What contemporary books or books written in the last 25 years do you think have a shot at outliving their authors and becoming "classics" (quotation marks in deference to varying definitions of same)? What odds would you give your choices, and what reasons would you put forth to wager the book(s) might become part of "the canon" in the 21st century?

As part of your argument, you might cite past books that were supposed to become classics, but didn't, as well as past books that no one expected to go anywhere, but did.

Furthermore, who has the power to decide (or at least assist) such things: Bookstores? Professors at universities? Advertising agencies? Critics? Lady Luck and her sidekick, Fate? Or do you actually believe that "Talent will out" every time and without fail?

In the supposed to be classics, I suppose you could put Pearl Buck's The Good Earth. She won the 1938 Nobel Prize for literature, but hardly anyone reads her books now.

Well, the Nobel winners (and other prestigious award-winning books in literature) are a great starting point for the discussion. The names I see on the Nobel list are a bit of a Wasteland (speaking of, does anyone actually READ that poem anymore?), with the exception of William Golding in the early 80's. I'd say The Lord of the Flies has already made the cut -- but maybe that's been out too long to even argue the point here.

Cormac McCarthy, possibly? I haven't read all of his books, actually, but they seem to carry around this gravitas which always looks good in a classical kind of way. The most powerful one I read was Blood Meridian. Not very happy a read, but powerful writing.

Ruth wrote: "In the supposed to be classics, I suppose you could put Pearl Buck's The Good Earth. She won the 1938 Nobel Prize for literature, but hardly anyone reads her books now."

I always thought I'd read a book by Pearl S. Buck in middle school but I couldn't think which one, as I knew I hadn't read The Good Earth. Looking through a list of the novels she did write, however, I find I've actually never read anything by her. I could have sworn she was a part of "the canon," but she seems to be a ghost among those that still haunt us.

Does anyone READ "The Wasteland"? Well, I do from time to time, but does being read a necessity for being classic? How many people spend time poring over The Iliad?

Try making it through the month of April without hearing how April is the cruelest month in a million newspaper columns and magazine articles, particularly those relating to baseball teams getting off to a slow start. And what would an article about weapons control be if it didn't show us fear in a handful of dust?

As for recent classic status, I would think both Updike's Rabbit series and Roth's Zuckerman series will be around for a while. Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell seem to be becoming classic. Turning to a younger generation, maybe The World According to Garp Lois Gluck.

I don't think I've ever sat down and read The Wasteland from beginning to end in one gulp. But I've often read pieces of it. Enough so that I'm sure that all together I've read it. (I once put out a chapbook titled "Mixing Memory and Desire.")

I'm going to have to mull over what contemporary books I think are going to last. I agree with NE that Cormac McCarthy could be in the running, but I'm not sure which book.

There are certainly more writers, and from more countries, attracting readership and attention than ever before, I think. Of course, there are more readers and more book purchasing power than ever before, too. So is this a golden age of writing and literacy, or a cyclical glut of publishing?

(The answer "both" is not permitted....lol.)

"The Wasteland" is one of those poems whose title is enormously famous, but whose content is all but forgotten. Exception: the line "April is the cruelest month." I forget if T.S. spells "cruellest" with two l's or one, so I'm giving both versions here.

Good point, Michael. It's funny how we complain about politicians and say, "They just don't make STATESMEN anymore like they did at the time of the Founding Fathers." Yet at the time of the Founding Fathers, they got as down and dirty as anyone (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were the equivalent of a 3-decade mud wrestling match). Colonials would probably get a kick out of the venerated sainthood status we've given their "leaders" back then. In the Congress, they even attacked each other with canes and such (Elbridge Gerry of gerrymandering fame was in on one or under one... typical Massachusetts sort, I guess).

Probably the same thing comes into play for classics. Sometimes time does books a favor (e.g. Moby Dick, initially ignored, I believe). And sometimes time moves opinions and status the other way (Eliot, Pound, etc.).

For me, the irony is that there IS a glut of publishing these days, yet I cannot see Updike, Cheever, Mailer, or Roth as lasting any longer than tomatoes left on a summer shelf for a month or two. Eh. Maybe that's just me. They're GOOD. But they don't seem to have that je ne sais quoi.

As for foreigners, there's the rub. We're rather western-centric over here, no? And sometimes cultural outlook prevents us from appreciating the styles of writers from faraway shores. That Turkish writer, Orman P. (help me here), for instance. Man did I struggle before giving up his "Snow" book. And the reviews had it as the next great novel known to man. Ditto the Icelander, Halldor Laxness. Made me long for Greenland.

Ruth... how many McCarthy's have you read? I've only read Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and The Road.

I've read The Road, Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain. Hated Child of God. Couldn't finish Suttree.

We will never sweep any existing 'classic' off the 'Periodic table' of Genres, but examining it may throw light on how they acquired their sacred prestige. Most of the books already up there come laden with historical and cultural contexts and rhetoric representative of the time, be it 16th century or 20th century but what gives them their 'literary sustainability'?.
Re. Cormac Mc Carty, I would proffer 'No country for old men',(even shadows of canonical Yeats in title) 'Birdsong' by Sebastian Faulks, 'The remains of the day', by Kazuo Ishiguro or 'Atonement' by Ian Mc Ewan, (yet none can hold a candle to their predecessors, perhaps just loose canons,from now on)

I would say Coetzee has a good chance of being read in 50 years. Not sure what the world will be like in 100. I haven't read Life and Times of Michael K., but from what I've heard about it, it seems to be as strong as Disgrace and Waiting for the Barbarians, both of which were phenomenal. Their straight-forward language makes them accessible and easy to translate. Their theme of senseless entanglements of the innocent in a power structure no one can reason with (a la Kafka), the long-term repercussions of one country's domination of another people, and the need to go on despite their being nothing to live for all seem issues that go beyond South Africa and Apartheid. I can't say his post-Nobel works will survive as well.

I'd put my money on Waiting for the Barbarians, Yulia.

Newengland--Orhan Pamuk is the Turkish writer you are thinking of. I completed My Name Is Red, it was a group read in one of my groups (this one?), it took me ages to finish. Like 2 months. It was OK, but I really thought part of my problem was cultural. I don't really know Turkish history. When he brought up the Mongols, it was more interesting for me, because I studied them in college. So yes, we have a very Western bent, but some books have so much culture/history steeped into them that they can truly be hard to read for those without the knowledge base.

I also spent forever mulling over the translation. The writing was pretty dry for me. Was it dry in Turkish? I am currently reading Every Man Dies Alone, which is translated from German, and it is magnificently written. Or translated?

I will never pick up Snow :)

I'll never try Snow, either, Dree. I had a hard enough time with My Name is Red, which was a group read here on CR.

I think you're right about the culture/history angle. Plus I often feel at a remove from a book that is a translation--like there's a scrim between me and the actual book.

Ruth -- You are well read, McCarthy-wise! I also have one with Orchard in the title, but I haven't read it.

Windfall -- I agree with your line about the "historical and cultural contexts" that classics carry (reflect?). Ian McEwan, though? He's great "book group" material (I was in one about a runaway hot air balloon -- no alleged little kid on board though -- but have forgotten the title.)

Yulia & Ruth -- Coetzee's a good choice. Apparently he just released the third of a "biographical" set. I made a note to self to check out the first of that set. It's been out for years -- quite short, too.

Dree -- We agree on Pamuk. And background knowledge means so much, both as readers and as students and lifelong learners. It was lost on me, too, all the hoopla. As for translations -- a whole other topic! How many of us are bilingual enough to judge? Few, if you're talking Americans! We're notoriously mono in our linguals.

You know who I see as a developing talent? David Mitchell. I thought his Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green were tour de forces. But classics? Not nearly. I'm just watching him....

NewEngland:

I like this thread. Thought-provoking. Here are some of my ideas:

Don DeLillo

john Irving

Margaret Atwood

Jhumpa Lahiri

These aren't nec. authors I think are amazing, just the ones that might stand the test of time and have captured some aspect of the late 20th century.

Newengland, I read Mitchell's Black Swan Green this past summer and I thought it was great.

Al, I read Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth recently and was amazed.

In fact I've been thinking about nominating one or both of those books for the next Reading List.

I'm guessing classic works aren't necessarily many people's favorite reads, either on first publication or sometimes even when made 'canonical,' but somehow manage to continue to speak powerfully to the general human condition beyond their original context.

Amongst the American authors mentioned I would agree about the chances of Updike, Irving and Roth, or at least specific examples of their work. I might suggest Gabriel Garcia Marquez as a future classic well on his way. Is Nabokov already there?

I would add Joseph Heller, especially Catch-22, even though I know many people have trouble getting into it (as with several other 'classics,' of course). More controversially perhaps I might mention McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.

I would concur on McEwan Ian, and would add Edward P. Jones' The Known World.

Barb mentioned Jones on another thread, and it reminded me just how much I admired this book.

. . . .as well as past books that no one expected to go anywhere, but did.

As I ponder the primary question, I cannot help thinking of this:

In its first month out of the blocks, Moby Dick sold 1,500 copies, 2,300 in the next 18 months, and 5,500 copies in the next 50 years. For his efforts, Herman Melville netted $556.37 initially. His lifetime earnings from Moby Dick amounted to a total of $1,260. Another $81.06 was paid to his widow after his death in royalties.

Of course, that is the kind of reception it still gets from many. For my money, it is the best American novel ever written.

So my thinking about the original question is a bit polluted by that because it is impossible to come up with a suggestion in that league. However, I know that a suggestion in that league is not what you are looking for, Newengland.

I've been meaning to read David Mitchell for a while - this thread makes me want to move him to the top of the list.

Steve: I think your point is well taken. Most of the books we consider classics were totally unappreciated while the author was alive, so handicapping from that perspective is tough. Does this mean "A confederacy of Dunces" is headed for the list?

I agree that Coetzee has a lot of potential (despite the success he has achieved while living). "Waiting for the Barbarians" was on a high school summer read for me in the 1980s and I hope it is still part of the syllabus.

Some playwrights stand out to me as well: Chekov, Ibsen, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. I also think Truman Capote might be read in 100-200 years.

My mother belonged to a book club. They worshipped Pearl Buck. "Gone with the wind" is still around & still popular. "Lonesome Dove" will stick around for a while, budt I remember Bud Guthrie's westerns that were Big time in the 1950's & almost forgotten now.
O.K., in 1940, Robert Penn Warren was head for immortality. All the King's Men just came out in a new edition, so he might be remembered. How about Ohio Native Louis Bromfield? "The Rains Came" made it big & quite a few others were made into movies. Kenneth Roberts "Northwest Passage." "Drums Along the Mohawk." Walter D. Edmonds. "To Have & to Hold, Mary Johnston. All novels about the early settlement. pre-revolutionary era. All popular as WW2 spread ever closer. Ben Aames Williams, a lot of movies from his works. "Leave her to Heaven." He wanted to be remembered for "House divided," a Civil War epic. He wasn't.
What else was on Mom's bedside table? Faith Baldwin? - Fanny Hurst? Nevermind. Historical. Mary, Queen of Scots. Contemporary - Mrs. Miniver.
There will always be an England. All English authors were popular.
Ross Lockridge wrote a best-seller "Raintree county" It was hailed as a master-piece. Mr. Lockridge re-read it, saw that it could have been done better, killed himself. Good movie with elizabeth Taylor.
The boys came home from WW2. "From Here to Eternity" and beyond. what's remembered? Herman Wouk. James Jones? Norman Mailer?

Oh Ok. I thought it had to be a book written in the last 25 years. If that's not the case, I would think 'To Kill a Mockingbird' willl long outlive Harper Lee. In fact, I'll bet there are a lot of folks who don't even realise she is still alive. This book has already outlived its author, if you really think about it.

Past books that were supposed to bcome classics and didn't? Hmm that's a difficult one. Off the top of my head, I would say Grace Metalious' 'Peyton Place.' I started to read this when I was in middle school but my father threw it out before I got far. He didn't think it was appropriate for me. This was one of only two books he forbade me to read. (I sneaked another copy and read it, anyway.)

Beej, I have to ask: what was the other book your dad prohibited? :)

I actually liked "The Good Earth," which I read when I was a kid. (Who knows what I'd think of it now; no temptation to re-read it.)

I have not read a number of the authors listed here (Roth, Updike's "Rabbit," DeLillo, among others), so cannot comment on their staying power, other than to note that some of Updike and Roth has already stuck around for decades; a good sign. I count "Remains of the Day" among one of the best books I've ever read. I second the nomination of John Irving -- there is something Dickensian about his writing, or at least about his writing as I remember it.

Perhaps the best predictor of what will last from latter 20th Cent into, say, the 2050's at least, would be a stroll through a bookstore to see what books from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s still find a place on the shelves... (A good excuse to go to a bookstore!)

This is an interesting exercise, the first such exercise that I have encountered in a long time here that is.

First, I am going to take you literally when you say the “last 25 years.” That puts us at 1984. Actually, I can do it and still give a year making the nice round number of 1985 forward. We must be talking publication dates here.

It is one thing simply to kick around lists of authors or lists of books. It is quite another to name one that you would put your money on. I am not fond of list making. I will give you only two books. (Actually, these are the only two books I am sure of. I could not make a list.)

The American novel that I would put my money on is Underworld by Don DeLillo. I think its scope gives it a big edge. And he did a masterful job of capturing an era, which also gives it a big edge from my point of view. It is an amazing piece of work.

Internationally, I would bet on Blindness by José Saramago. A Nobel Prize is no guarantee. Sinclair Lewis, for example, is still in the canon but barely. Pearl S. Buck has already been discussed, although I have enjoyed her work very much. However, that Nobel helps. And this man most assuredly deserved it as much as any person has over that period of time. I am more certain about Blindness than I am about Love in the Time of Cholera, as much as it pains me to say it. We have seen the international blossoming of the Iberian and Latin American novel in our time. Blindness is the exemplar that will last.

Baltasar and Blimunda, about which I am even more sure, was first published in Lisbon in 1982 by the way. That one will to some extent carry Blindness by the same author into the canon on its back. Its scope and the capture of an era again. But there is a timelessness about Blindness that makes me sure that it will have an appeal to future generations in its own right.

I refuse to believe that novels as an art form will not survive. I could be wrong there.

I also wish to float a gratuitous blasphemy. I am a fan of Cormac McCarthy. I have read a lot of Cormac McCarthy. Still, I have these nagging doubts that his great appeal may be much limited to our own time. He has transformed himself more than once, initially from a novelist of the southeast to a novelist of the southwest. Now, with The Road I think he has tried to transform himself into an outdoors Kafka with a more universal and timeless appeal. Blood Meridian is still his best shot, and I have grave doubts about that.

I would put my theoretical money behind Love in the Time of Cholera over Blindness, not because the former is more ambitious than the latter but because I feel the latter didn't live up to its ambitions (I couldn't get over the one-dimensional characters, plot mysteries--why they were quarantined when the city at large was infected--or the darn dog of tears). Then again, I think both have a good chance of making the cut. The question that brings to my mind is, will Love in the Time of Cholera outlive One Hundred Years of Solitude? I couldn't get past the second page of the latter work, however well-regarded, so for me, Cholera definitely trumps Solitude.

Steve:

Underworld is the reason I chose DeLillo in the first place. If someone in the future wanted to know what the 20th century was like - I can't think of a better way to teach them about and entertain them all at once. In fact as I am still slowly yet diligently working my way through War & Peace, I can't help but now see some sim. between the 2 books. Key world leaders figure in to both fictions. Forgive me if y'all have already discussed this on the War and Peace thread, I have stayed away from there so my tolstoy experience is not marred by any spoilers, but I can't wait to dig into that discussion once I finish.

Now I have yet to read Blindness so I am not a fair judge, but I am with Yulia on Love In the Time of Cholera. Just think how important romance is to the books we are still reading from centuries past (i.e. The Charterhouse of Parma, the Age of Innocence, Anna Karenina). Great romances endure and if there is some exotic and distinct locales thrown in I think that helps too.

I need to look at my highest rated books published since 1985 and see what else may be in there.

thanks again, newenglanc for getting us off on this fun tangent.

Oh yes Steve. Blindness. Blew me away.

Since it was judged by authors and critics asked by the NY Times as the best book of the past 25 years, do you think Beloved has true lasting power? I know it's taught in universities and high schools, but will it be in a century? I have a hunch it may be, though I wince at passages I read from it now.

Blindness was one relentlessly depressing book. But let's face it. TIME gives its "Man of the Year" (or is it "Person of the Year" now?) award to the person who has the biggest impact, not the BEST person. Thus, Hitler or Osama bin Laden could win it. Meaning? I hated loving Blindness and would never read it again. Meaning? I'm not quite sure.

Like Yulia, I couldn't even read One Hundred Years of Solitude. And I also question Irving, though I admit to some subjectiveness here because I've heard Irving speak on Irving and boy, howdy, does he LOVE -- even CRAVE -- being compared to Dickens. Ah, no. Sorry, John. It's hard to believe Garp will be read in 2090, but I've been fooled before (and I won't be around to accept the jester hat anyway).

This thread is going to add to my already teetering TBR pile. I've never read Underworld. Why? Because I read White Noise (which also harvested hosannas) and was Underwhelmed.

Steve, your musings on Cormac McCarthy's durability could hold true for any writer writing today. It's almost uncanny how certain books endure, go under, or endure and THEN go under. I truly believe critics (first) and professors and academia (second) have a large say in what books develop staying power. But then there's always "the people's choices." Kind of like "word of mouth" movies that the critics ignore but the public keeps watching, they just keep on keeping on. I wish I could think of such a book, but I'd have to know more about literary history (what was initially embraced or panned by critics) and book sales (what is a perennial seller).

I certainly respect your thoughts on Love in the Time of Cholera, Yulia. In fact, I hope you are right.

I loved the "Underwhelmed" comment, Newengland. I do hope you give Underworld a try. It is not another White Noise, I assure you.

As to the why's of these things, I just do not know enough of the history of various classics to be of help either. I have no idea how it was that Moby Dick managed to rise from the dead for example. I suspect that there are as many ways that a book finds its way into the classics category as there are classics.

I do know that Faulkner's work was perilously close to being forgotten in the forties. Malcolm Cowley then started writing about him, and we came to have The Portable Faulkner that he put together. Cowley single-handedly saved Faulkner from real obscurity. I think Faulkner himself conceded that.

Well, a good deal of Faulkner's writing is still obscure, but you know what I meant.

My point is that it is possible for one man of reputation to write about another man's work and give it a big push.

Or consider Confederacy of Dunces. If Walker Percy had been in a different mood when mother brought that manuscript to him, we simply would not have that book. Now, it is clearly a part of the southern canon at the very least.

You are quite right about my musings on Cormac McCarthy. I readily concede it is possible that any number of books from the last 25 years might become classics. We would probably be surprised or even shocked by the choice or choices of future generations.

Knowing what little we do know about how these things work though, we surely know that sheer luck probably plays the biggest part in all this. Of course the book has to have some substance. But do we not know intuitively, for example, that there were any number of novels written in the last 200 years that ought to be classics today but were totally lost out there in the ether somewhere, perhaps never having even been published?

Well, what makes a book a classic is sometimes the influence it has on other writers, both of that age and subsequently. It's why we still include works like The Iliad and Clarissa as forming part of the Western Canon although I think nowadays only students read them as part of a required reading list. That's why I think The Waste Land deserves its reputation, as does Ulysses. In that vein, I would have included both One Hundred Years of Solitude and Midnight's Children. Unfortunately, these fall outside the 1985 cut-off year.

Popularity alone is a fickle mistress. One can name books that are now regarded as classics that have fallen on either side of the divide, as well as books that have deservedly or undeservedly passed into oblivion that were once much loved. Never having been published is an impossible question to answer, of course, but one only has to look at the recurrent attempts of publishing houses (*cough*NYRB Classics*cough*) to find examples of "forgotten classics" to find worthy contenders for examples of titles that were once well known and well regarded that are now forgotten. (I note, somewhat wrly, that Marian at #21 refers to Elizabeth Taylor, she of the violet eyes and multiple marriages. But how many people know of the other Elizabeth Taylor, popular author in her day and still well-regarded if only by that small set of intellectuals who style themselves the literary cognescenti.)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest some highly counterintuitive and atypical choices: books that are commonly looked down upon. I would even go so far as to argue that as the boundaries between science fiction and fantasy break down and enter the mainstream, these may not in later decades be seen as such unusual choices. Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novel series should become part of the canon in terms of breaking new ground, depth of vision and storytelling, and sheer popularity. In terms of influence, I would include Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey (in good company with HG Wells and Jules Verne) and anything by Philip K Dick.

Looking through my own reading list, however, I am hard pressed to find anything in the 25-year period that would pass muster. This isn't to say that there aren't books in that period that I loved. There are (pssst...Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Byatt's Possession). But, there are few there that I think rise head and shoulders above the crowd in such a way that I can confidently say that they'll be remembered in the years to come, especially in this love-em-and-leave-em age of the celebrity. Nor can I pinpoint an author that has had the same influence as say, George Lucas and Steven Speilberg (whatever you might say about their movies, you can't deny the tranformational effect they had on the movie industry, for better or worse), or even Quentin Tarantino. In this, I'm happy to be proved wrong.

It would be fun to return to this discussion 50 years from now, because I am sure that like the guys 50 years before us, we will come up with some very wrong predictions.

To start, the definition of “classic” is very tricky. Under the banner of “classic” we put The Iliad, Pride and Prejudice and Rabit, Run. “Classic” has grown so big as to encompass anything that has managed to be reprinted after a 25 year hiatus, and it has watered down the impact of this “classic” label in my view.

Maybe it is time to be more specific with the term “classic”. So Dune is a science-fiction-classic, and Strangers in a Train is a thriller-classic. Those are well deserved labels that do not put them in the same library shelf as Romeo and Juliet.

As for Roth, Carol Oats and Updike, they maybe come to deserve the label of US-Canon-Classic, but, I am sorry to say, they will not achieve the higher label of “International Classic”, as Blindness and Midnight Children have already, in my opinion, achieved. The proof that they are already there comes exactly by the fact that the big American market has by now accepted them as such. But, how well is Roth known in Portugal or India? I am sure that Blindness and One Hundred Years of Solitude are read – or despised – in German, for instance, as much as they are in the English translation. But, without any knowledge of their publishing number internationally, I am ready to bet that it will be very hard to find a copy of Updike just sitting at a shelf in a small bookstore in Moscow or Rio de Janeiro for example.

I am picking on you, Americans, here. But the truth is that you are very biased towards your own literary production. The rest of the world don’t perceive books that explore the American experience as essential reading as you all do. Therefore, my vote among contemporary American writers to make the “international Classic” list and endure there for 100 years to come goes to Comarc McCarthy, for he has differed quite a bit from the mould of the middle aged American male having angst problems of Updike and Roth, or the variation of young-adult American male having angst/incestuous problems of Irving. Hey, they are all very good writers and I do like to read each one of them, but please remember: they fit into the American-Canon-Classic and likely will never get to an higher status internationally.

But this is quite all right. Think of guys like Machado de Assis, unable to break the barrier of “Portuguese language Classic”. I hope that from his grave he can at least smile for Saramago finally managed to do it. Eca de Queiroz, too, must be smiling. Or not, as it may be too little too late for them.

(Just a note to say that while I put this together, Whitaker has posted a very insightful entry. I am sorry if my post does not follow from the points he brings – or in some instances repeats them - but after all the time I took writing this one, I need to go live my life away from the computer for a while and I could not expend more time re-writing. Sorry)

Newengland, won't get into the ring over Mc Ewan, suffice to say, 'Atonement' was tethered more securely than 'Enduring Love'. In full agreement on how the chain of 'who sets staying power' rattles and yes, once in a blew moon, our public imagination is transfixed by a particular book, partly as a 'one in the eye' response, to defy literary snobbery and equally because 'we simply love it'.

Steve, agree with you on the 'obscurity' of Faulkner. So inaccessable for me..still, even with 'how to' guides.
Literary Criticism will always tuck its neck in when talk is afoot on 'worthy new canonical additions' yet they are always eager to re-evaluate a 'title' that already has its feet under the 'hi' table. The blind veneration they give to some and not others, is baffling.

Whitaker, perhaps, the 'credentials' required for to cut mustard Western Canon style, need revision?.

I derived a good deal of amusement from your post, Capitu, most particularly the paragraph beginning, I am picking on you, Americans, here. . . .

Está correto. Obrigado. Sua honestidade é refrescante.

All I can say is that it is a sin that has been committed by others. Historically, I do not think anybody can top my beloved French. They may have had more justification for their view of their own literature, however.

I concede that I have only scratched the surface with regard to Iberian and Latin American authors. (Let us not even mention the poets!) However, I will never forget the experience of encountering Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar in some course or another back in college. That opened a whole new world for me.

Actually, you were quite tactful in comparison with other versions of this message that I have received elsewhere. Australians are expert at expounding on this egocentrism from which Americans suffer. Those few Australians with whom I have had the pleasure of becoming acquainted took the first opportunity that our acquaintance provided to deliver this message, two of them spicing it up with obscenities, with which Austalians are very adept when inspired.

I bring that up because I wish to mention a book that came out of their neighboring country. (You know how one thought leads to another.) I do not have to be concerned with the fidelity of any translation either. I will have to abandon my bravado, however, and back up to the year 1984.

That book The Bone People by Keri Hulme has a good chance, I believe. I cannot decide whether I would bet money on it though. She is sort of the New Zealand Harper Lee. That is her only novel. However, there is much more to that novel than first meets the eye. The waters run deep there. At 460 pages in paperback roughly, it has some heft, too.

By the way, I can actually sense Chinua Achebe from Africa looking over my shoulder. But he attacked the "Western Canon" in part, I think, because of the simple fact that his work and that of his colleagues are not part of it. I think the "Western Canon" is what we are talking about here. So he is just going to have to live with this discussion as it is proceeding. I should just delete this paragraph because it brings up a whole rat's nest with regard to Coetzee.

The Bone People is a contender.

I was just coming on here to mention The Bone People. That is a phenomenal book. It held up to three separate readings from me. I got such different meanings each time. It's not an easy book, nor a perfect book, but it is an amazing one.

Steve, your Portuguese is very good. Keep it up. As well, I am glad to amuse you too.

Steve, Ruth and Sherry, thank you for the suggestion of The Bone People. I am going to look it up eventually. For someone who reads for pleasure, I do have quite a list to get around to it. I think that this is maybe why some of us feel like sticking to “the classics”, or those books tested by time, as the mountain of worthwhile books is astonishing. As it is the amount of junk published every day. So, I do give Michael, who inspired this thread with his comment about only reading “the classics”, some slack. I seem to attempt something like it every so often, but then it gets forgotten when I encounter a good review of some recently published book. I get lucky sometimes – as with “Wolf Hall” by Hilary Mantel very recently, a classic on the making, in my opinion – but end up reading some so-so books too. It is an endless hunt.

But, back to the classics. Yes, I am talking about the “Western Canon”, but this is exactly what I think has become too big a banner to become irrelevant. Maybe we should leave The Iliad and Othello resting under it, and understand and accept that there will be “smaller” banners out there, and that this is perfectly all right. I have never read Chinua Achebe - oh, another one to add to the list, and he may deserve a place in the “Western Canon” –he won the Booker in 07, that is quite Western Canon in my bible, but the fact remains that he achieved the “African-Classics” recognition, and that is already a great merit in itself. The problem is that we do become culturally too protective of the works in our own backyard, and dismissive of others.

Another problem with “the Classics” label is that the popularization of books has taken the “labelling power” away from the academics. I know I am going to sound like a literary snob here – so be it. But, the fact that books and reading have become so wide spread has given the chance of books that do not merit the label of “classic” to become one, because of the massive number of readers that elect it to be. While I put my vote on Cormac McCarthy, maybe Dan Brown will be the guy to make it, or, heavens forbid, Alice Sebold. In all reality, Jane Austen made this far more in the fact that her romances do have a wider appeal to female readers than in the merits of her work (hey, I am a fan of Austen, but really, Pride and Prejudice is no Middlemarch).

Back to the writers in the Portuguese language, I am also ready to bet that Paulo Coelho’s readership is much wider that Saramago’s. So The Alchemist may stay around much longer than Blindness. Which does give me heartburn just thinking about it.

Well, I manage to speak a lot again, and I never got the conversation close to the book I want to push on you, Steve. It is The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by the poet and writer Alvaro Mutis. It is very deserving of the “classic” label and quite appropriate to read while “soul-journing” in Mexico, I think.

Back to the writers in the Portuguese language, I am also ready to bet that Paulo Coelho’s readership is much wider that Saramago’s. So The Alchemist may stay around much longer than Blindness. Which does give me heartburn just thinking about it.

Me, too, Capitu, me, too.

Thanks, Capitu, for that Maqroll recommendation. It's always humbling to see a title so highly rated by so many readers and admit, "Shiite, I haven't even heard of the thing -- and I've been listening. Or so I thought...."

The Bone People, eh? When I read it, I said, "Shoot. This author battled this thing all the bloody way -- and it shows." A surprising choice, but I can see why. It just didn't much move me. No reason to say it's not a possible classic, though. How many "classics" fail to move us? I cannot even read most Faulkner and break out in hives if I read more than two bloated paragraphs by Henry James. Enough said!

Anyway, before we leave the topic of the Antipodes, does anyone think much of Australian Tim Winton's work? I was mightily impressed with his book, Breath, but concede its weirdness and its surfing subject matter might make it more appreciated by guys than by readers universally.

Someone brought up the topic of genre-specific classics. I like that because so often books become classics "in their field" and thus only become appreciated by readers who enjoy those fields. Brave New World (Exhibit A). Is it read and cherished by any other than science fiction fans? Maybe. And maybe not. Fahrenheit 451 would enjoy more "crossover fans," I think, and it also meets part of a science fiction classics true test of correctly predicting the future. Bradbury had big TVs on the walls, sound devices (think iPods) in characters' ears, and, of course, trusted officials doing the exact opposite of their jobs (e.g. "firemen" use fire, not water, just as many present-day elected officials serve themselves instead of their constituents -- NEWS FLASH!).

I wonder, then, if Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale deserves a science-fiction nod for its creative forays into how women's bodies can be used. The politics, ethics, and scientific "advances" of the womb are all fair game in the book (and seemingly in real life at times... just follow the news, if you dare).

The Alchemist? A classic? What next? Jonathan Livingston Seagull and The Bridges of Madison County? ;-)

And while we're talking genre-specific classics, a more impossible game than this is predicting children's and young adults' classics-to-be. Did Margaret Brown ever expect that people would be "Goodnight Moon-ing" for time immemorial, for instance? Nah, couldn't be. Not with that bowl of mush and all....

Sherry wrote: "I was just coming on here to mention The Bone People. That is a phenomenal book. It held up to three separate readings from me. I got such different meanings each time. It's not an easy book, nor a..."

I have "The Bone People." You have encouraged me to read it.

I think the Harry Potter books will be classics in their genre. My 7-year-old (precocious) granddaughter is on Book 7. They may be so popular that they will leap into classics status just because almost everyone has read them, and obviously the next generation is working on them, too.

Leola, I hope you like The Bone People. Sometimes when people rave about a book, I have way too many expectations and am disappointed. Let me know how it goes with you. There is a great discussion in our archives that might interest you.

I read The Bone People years ago. I loved it, but I'm not ready to add it to my own personal classics list. Here are two that I would add:

The White Hotel and The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I have read each of these several times, and they just get better with each reading. That, for me, is critical. If I can come back to a book years later and still find it great reading then I'm sold.

MAP wrote: "Here are two that I would add:

The White Hotel and [book:The Unbearable Lig..."

Kundera's novel was what I was thinking of last night. But hasn't there been discussion, at least among literary critics, of Kundera's not having the lasting power they'd originally predicted he'd have? I've only read TULOB once but loved it and can't imagine not loving it should I read again, so I wonder if this is a book that will remain a classic among readers but not among critics.

Here's an interesting discussion of Roth's Portnoy's Complaint being considered for a "retrospective Booker prize" for 1969. The author is the English Classicist Mary Beard.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life...

Portnoy is in my personal category of 'good, not great' Roth, that is, an interesting conceit, not up to the caliber of his great works.

Capitu, didn't get a chance to reply to your post at #32, but wanted to belatedly say, "Hear, hear!"

Sherry, we were having the same thought about Harry Potter, and I must say the thought of some 12 year-old 500 years from now cursing at having to study ole Harry for class gives me a chuckle. The sad fate of classics: becoming relics on a curriculum.

Windfall Apple, at #33, you asked, "Perhaps, the 'credentials' required for to cut mustard Western Canon style, need revision?" Perhaps, but I suspect these things are decided at some level beyond academics and the popular public at some kind of Jungian collective unconscious level. Although I agree with MAP that having it hold up to re-reading must be one pretty crucial criterion.

I think some level of popularity (humous or post-)must be a requirement otherwise the book will just go out-of-print and disappear. Any books out there published 20 years ago to great popular/critical acclaim still commanding a reasonably sizeable audience?

Ruth wrote: "I'll never try Snow, either, Dree. I had a hard enough time with My Name is Red, which was a group read here on CR.

I think you're right about the culture/history angle. Plus I often feel at a r..."

I didn't care for Snow, but I did like My Name is Red and I read it surprisingly fast, in only about two or three days. It's the only Pamuk work I've liked, though.

Al wrote: "NewEngland:

I like this thread. Thought-provoking. Here are some of my ideas:

Don DeLillo

john Irving

Margaret Atwood

Jhumpa Lahiri

These aren't nec. authors I think are amazing, just the one..."

I would agree with all three of those four authors. I can't agree with Jhumpa Lahiri, though. Her work is too sloppy and filled with grammatical errors. She constantly uses "among" to refer to two persons rather than using "between," and she'll use "between" to refer to more than two, rather than using "among." And that's just the most benign mistake.

I have to admit, I'm prejudiced. I don't like her writing at all.

MAP wrote: "I read The Bone People years ago. I loved it, but I'm not ready to add it to my own personal classics list. Here are two that I would add:

The White Hotel and [book:The Unbearable Lig..."

I thought The White Hotel was fabulous. Very well written. I hope it lasts.

Sherry wrote: "I was just coming on here to mention The Bone People. That is a phenomenal book. It held up to three separate readings from me. I got such different meanings each time. It's not an easy book, nor a..."

I liked that book, too, Sherry, but I just didn't understand the ending.

SPOILER


The book went from very dark to all of a sudden very, very happy. I just didn't understand that part.

Here's some grist for the mill. These are the books that made #1 on the NYT best seller list in 1985:
The Sicilian by Mario Puzo
If Tomorrow Comes by Sidney Sheldon
Family Album by Danielle Steel
Thinner by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)
Hold the Dream by Barbara Taylor Bradford
Cider House Rules by John Irving
Skeleton Crew by Stephen King
Lucky by Jackie Collins
Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor
Texas by James Michener
The Mammoth Hunters by Jean M. Auel

Stephen King apparently ties with Danielle Steele as the author with the most number of #1's to date. So, required reading in 2209: Carrie, It and The Shining?