“These are the most important, seminal texts for an entire generation of readers. In 100, 200 years’ time, when scholars want to understand the early 21st century, when they want to understand the ethos and culture of the generation that’s just breaking into adulthood, it’s a safe bet that they’ll be looking at [these] novels. As literary critics, as academics, why on Earth wouldn’t we want to come to grips with these texts? There’s so much here to talk about, culturally and critically, that a two-day conference really can only get the conversation started. People will be reading and writing and studying [these books] for years to come.”

The speaker is a doctoral candidate in the University of St. Andrews English department. What is he talking about?

Harry Potter.

…

via Weldon Owen

 
A little word art for THE FERAL.

Some of the biggest authors have become so productive that they are nearly an impossible act to follow. Airport bookstores these days can feature not just one stack of James Patterson books, but an entire rack of them, sometimes more than six titles at a time. Mr. Patterson produced 12 books last year, aided on some titles by co-writers. He will publish 13 this year.

“A lot of publishers and authors have looked at what James Patterson is doing and realized, ‘I may not be able to publish nine books a year, but certainly I can do two,’ ” said Brian Tart, the publisher of Dutton, an imprint of Penguin. “They were able to grow him and grow the readership using that strategy.”

Except “James Patterson” isn’t a person, “he’s” a writing factory. Patterson employs a stable of ghostwriters to churn out books at such a rapid pace. Mr. Patterson himself says:

“Look, I’m good at parts of this. I’m certainly not a world-class stylist. But the storytelling is pretty cool and the narrative power of the stuff is usually pretty strong.” He writes ceaselessly, he explains, because it doesn’t exhaust him. “These books are entertainments,” he says. “It’s a very different process than if you’re trying to write Moby-Dick or The Corrections. That’s painful. That’s different from very simple, plot-oriented storytelling. If I was writing serious fiction, I’d want more rest time.”

What’s tragic is that writers are buying into the merit of Patterson-level productivity wholesale. I think my response to the AW thread is worth reposting here:

Even the greats like John Updike, who’s referenced in the article, produced tons of derivative work that wasn’t always up to snuff.

Art takes time. It takes time spent living, experiencing, thinking, feeling, and then committing the product of these processes to paper/canvas/whatever.

Yes, Virginia. Art takes time. Writing fast does not produce art. It produces words. Lots and lots of words. If your goal is to poop out a metric shit ton of words and earn a few pennies by foisting them on readers with low standards, then by all means, write as fast as you can. If, however, you aim to write something a little more substantial than the disposable McDonald’s-caliber fiction of Patterson and his ilk, please take your damn time. Thank you.

I shall never forget that luminous journey on that brightest of winter nights. The colored map of the heavens expanded into an immense dome, on which there loomed fantastic lands, oceans and seas, marked with the lines of stellar currents and eddies, with the brilliant streaks of heavenly geography. The air became light to breathe and shimmered like silver gauze. One could smell violets. From under the white woolly lambskin of snow, trembling anemones appeared with a speck of moonlight in each delicate cup. The whole forest seemed to be illuminated by thousands of lights and by the stars falling in profusion from the December sky. The air pulsated with a secret spring, with the matchless purity of snow and violets. We entered a hilly landscape. The lines of hills, bristling with the bare spikes of trees, rose like sighs of bliss. I saw on these happy slopes groups of wanderers, gathering among the moss and the bushes the fallen stars which were now damp from snow. The road became steep, the horse began to slip on it and pulled the creaking cab only with an effort. I was happy. My lungs soaked up the blissful spring in the air, the freshness of snow and stars. Before the horse’s breast the rampart of white snowy foam grew higher and higher, and it could hardly wade through that pure fresh mass.

—Bruno Schulz, THE STREET OF CROCODILES