Can we ever have a ‘gold standard’ of quality?
I like to think the notion of a 'gold standard' colours our creative decisions at JJ Books
My last blog was about the preservation of culture. Of course not all manifestations of culture are of good quality and, hopefully, if resources are limited they will be applied to the preservation of what is good. And that involves subjective judgement. Hmmm!
I like to think that the notion of a 'gold standard' colours the creative decisions that I and my collaborators in JJ Books take. But I am cautious. Who are we to decide what 'the' gold standard is? In the end that is decided by the 'market place' and the market view can change over time and, sometimes, quite quickly.
Furthermore, our ideas about goodness and quality are influenced by what we experienced in our formative years. I was heavily influenced by Kipling and Milne. Those were the authors that fired my imagination and fashioned my dreams - sometimes my nightmares. Those experiences still inform my worldview today.
Readers Comments
John, for me, in writing, the Gold Standard is perfection that always just out of reach (and that’s what makes me keep trying); “hard currency” is what is good enough.
Other than that, history defines the Gold Standard. In writing that is something like The Great Gatsby where there is not a word out of place. But then of course that might be dismissed or ranked lower by another culture… or critic for that matter.
As for the market place defining the Gold Standard? Herman Melville sold less than 4,000 copies of Moby Dick in his lifetime. Sometimes the market place takes a long time to catch up.
However, magic is in children’s books is of greater worth than gold.
Maybe, we should be talking of alchemy.
It’s true - the magic that makes a book good is very hard to define. JJ
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