Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 Fluke 8/7/84; site fluke.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!microsoft!fluke!moriarty From: moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) Newsgroups: net.books Subject: Re: Top-class genre authors. Message-ID: <1258@vax2.fluke.UUCP> Date: Sat, 18-Aug-84 22:21:52 EDT Article-I.D.: vax2.1258 Posted: Sat Aug 18 22:21:52 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 21-Aug-84 00:28:12 EDT References: <2296@dartvax.UUCP> Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Everett, WA Lines: 28 Hear, Hear! I quite agree with karl@dartmouth, though I did not read the original article. An author's skill should, in no way, be influenced by how many genres his stories have fallen into. Obviously a "first-class" writer is one whose work has the qualities which make "first-class" books, and this is dependent on who is reading and/or reviewing them. A reader who places storytelling ability and vivid language may point to John Updike (I doubt I would, but that's me); but I think one could make a case for John Le Carre with those standards to judge against. It seems that often books which can be labelled (they are often MIS-labelled by a journalistic community too intent on whittling events and objects into neat, easily-identifiable categories) by a genre are thus considered incapable of becoming "literature", which is perhaps a genre in itself -- the genre for books which do not fit in genres! Anyway, we should be careful of generalities such as the one reacted to in this article; in any art form there is little that can be (or is) accepted as universally good; one person's zenith is another's trash. Whoops, I'm sounding preachy... where's the scotch? "....and his hideous clockwork dog, Toto...." Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc. UUCP: {cornell,decvax,ihnp4,sdcsvax,tektronix,utcsrgv}!uw-beaver \ {allegra,gatech!sb1,hplabs!lbl-csam,decwrl!sun,ssc-vax} -- !fluke!moriarty ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA