Here’s a bar chart I made illustrating the point, although the y-scale is comprised of competely meaningless arbitrary numbers:

‘Book 1′ represents a very well-written book with a not very interesting story. I’d say this description applies to a great deal of Modernist literature, and is the type of book I most commonly read. Prime examples would be Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, in which a woman is planning a party for the evening, James Joyce’s Ulysses, in which a man wanders aimlessly around Dublin for a day, and Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past / In Search of Lost Time / A la recherche du temps perdu, which spends the first thirty pages discussing how he often has difficulty sleeping, and the next hundred on what eating a type of French cake reminds him of. All of these, in isolation, are really quite boring stories of the mundane, and it is only the way they are written that brings them alive.

On the other end of the spectrum we have the type of work represented by ‘Book 2′: the interesting story that is not particularly well written. I’d say this is the most popular form of novel and includes the work of J. K. Rowling and Dan Brown. No one would argue that either Harry Potter or The Da Vinci Code are well written or have any deep subtexts; they sell themselves entirely on their stories. Who cares that Harry Potter doesn’t deal with existential themes? We just want to see what happens to the boy wizard. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with this type of writing; it fills the same needs as mindless trashy television which, despite its lack of cultural value is often cathartic to just zone out in front of. To speak metaphorically, I would liken this type of writing to a sugar-rush, a sweet, high-calorie low carbohydrate snack. You read The Da Vinci Code and it’s exciting (well, annoyingly over-excited): “first there was this man and then he got killed! and then some people found him covered in blood! and then he’d spelled out this riddle! and they were about to crack it! but they got chased by the police!” There’s no fat to chew, and sometimes you just want that. Mostly though, as I’ve said, I prefer something meatier, and I’d say Modernist literature is a like a well-cooked rump steak with a fine wine, full of rich and subtle flavours that are satisfying, but not to everybody’s taste.

‘Book 3′ which strikes a mid-range balance between well-written and interesting story, is the kind of average good book. Something like E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights or, my favourite of all books, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Stuff happens, it’s well-described.

‘Book 4′ is the ideal book, with an amazing story and superlative writing. Almost no book has ever or will acheive this, and the only one I can think of that comes close is Homer’s The Odyssey, which was written well over two-thousand years ago. The story is as classic a monomyth as they come, full of exciting and memorable episodes that have weathered those two millenia to remain in the modern conciousness. The descriptions in it are also very well done, with Homer drawing simple paralells that demonstrate perfectly what he is talking about. I’d copy out some examples here if I hadn’t left my copy in another city or could be bothered to trawl through an internet copy.

Actually, I’d say that one other book which potentially comes close is Migeul de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, of which I’ve only so far read the first two hundred pages. This story is classic enough that the adjective ‘Quixotic’ and the idiom ’tilting at windmills’ have entered our language, meaning, respectively, someone like Don Quixote in that they are excessively chivalric and/or with a unique, perhaps misguided, wordlview, and, someone attacking invisible or misperceived enemies or otherwise engaging in a futile fight. The writing is well-accomplished in that it parodies chivalric romance tales while remaining original, witty and funny, and is often interspresed with original poems by Cervantes.

And that’s essentially my theory on what any piece of writing needs to have for someone to read it: a good story or a good writer. Whether you agree or disagree, please feel welcome to leave a comment below.