Mark Rubinstein's Blog - Posts Tagged "hugo"
Don't Knock Thrillers
Thrillers are often viewed as “lesser” literature than other genres. But is this a fair assessment?
Have you considered that Homer, Virgil, and Shakespeare were thriller writers? Let’s step back for a moment and define a thriller.
A thriller is a novel involving a threat to the life or well-being of the protagonist, the community, or even the world. Catastrophe will occur if the protagonist doesn’t act decisively, and if necessary, with violence. There’s a crushing urgency in a thriller—the clock is ticking—and the stakes are high. Reading a thriller may be described as a “heart-pounding” experience.
A thriller is not a mystery or whodunnit. The two genres are often lumped together to the detriment of both.
The bestseller list is often dominated by thrillers. Many have been successfully adapted to the screen. Think of Gone Girl, The Day of the Jackal, Reacher, The Bourne Identity, The Hunger Games, The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption, Fight Club, Silence of the Lambs, and many others. The ease with which thrillers become movies and embed themselves in our culture, may help explain why they’re often viewed as “lesser” works by the literary establishment.
Would we apply the popularity criterion to the world’s most esteemed authors?
Keeping in mind the definition of thrillers, we see that Shakespeare, Homer and Virgil penned them. The plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were unrelenting thrillers. Their works brimmed with danger, fear, and blood-letting. Included in the ranks of thriller writers would be Robert Louis Stevenson, Victor Hugo, Miguel de Cervantes, James Fenimore Cooper, Earnest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, Dumas, Defoe, Melville, Hawthorne, Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Tolstoy, Vonnegut and many others. Many of their novels have been adapted to film. For centuries, their writings have been immensely popular, suspenseful and pulse-pounding forays into every aspect of human nature, including fear,paranoia, violence, guilt, and retribution.
In short, these literary masters often wrote thrillers.
Have you considered that Homer, Virgil, and Shakespeare were thriller writers? Let’s step back for a moment and define a thriller.
A thriller is a novel involving a threat to the life or well-being of the protagonist, the community, or even the world. Catastrophe will occur if the protagonist doesn’t act decisively, and if necessary, with violence. There’s a crushing urgency in a thriller—the clock is ticking—and the stakes are high. Reading a thriller may be described as a “heart-pounding” experience.
A thriller is not a mystery or whodunnit. The two genres are often lumped together to the detriment of both.
The bestseller list is often dominated by thrillers. Many have been successfully adapted to the screen. Think of Gone Girl, The Day of the Jackal, Reacher, The Bourne Identity, The Hunger Games, The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption, Fight Club, Silence of the Lambs, and many others. The ease with which thrillers become movies and embed themselves in our culture, may help explain why they’re often viewed as “lesser” works by the literary establishment.
Would we apply the popularity criterion to the world’s most esteemed authors?
Keeping in mind the definition of thrillers, we see that Shakespeare, Homer and Virgil penned them. The plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were unrelenting thrillers. Their works brimmed with danger, fear, and blood-letting. Included in the ranks of thriller writers would be Robert Louis Stevenson, Victor Hugo, Miguel de Cervantes, James Fenimore Cooper, Earnest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, Dumas, Defoe, Melville, Hawthorne, Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Tolstoy, Vonnegut and many others. Many of their novels have been adapted to film. For centuries, their writings have been immensely popular, suspenseful and pulse-pounding forays into every aspect of human nature, including fear,paranoia, violence, guilt, and retribution.
In short, these literary masters often wrote thrillers.
