Under-appreciated Works from Popular Creators

Paul McCartney's "Standing Stone" is a purely orchestral work with choral voices. Being a Rock musician where appeal is primarily verbal, to compose a more than 75 minutes instrumental programmatic piece is nothing short of extraordinary. But it is unfortunate that it has not been as popular as his rock albums.

S. L. Bhyrappa is the most popular & critically acclaimed Kannada novelist of the present day. But probably his Magnum Opus is "Truth & Beauty", his doctoral thesis on Aesthetics, a branch of philosophy. He himself has admitted that writing it has taken more effort than writing his acclaimed novels. Though Kuvempu & DVG had earlier written on this subject, they did not delve as deep as Sri. Bhyrappa.

Mark Twain (psuedonym of Samuel Longhorn Clemens) is a famous humorist, known as the author of "Tom Sawyer" & "Huckleberry Finn." But he himself has admitted that his best work is his biography of Saint Joan of Arc, called "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc." He said "It furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others: 12 years of preparation & 2 years of writing. The others needed no preparation & got none."

Daphne du Maurier, author of the Gothic Classic "Rebecca", also wrote a short story called "No Motive." It is a superb detective story on par with the best of Christie, Marsh & Tey. But it does not seem to be filmed. However Malayalam director Pavithran has filmed an adequate adaptation called "Utharam" starring Mamooty.