Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I'm not dismissing her at all; you really can't dismiss the most successful writer of novels in history, can you? Her novels were rather formulaic (and after reading all 85 of them in order, believe me when I say I know that!), but extremely influential on later writers. She, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh together basically define the 20th century classic British detective novel. Being formulaic doesn't preclude being influential.
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Ahem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Of course, exactly the same is true of Agatha Christie, the most successful novelist of all time in terms of number of books sold. Christie found a winning formula, and stuck to it. Read any "Miss Marple" book and you know what to expect from the next one. Christie churned out two books a year for 40+ years and knew exactly what would sell. She was an astoundingly successful author, but not a "great" author in terms of literary innovation.
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Now it does seem to me as though you've said at least one of the definitions of Literary is anything that defines or redefines a particular form of writing, thus influencing many others in how
they write.
You agree Christie did that, yet you directly compare Christie and Pratchett on the grounds that both were formulaic writers who
therefore didn't innovate anything.
Me, I agree influencing others' writing demonstrates the hallmark of Literary, but I don't see what formulaic has to do with that.
Perhaps what they innovated is the single writing style that they then used in a formulaic manner.
People have been judged "Literary" on the basis of one novel. Take one Christie/Pratchett/other novel in isolation, it will no longer be formulaic in comparison to the author's other books
-- did that novel redefine one of these mysterious Art Form thingies??