Beautiful day, but no luck selling books. I did finish Danielle Steel's Secrets (1985). It was exactly what I expected - a fast read without much substance. I wasn't crazy about the prose, either, but don't go by me. She has had 79 best sellers that have been published in 47 countries, been translated into 28 languages, and sold more than 580 million copies (stats from daniellesteel.com). Wow. She and James Patterson are the authors people on the street ask for most. There was one thing I did respect about Secrets - adherence to its theme. I do that in all my novels and my most serious short stories. I first learned about theme while reading Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls way back in '72 or '73. He prefaces the novel with this excerpt from John Donne's Meditation XVII:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Throughout the narrative, there are instances that reinforce the theme, particularly the phrase: "...any man's death diminishes me...." All these years later I still remember one in particular, where a Spanish soldier makes the sign of the cross over a wounded rebel before putting a bullet in his head. That, my friends, is art.
Read Vic's stories, free: http://vicfortezza.homestead.com/
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