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I have tried discussing the issue of literary quality on other threads on MR, only to be shot down and told that what I was saying was elitist snobbery. So first, let me say that I don't think literary value is equated with some kind of moral value - books of literary value are not "better" than books of no literary value - except, obviously in terms of there literary value! That having been said, it seems to me clearly bonkers to maintain that Sophie Kinsella produces work of equal literary value as that of Iris Murdoch (apart from her last couple when she was losing it to Alzheimers). We might not be able to say very clearly in what that difference consists, but that there is a difference is undeniable.
The topic of the thread then I think was, are there some authors who start off by producing works of literary value that is towards the higher end of the scale but later produce works of value towards the lower end of the scale, and do they do this because they've found a formula from which they can make money.
I suppose there must be some, but I suspect that most active authors know where their work is pitched from the beginning of their authorial career. Of course, they might be mistaken, Dan Brown may have aspired to produce a work of literary genius but simply misjudged what he was producing. It is difficult when art - in all media - is commodified sometimes to tell the difference between the art and the commodity.
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