The obnoxious groaning you heard in the movie theater watching that documentary was probably me listening as some pop or rock celebrity compared the music of one of their contemporaries to Mozart, again. How many of you are with me for establishing some common sense guidelines here to help us avoid the ridiculous comparisons we've all endured? I'll start; please join in and offer either your ideas or your objections to mine.
If comparisons must be made - and I'm not sure they must - how about we compare any artist's work - author, filmmaker, musician, etc. - only to their own work? For example, wouldn't it be preferable if an undeniably great song like If I Fell were compared only to other Beatles songs? Overnight, we'd avoid the entire Beatles catalogue from ever being compared to third-rate pop mediocrities or .. to Mozart. Think of it: If I Fell = A+; In My Life = A; Why Don't We Do It in the Road = F. We level the playing field by agreeing George Gershwin compositions be compared only to other George Gershwin compositions and not say, Steve Miller compositions. This way, if you want to declare Take the Money and Run a musical masterpiece, have at it, but don't stack it against Embraceable You.
OK, now about that word masterpiece. Unless I'm etymologically challenged - and I don't think I am - that word gets to be used just once across an artist's whole oeuvre. And actually, having an artist's masterpiece as a standard to assess all their other work against is a handy way to ensure comparisons are not made between say, Tolstoy and Tom Clancy. If you claim Anna Karenina as the Count's high-water mark, and Hunt for Red October as Clancy's, great. Start there, I say, and put each of those books against all the respective subsequent and prior work of the same author, but don't compare the two novels to each other. I'm also all for allowing anyone to change their mind about any author's (etc.) masterpiece if a newer work by that author (etc.) ups the artistic ante in the view of the assessor.
Need to acknowledge the insights of a reading soulmate in helping me midwife today's reflection. In our recent discussion of A Line in the Sand - an astonishing new novel by Kevin Powers - my friend and I digressed a bit when she spoke of her love for author Lorrie Moore. Because Moore's most recent work has been slightly less satisfying to my fellow bookworm, our conversational tributary meandered to If I Fell vs. In My Life, briefly. From there, this post began to take shape as I recalled how The Yellow Birds floored me when I finished it. For me, that debut novel by Kevin Powers stands as his masterpiece. Which takes nothing away from A Line in the Sand, a book so assured I'd be beyond proud to have written anything even close to it. Just as proud as I'd be if any song I ever wrote approached the majesty of say, In My Life.
https://reflectionsfromthebellcurve.blogspot.com/2013/05/healing-bravery.html
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