The other night Adam and I played a little game in bed (while we’re reading, dirty people). It was called, “Out of the books we’re reading, which author makes/made more from their writing than the other?”
As Adam suggested the game, I immediately launched into a defensive diatribe that it’s not about the money but the integrity and imaginatively soulful minds of those artists which makes them important.
Adam then lobbed back a comment that I was merely saying that because the book I was reading (The Rachel Papers, Martin Amis) could not hope to compete with his (The Ashes of Worlds, Kevin J. Anderson).
I then said that I don’t see how that could be, seeing as I had never heard of his person; opposed to Martin Amis, who was of high literary pedigree (“His dad was Kingsley Amis” “Who’s that?”) and had been around for decades. Adam said, “Well my guy is huge overseas.” And that, I guessed, was supposed to be the end of the debate.
It would be easy – too easy, I admit – to go to bed tonight with J. K Rowling, a kind of middle-finger to anything he could produce. Because in all honesty, yes, that is probably the only way I’d win.
My reading preferences always have – and I daresay will continue to be – more ‘high’ minded. The stuff that wins awards and accolades but probably doesn’t earn the author any royalties beyond what their advance supplies. Whereas Adam reads a lot of fantasy and science fiction (and to say that I don’t mean they, too, can’t be defined as ‘good’ literature. Not at all. Much of what he reads is excellent. But please don’t ask me to say David Gemmell ranks as up with, say, Salman Rushdie, because I just can’t. Or won’t) of the kind that wins adoring fans and groupies forever. Who will pay over $30 for a new release, even if it’s crap.
(Robert Jordan, anyone?)
So tonight, if you and your partner are readers, hows about you compare the books you’re reading and see who ‘wins’. And then come back and tell me!
