--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "jacquesdebierue"
<jacquesdebierue@...> wrote:
>
> --- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Nathan Cain"
<IndieCrime@>
wrote:
> >
> > I'll believe people want difficult, original
fiction when I start
> > seeing people reading William S. Burroughs and
Steve Erickson at
the
> > beach. Until then, I'm not holding my
breath.
>
> Or the runaway commercial success of the books by
the late great
> William Gaddis... and look at the number of shiny,
unread copies of
> Pynchon's novels at second-hand stores and yard
sales. In fact, I
am
> not even sure that Faulkner was ever much read.
These are great but
> difficult authors. More recently, I am having
trouble understanding
> the bestsellingness of Cormac McCarthy, who's not
easy, either.
Maybe
> many more people buy him than read him.
Mario, not only that (and that's true of much simpler novels,
as well, including the likes of, say, Jackie Susann's YARGO
or, I suspect, Alice Sebold's THE LOVELY BONES), but also
you're making the mistake of confusing official "bestsellers"
with books that customers, as opposed to bookstore chains and
distributors, are actually buying.
And then there's the "weighting" that the compilers of such
lists make so as to distort the list in favor of "worthier"
books.
It's a remakably corrupt process, to no compellingly good
end.
And, Nathan, some people might well want complex or novel
novels...but not on a beach or in an airplane.
Todd Mason
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