I've always liked this piece that Jon Breen wrote here in 2005. Can you think of more examples of what he's talking about?
SUNDAY, JANUARY 30, 2005
From Jon Breen
Here’s something to stir things up. Take any artistic endeavor in which two very successful contemporaries work or have worked in the same general field. If one of them is slightly or somewhat more commercially successful, the other one will probably be somewhat more artistically successful.
For example, take John Grisham and Scott Turow, both associated with legal thrillers, both bestsellers, both good writers. Everyone would have to agree that Grisham has been the greater commercial phenomenon, but I think most would agree that Turow is the finer novelist.
Second example: the two major composers of musical theatre in the past few decades have been Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim. Both have had their hits, but Lloyd Webber has clearly been the more commercial. Sondheim, I venture to say, is regarded by students of the field as the greater artist.
More examples: among contemporary film directors, Stephen Spielberg more commercially successful, Martin Scorsese more artistically successful; in espionage fiction, Ian Fleming more commercially successful, John Le Carré more artistically successful. This one’s a closer call but defensible: in Golden Age British detective fiction, Agatha Christie more commercially successful, Dorothy L. Sayers more artistically successful.
Not sure about this one, but someone I know who reads everything both these writers comes out with would say Stephen King is the greater commercial phenomenon but Peter Straub the better novelist. I definitely don’t agree with this one, but many would say that between the late-night talkers Jay Leno with the higher ratings is more commercially successful but the hipper David Letterman more artistically successful.
So there’s the game. Is it worth playing or is it wheel-spinning nonsense?
Jon Breen
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19 comments:
I think it's only worth playing if it points people towards artists/projects that haven't got the name power of what ever they are being compared to. So in film: Mars Attacks was the better 50s Sci Fi B-Film while ID4 did better at the box office. Deep Impact was a thoughtful film about a asteroid hitting the planet and how the world reacts, but Armageddon was the bigger box office hit.
Bob Randisi is more prolific, but Ed Gorman is his artistic superior. See? I can play.
RJR
I agree with RJR: Ed Gorman has soul and his books are about PEOPLE, not the mechanics of writing. I find Randisi very commercial and lacking soul. I have every Gorman book and am going to do a talk about his work at my local library in Brattleboro, Vermont: home of Rudyard Kipling for 3 years. Ed is the GREATEST.
Brian O'Connor
Hi Brian let me suggest that Bob Randisi has written at least three novels are easily as good as anything I've done-Alone With The Dead, The Turner Diaries and The Ham Reporter. And you'll find plenty of soul in each of them and several other of his novels.
As for Bob's contention that I'm his "artistic superior," both of us are working pros. I don't think I'v ever done anything that's "artistic."I appreciate you writing, Brian. Ed
I think that Brian doesn't realize that RJR, unless I'm mistaken, also stands for Robert J. Randisi.
And it should be noted that Randisi's THE TURNER DIARIES takes its title from the infamous crackpot novel, is not that more famous (and now commercially successful?) novel of loony survivalism.
Yes, this game is spinning wheels except when the two commpared folk have basically travelled similar paths. Then there are the cases in which the likes of Dashiell Hammett and Carroll John Daly got started at about the same time, with their major work in the same magazine, and Hammett was both the better and the more popular artist.
I suspect that the two horns of the dilemma don't work well: write less well but more popular, or write better but less popular. What of a novel that is both? The Thorn Birds is superbly wrought, as well as a great best-seller. I do think there is a larger market for novels with a dramatic story line, and less of a market for stories with richer characterization. But that doesn't make such novels better or worse.
Richard Wheeler
Mr. Gorman,
I did not mean to condemn Mr. Randisi, and I intend to read the books of his you mentioned, by you write about what it's like to be a human being on this planet, and, to me, that qualifies as "artistic" because you can make an observation about human nature which is truthful and articulate it beautifully. And there is a purity and beauty in truth To me, that's art. Dicken's could do that occasionally, but he was being paid a penny a word and tended to get a little windy; but the message about being human was still there, sometimes so beautifully articulated it made me cry (he use to be a crime reporter and clearly understood the dark side of human nature).
I hate defending my position: it's my OPINION and only that. No offense to Mason or RJR. Ed Gorman is simply one of the best writers of our generation not matter what genre (I hate that word) he writes.
As to Mr. Mason's comments as to what RJR stands for, uh, who did you think I was talking about. You put people on the defense with comments like that. I've read many of RJR's novels and have stopped doing so since they did not MOVE me. Mr. Gorman, on the other hand, always draws sympathetic characters that engage me. No offense to RJR or Mr. Mason (and yes Mr. Mason, you were wrong. A friendly warning, sir: don't fuck with an Irishman).
Brian O'Connor
Let me be the first to adnmit that Brian is entitled to his opinion. I certainly wouldn't argue with his opinion of Ed. As for my book having the same title as a crackpot book (as Rodd contends), that one was called The Turner Diaries--but we did change the title of my book to The Sixth Phase when we wenr to paperback.
And thanks to Ed for the kind words about 3 of my novels. 3 out of 540 ain't bad, I guess--but he's also right that he and I are working writers. We write what we have to write to eat--and some of them ae better than others.
RJR (Me)
"Ed Gorman is simply one of the best writers of our generation not matter what genre (I hate that word) he writes."
Thanks Brian--you've got the job! :)
I just noticed that Ed quoted my title as The Turner Diaries. MY book was called The Turner JOURNALS. Sorry, didn't notice earlier.
RJR
Wow. I'm sorry, Bob. The Turner Diaries is of course The Turner Diaries is a racist, antisemitic novel written in 1978 by William Luther Pierce (former leader of the white Nationalist organization "...according to Wikipedia. ..
"And thanks to Ed for the kind words about 3 of my novels. 3 out of 540 ain't bad, I guess--but he's also right that he and I are working writers. We write what we have to write to eat--and some of them are better than others." Bob Randisi
I remember Mickey Mantle talking about the same year he had the most home runs he also had the most strike outs. Unless you're a star you write a lot of books to survive. When you look at Bob's career you find an amazing level of quality. He has brought new slants to mystery and mystery fiction aline. I learned to write westerns studying and imitating his novels.
I think James Reasoner would say the same about working full time over a thirty or forty year period. I certainly do. You try your best every time out but some are bound to be better than others.
Brian O'Connor--well, you did spell my name correctly, unlike Bob, but I gave you, as a fellow son of Ireland (albeit I have more ancestors from other places), the benefit of the doubt that you didn't meant to insult Bob Randisi to his virtual face.
I won't mistake you for someone of any sort of tact again, you can be sure, even if you do have the good taste to prize Ed's work.
Todd,
Sorry, that was a typo. More and more of them are creeping into my posts these days.
RJR
This kind of argument is classic wheel-spinning, for this reason: it almost invariably originates with partisans of the less popular contender. Use Letterman-Leno as an example: the Dave-ites know tahat their man is superior to Jay, therefore some kind of karmic fix must be in. I hark back to the '70s, when Dick Cavett's smaller audience numbers served as a negative badge of honor against the plainly less important, less relevant, less talented Johnny Carson. (Anyone besides me recall the late '60s-early 70s when Johnny couldn't buy a good critical notice?) This holds true for nearly all fields of endeavor: if I don't like the popular thing, then it can't be better than the less popular thing I do like. The truth, of course, is that it's the luck of the draw, just as it's always been.
Writing a lot of books is like hitting a baseball. Some are home runs, some are strike-outs, and most of them are somewhere in between. The important thing is to keep going back up to the plate.
(Another writer said this to me once. I'm sorry, but I can't remember who it was. I agree with the sentiment, though.)
Greg Macdonald--when told that I had written 100 books (at the time)--looked off into space and said, "Writing a hundred books is like writing no books."
I still don't know what it means. Greg was a bit of an a**, though.
RJR
Bob--no worries. I've been called worse, have in fact called myself worse. And I have less reason, other than haste, for the enormous amount of typos in my posts and other missives these days.
Meanwhile, while I dug most of the FLETCH novels, I gather that someone who had written 100 books struck GM as someone who was more form than content, which is pretty ridiculous given his, what, twenty-five or so books? And at least CARIOCA FLETCH seeming strongly a pretty weak excuse to write off a Brazillian vacation as research.
I'm always impressed by worse behavior than my own.
Sorry Mr. Mason for my poor manners. My apologizes.
Brian O'Connor
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