Friday, February 03, 2006

RE: great writer vs great book

(LJ: Are the lack of caps on purpose?). I'm the fellow SSJ referenced, and that's not exactly what I said. LJ found it odd that Capote became so well known based on one book. In fact he was something of a literary darling upon publishing his first novel. (Don't have time to link.) I opined that there were several authors who had written only one novel and were well known: Harper Lee, J.D. Salinger (I know more than one , Zoey and somebody, but who read that?), Margret Mitchell.

Who else?

2 comments:

love johnson said...

(yes, not a fan of caps)

You didn't answer the question. does one great novel make you a great author? "catcher in the rye", great book. J.D. Salinger, great author?

And, I am using the term "great" - you used the term "well known". I believe those 2 terms are not interchangable.

Michael said...

I avoided "great" on purpose. I'd tend to think you have to write more than one book to be great.