Nicholas Sparks is the direct literary descendant of William Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, and Sophocles. Don't laugh--he's quite serious:

... [H]e always does kill someone by the end of his tales, usually to maximum handkerchief effect.

"Of course!" Sparks says. "I write in a genre that was not defined by me. The examples were not set out by me. They were set out 2,000 years ago by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. They were called the Greek tragedies. A thriller is supposed to thrill. A horror novel is supposed to scare you. A mystery is supposed to keep you turning the pages, guessing 'whodunit?'

"A romance novel is supposed to make you escape into a fantasy of romance. What is the purpose of what I do? These are love stories. They went from (Greek tragedies), to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, then Jane Austen did it, put a new human twist on it. Hemingway did it with A Farewell to Arms."

Right: not even Miley Cyrus could finish his latest novel The Last Song.

Comments

[Courtney]

his is some of the worst writing i have ever come across but I am not surprised he puts himself in the same tradition of Shakespeare, Hemingway, etc. - he is probably very well-read - unfortunately that doesn't translate to good writing. At all. But many of my colleagues inexplicably love him so go figure.

[Pete]

Since it apparently wasn't The Last Song, then I guess it must have been The Notebook that made him Hemingway's literary heir.

[Citizen Reader]

This is the same sort of thinking that leads a lot of women readers to label their favorite, Jodi Picoult, as "literary fiction." God help us.

At my last family holiday (on my husband's side--I feel it's important to get that info out there), his aunts found out I worked in a library and wanted to know what I'd suggest if they loved Danielle Steel and Nicholas Sparks. And my husband wonders why I dread family holidays. Next time I'll just suggest a little Shakespeare or Hemingway.

[Jennifer @ Mrs. Q: Book Addict]

Interesting quote.

I don't really like Nicolas Sparks either. I did enjoy "A Walk to Remember." I found his books repetitive.