Caught in the act of greatness

[sartorias]

As always, when you get a bunch of writers together, conversation caromed speedily, often hard to follow as conversations split off--both equally interesting--then recombined again. We talked a bit about "cutting edge" and who might be considered "cutting edge" currently writing in the genre now, and something someone said led to my asking, "How

Comments

[jonquil]

Many writers, like Anthony Hope Hawkins and Baroness Orczy, reach greatness through creating an archetype, not through great writing. I doubt nihilistic_kid would give much time to them or to Conan Doyle as writers; as creators, however, they put new characters into the shared mythos.

Like Superman, Sherlock Holmes seems always to have been there; of course, there were ancestors (and would be descendants), but the coalescence of traits and character was new. "What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."

However, I think the greatness that you and I are talking about is not the greatness of literary immortality; it's pop-culture immortality. Which is equally hard to pursue, I think; you don't *know* what idea will be seized on by the Zeitgeist. Consider Beau Geste, which led to who-knows-how-many movies and is now irrelevant, so much so as to be mocked in The Last Remake of Beau Geste. Remember also the sad fate of Lady Audley's Secret.

My rationalization has always been "Write the thing you have to write and let the greatness come as it pleases."

[sartorias]

Good points, yes.

[oursin]

I am having thoughts which refuse to become properly articulate and coherent about the importance of playfulness and how too grim a determination to be great undercuts that. Though playful doesn't exclude seriousness: Cold Comfort Farm is not just funny, it's a critique of tired literary tropes and assumptions about life.

[sartorias]

Yes--and Austen in Northanger Abbey on novels and historical writing, and in Persuasion on men and women (and whose hand holds the pen) are brilliant and insightful 200 years later, but she was clearly having fun.

[asterling]

I have to smile because I learned a lesson several years ago in the classroom. No matter how "famous" any writer thinks he or she is, it's an illusion. Many people "we" know as writers and those interested in books are complete blanks as far as the average person goes.

Characters, however, are archetypal and do "live" beyond their stories and authors. Most recently, about half of my students struggled to place exactly who J.K. Rowling was. But everybody instantly knew "Harry Potter." Some said that "Harry Potter" wrote the stories. Clearly - he could not have made the movies all by himself.

I'm not joking and I am talking about college students.

Understanding this turned my head all the way around in the right direction.