Quote:
Originally Posted by iansales  Well, Dune's still in print. And has consistently remained so since 1966. Admittedly, the film gave it a boost in the 1980s, but...
And Stranger in a Strange Land is also in print. |
Yes, they are still in print. Neither was classed as a best seller, however. They sold more than the average
sf book at one period or another, and
within that genre may be classed as bestsellers, but in the usual sense of the term, no. What they
have done is to sell fairly respectably for some decades now, and off the top of my head, I can't think of a single "bestseller" to have done so. (To be more specific: Stranger sold quite poorly in hardback for many years, trade paperback was mediocre, paperback was quite good, but even that barely made it onto bestseller lists of the time.)
And iansales and Teresa are right: it isn't nearl as subjective as that. "Great" is something that has much more to it than whether it entertains, or even whether it entertains a large number of people. It may be good, it may be very good... but it's not great without meeting much, much more stringent criteria -- criteria that have themselves been refined and stood the test of time.
This is not in any way to denigrate entertainment, or "reading matter" as some call it; but no matter how much an individual may enjoy something, that's only one small part of what makes a book great or not. The other is simpy that: entertainment -- as Teresa says, a worthy enough goal on its own, but in an entirely different league. Sort of the difference between Johann Sebastian Bach or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and The Beatles or even (gawd 'elp us!) the Strawberry Alarm Clock. As much as I think the Beatles were among the best of the musical groups of the mid-twentieth century, they simply aren't in the same ball park as Bach or Mozart; it's just a different critter altogether.
And on Dr. Seuss: Much more than simply the rhymes, and a fine children's author (and one adults can enjoy as well). But, again, not in the same league as Dickens, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, etc. Lovecraft
may make it there... only time will tell. (Though it's looking quite possible. Still too early to say, though.) But even Poe may not survive as well as some of the others (after all, his reputation has had its share of eclipses, and -- save for a handful of stories -- he isn't read nearly as much as he was even when I was younger; he still sells, yes; but not that many people actually read his work any more...
).