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Unsolved mysteries ... we are drawn to them.
The Voynich Manuscript
Named after the Polish-American antiquarian bookseller Wilfrid M. Voynich,
who acquired it in 1912, the Voynich Manuscript is a detailed 240-page book
written in a language or script that is completely unknown.
Its pages are also filled with colorful drawings of strange diagrams, odd events and plants that do not seem to match any known species.
Carbon dating has revealed that its pages were made sometime between 1404 and 1438. It has been called "the world's most mysterious manuscript."
Phaistos Disc
The mystery of the Phaistos Disc
is a story that sounds like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.
Discovered by Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier in 1908 in the Minoan
palace-site of Phaistos,
the disc is made of fired clay and contains
mysterious symbols that may represent an unknown form of hieroglyphics.
It is believed that it was designed sometime in the second millennium
BC.
Shugborough inscription
Look from afar at the 18th-century Shepherd's Monument in
Staffordshire, England,
and you might take it as nothing more than a
sculpted re-creation of Nicolas Poussin's famous painting, “Arcadian
Shepherds.”
Look closer, though, and you'll notice a curious sequence of
letters: DOUOSVAVVM — a code that has eluded decipherment for over 250 years.
Though the identity of the code carver remains a mystery, some have
speculated that the code could be a clue left behind by the Knights
Templar about the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.
Many of the world's greatest minds have tried to crack the code and failed, including Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin.
HOW TO WRITE A BEST-SELLER
The sad truth is that plenty of those who speak contemptuously of Dan Brown’s or Stieg Larsson's prose
are writers who could not get a child interested in a fairy tale.
True, I, too, would never call Brown a “good writer” — yet many very successful novelists are not: Stieg Larsson, for example.
A book doesn’t have to be especially well-written, plausible or original to be a bestseller (although it can be).
The characters don’t have to be particularly interesting, as John Grisham proves again and again.
In fact, if there is one trait that all of the bestsellers Hall considers absolutely share, it’s that a lot of people like them.
Which begs the question:
WHY DO A LOT OF PEOPLE LIKE THEM?
Only the genuine enthusiasm of the reading public will make it an ongoing hit.
Word of mouth — one reader raving to another about how much he or she enjoyed it — is the single determining factor. And you can’t buy that.
So why does that public fall in love with some crappy books but not others?
More often than you might think, luck and timing play a deciding role.
There were dozens of erotica romances before 50 SHADES.
But James emerged from the word-of-mouth factory that is Twilight fandom, and as a result her books introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to a genre they didn’t know existed,
much as Stephenie Meyers had introduced them to the vampire romance novel a few years before.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE UNSOLVED MYSTERY?
WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE RECIPE FOR A BEST-SELLER?
You named it - timing and something new. Word of mouth is going to push sales. Which is why I try to review more of the literary or popular books, some from the last century (20th).
ReplyDeleteI've never read either the James' novel or the Twilight series. I don't plan to read either one, there are many more GOOD books to read. I don't think those books would compare to reading about Monet, or a novel of Hemingway's. I'd rather read HS Thompson than EL James. (Everyone has their likes and dislikes, just stating my own.)
Interesting information on the hieroglyphics, however, those have always intrigued me. We want to think that many came before us, as that indicates that we (as Earthlings) may have longevity, but manuscripts without a history can't help but fire the imagination of a writer. . .
Interesting subjects, Roland.
I write and read about unsolved mysteries all the time. My favorite is probably the Phoenix UFO sighting in 1997. If you've seen the video it is amazing and it was witnessed by thousands of people, yet nobody has been able to explain what it was.
ReplyDeleteSome best sellers are an enigma to me. Speaking from experience reading many of these you mentioned above, such as Twilight, I believe a huge part of what makes them successful is they're fun, exciting, fast reads. Sadly enough, it's not that they're the best literary work around. I've picked up books upon others' recommendations, and found myself unable to put them down, so I also believe word of mouth lends to the success of bestsellers. But I'm occasionally stumped by what makes a stellar bestseller.
ReplyDeleteSarah Aihers posted about that mystery book before.
ReplyDeleteWith books, so much of it is in the timing.
Biggest mystery - why in this day and age of cameras and cell phones everywhere has no one gotten a decent picture of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster?
I think new + graspable + intriguing is a solid recipe for a best-seller. The trouble is being able to discern what exactly those things are. But perhaps something that is completely indecipherable has it's own attraction, too.
ReplyDelete