Nicholas Sparks -- the author of The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe and other weepy romance novels -- said something interesting last week. It may surprise you to learn that the author of The Notebook and Nights in Rodanthe is capable of saying something interesting, but it's true.

According to New York magazine's Vulture column, Sparks said:

"I write a dramatic epic love story, I write modern-day Greek tragedies, and there's a big difference between that and romance. ... You have romance novels, and then you have what I do, more along the lines of love stories like Eric Segal's Love Story or The Bridges of Madison County. ... But you can even go all the way back. You had Hemingway write A Farewell to Arms, the movies of the forties -— Casablanca, From Here to Eternity -- Shakespeare, and that's the genre I work in."

Never mind that From Here to Eternity is from the fifties (1953, specifically), not the forties. The main point here: Nicholas Sparks has compared himself to William Shakespeare.

Mr. Sparks, I have read William Shakespeare. I have performed William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare is well-known to me. You, sir, are no William Shakespeare.

Of course, Sparks didn't say William Shakespeare. He only said "Shakespeare." Maybe he was comparing himself to Irving Shakespeare, the 19th-century novelist who wrote sappy, formulaic tearjerkers in which two people fall in love and then one of them dies. That would certainly be an apt comparison. Too bad Irving Shakespeare only exists in my imagination.

I think what Sparks is trying to say is that his stories follow time-honored patterns of love, loss, and tragedy. In that respect, he has a point, albeit a weak one. When Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, the basic story was already known to his audience, having appeared in epic poems and other formats for centuries. The same goes for most of the Bard's other works, including the comedies. Very few of his plays' plot lines originated with him.

Sparks also follows formulas and familiar story lines -- but the thing is, so does everyone else. If Sparks can compare himself to Shakespeare with a straight face, then so can every other writer.

The difference, obviously, is that Shakespeare retold his familiar stories with a certain degree of elegance and poetry. Yes, audiences knew what was going to happen in Romeo and Juliet. They weren't there to see plot twists and last-minute surprises. They were there to experience the beauty of Shakespeare's work, to see how he infused an old legend with new (well, new in 1600, anyway) theatrical and linguistic ideas.

In contrast, I don't think anyone reading a Nicholas Sparks book or watching a movie based on one of his novels expects anything more than a familiar story told in familiar language, with very little in the way of craftsmanship or innovation. If Sparks is like Shakespeare, then a housepainter is like Picasso.

As for comparing his stuff to "Greek tragedies," I think Sparks maybe doesn't know much about Greek tragedies except that they involve sad things happening. In general, an ancient Greek tragedy told of a great man's downfall (usually due to a "fatal flaw" of his, such as pride), or some other sad sequence of events related to the main character's actions. A story where two people fall in love and then one of them dies might be tragic, but it's not similar to "a Greek tragedy," because death is random. Now, if an oracle had warned the man against falling in love because it would only lead to sorrow, and he went against the oracle's advice and fell in love anyway -- or maybe if the man's actions somehow caused the death of his beloved -- then that would be "Greek tragedy."

My advice to Nicholas Sparks: Keep crankin' out those tearjerkers, and leave the literary analysis to people who are capable of analyzing literature. And beware the Ides of March!

* * * * *

Eric D. Snider (website) might consider Mamma Mia! a Greek tragedy, too, since it's set on a Greek island and causes the audience great sadness.

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