I don't mind long books (after all, Henry James and Anthony Trollope are two of my favorite writers) but I have to feel that all that heft is in aid of something and not just filler. Stephen King, Elizabeth George, and (before she died) P.D. James have been approaching "peak filler" for a long time.
It's true. I loved books like SHOGUN and read a lot of Michener in the old days. But now if I see a book is 500 or more pages I am more than likely to put it back on the shelf than read it, unless it is something I really, really want to read. I don't see why Rowling's "Robert Galbraith" books need to be 500 pages.
Someone on DorothyL did a fairly extensive study (using Edgar nominees), and found that the average length of them has increased (from the late 1950s) from something around 200 pages to something around 300 pages...he did word-count estimates, though. (Robert Parker's later books, in my estimation, wound up with a lot more pages and probably fewer words, that his earlier ones---b--i--g margins and widely-spaced lines..
Anthologies over the same period tended to shrink...in part because older paperbacks were cheaper to print if short back when...and have only in the last decade plus started to swell again...and while James could turn in a notable novella or two, Trollope wasn't the only man of his time, nor of the years running up to the paperback era (Thomas Mann...Thomas Wolfe...James T. Farrell...some guy named Tolkien), crushing bugs with novels...
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I remember when 200-250 pages for a mystery was enough. Of course, Gold Medals were a lot shorter than that.
I miss the old days.
I don't mind long books (after all, Henry James and Anthony
Trollope are two of my favorite writers) but I have to feel that all that heft is in aid of something and not just filler. Stephen King, Elizabeth George, and (before she died) P.D. James have been approaching "peak filler" for a long time.
It's true. I loved books like SHOGUN and read a lot of Michener in the old days. But now if I see a book is 500 or more pages I am more than likely to put it back on the shelf than read it, unless it is something I really, really want to read. I don't see why Rowling's "Robert Galbraith" books need to be 500 pages.
As you know, I'm in agreement with you, Jeff.
An agent told me once that if OF MICE AND MEN or DOUBLE INDEMNITY were submitted today, they wouldn't be accepted--too short!
I believe it.
Someone on DorothyL did a fairly extensive study (using Edgar nominees), and found that the average length of them has increased (from the late 1950s) from something around 200 pages to something around 300 pages...he did word-count estimates, though. (Robert Parker's later books, in my estimation, wound up with a lot more pages and probably fewer words, that his earlier ones---b--i--g margins and widely-spaced lines..
Anthologies over the same period tended to shrink...in part because older paperbacks were cheaper to print if short back when...and have only in the last decade plus started to swell again...and while James could turn in a notable novella or two, Trollope wasn't the only man of his time, nor of the years running up to the paperback era (Thomas Mann...Thomas Wolfe...James T. Farrell...some guy named Tolkien), crushing bugs with novels...
Some of the current SF anthologies are almost too heavy to pick up.
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