Cult Books - A New Concept In The World Of Fiction
What is a cult book? Why do you think they are popular among teens and young adults
? Do they really evoke a sense of cult or fear? A piece of work or a book can really qualify as a cult book if it is popular among both the classes and the masses. It has to be loved by the right people and it should have an undefined group of fans ranging form tattoo artists to rock stars. These books are paradoxically unique which people or general masses may not have read but have surely heard of.
Cult classics are basically small run under-published books and they have nothing to do with the number of sales. Important cult books like Trainspotting by Irvene Welsh, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach and the Lord of The Rings by JRR Tolkein are popular widely with millions of vast number of copies sold are still considered as cult books.
How can one really define a cult classic? One indicator is that these popular books which have earned the status of cult is here to stay and is not going to fade away from the readers minds so soon. Take for example cult novels which were immensely popular in 1927 and 1962 like Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, are popular even today as they were in yester years.
A book gets a cult status when its plot contains themes like sex, drugs, traveling and outrageous adventures which are otherwise dangerous and forbidden ways of life. But there are some cult classics such as The Lord of the Rings which do not really follow this theory in their plot.
The character of these cult novels are less stable and more reckless and these are the kind of people whom you will never find in you your daily life and probably will never want to meet or interact with them. Cult books are basically read by teens and young adults because they take them out of their boring and mundane life and transport them to a world which is wild, risky, rough and at times, stupid where they can experience a detached way of the world.