about Harper and TKAM insists that Scout was based upon her.
But she herself said to someone, I'm not Scout, I'm Boo.

I think Harper Lee was wired for a reclusive life.

Meeting Truman Capote couldn't have helped.

John Connolly rocks! Think I've read all of his. He has a special touch. Lehane I've never read-I'm the oddball. I'm currently working my way through Kealan's oeuvre, fitting it around my reviewing (under which I'm buried). I've read "Kin," "Stage Whispers," (reviewed both), and am still on "The Number 121 to Pennsylvania and Others." Was reading "Empathy" last night and thought, "uh-unh, not the one I want to go to sleep on":)

Hi Mallory! John Connolly DOES rock! Kealan rocks as well though. That's how he rolls! (My lame attempt at wordplay!)

I have found similarities in Connolly's and Kealan's writing, which is why I think I like Kealan's books so much. Connolly is brilliant.

I am a huge John Connolly fan.

LOL-I wouldn't even attempt to describe my total awe-struck-ness (I know, not a word) at Kealan's entire oeuvre, being as this is his group:) and I don't want to seem groupie-ish...but yes, John Connolly and our Author here definitely are both unique-and special-and as far as I'm concerned, non pareil and unbeatable.:)

Recluse-what you say of Harper Lee was also so very true of J. D. Salinger-who once said he wrote only for himself (same as I). Very reclusive-what would they do in today's climate of self-promotion (no, I am not referring to anyone here-speaking in general terms). I rather expect they would not publish at all, rather than promote themselves, as they were both self-effacing.

I think you're right, Mallory.
The world's loss. no doubt.

By the way, welcome!

yes-because as we all know, it is the squeaky wheel which gets greased first and foremost-whether it is the wisest wheel or the most needed wheel--and thank you for the welcome-been a member a little while, jumped in on K.s thread on UK Kindle, was asked this AM which author groups I'm in-and realised I was a member of this one:)

Mallory, all I know is that on the Amazon forums a drive-by spam will cause the author to be completely dismissed and ignored. (Other than all the people who will jump in and tell said author that self promo is not allowed.) In these cases, the squeaky wheel is death.

Ah, the Amazon Forums!
Where authors are hunted and the morons roam free.

Hey! I 'met' you there! ; P