It is this depth, perhaps, of an oeuvre than can be used as a fair barometer of a writer’s legacy.īy this measure, two novelists-strikingly similar in aesthetic and design, each hailing from the same overabundant and overambitious island, nearly a century apart-stand out as especially ‘great’.
Among many of the most effective and talented writers, there is a recurring pattern: their ‘minor’ books, the lesser known and lesser celebrated, the novels that they have ‘also’ written, alongside whatever classic(s) for which they are famous, are in their own right novels of immense power and skill. The literary world is no exception to this individualism, but there is one measure, perhaps, that can be used in the consideration of the ‘great’ novelists that will satisfy if not all (an impossible dream), then at least many. All methods are inherently and viciously subjective, and to attempt to paint too bright a line is to miss the point entirely-the personal relationship between artist and audience is at the core of artistic expression and experience. One might consider instead how certain works speak to the individual, drawing no distinction between celebrated masters and overlooked practitioners. One might look at technique, influence, or vision.
There are many ways to measure the greatness of an artist. You’d think that a day meant nothing at all. But to look at that view you’d think that a human life was meaningless. The story of life required its stops and its pauses, its days and nights. The years changed things destroyed things heaped things up-worries and bothers here they were again.
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