THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: Wayfaring Stranger on 30 Nov 2007, 13:41
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I've been thinking some lately about how modern literature will be viewed a long way down the road. When I consider authors who have retained significant notoriety and relevance over hundreds to even a thousand years and more, it makes me wonder which (if any) current works will win the same sort of longevity. I know many early-to-mid 20th century authors have already pretty much cemented their places in history for a long time, but I'm talking about books from the '70s onward. Who do you think will be remembered a hundred years down the road or more?
Will people like Dan Brown and other adventure writers be remembered in the same kind of way Alexandre Dumas or Rafael Sabatini are? Will modern romance writers gain any sort of status along the lines of Jane Austen?
Anyway, I'd like to hear your opinions on the subject.
I think some candidates for long-lived success include: Chaim Potok, Haruki Murakami, Myla Goldberg, Richard Russo, J.K. Rowling, Luis Alberto Urrea, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Stephen King, and maybe some like John Patterson, John Grisham, and even Danielle Steele.
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I'd add to that list John Updike, Don DeLillo, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Philip Roth, and I imagine Cormac McCarthy. I'd like to hope that Carol Shields, Alice Munro, Nicholson Baker, and Colson Whitehead will surive as well. I'll be trumpeting them, at the very least.
I don't imagine many of the thriller writers will really survive. Most of their sales tend to come right when the book comes out, and they aren't books that I could see becoming part of any sort of cannon.
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All good calls.
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I wouldn't be surprised to see Pynchon and Vonnegut sticking it out in the future. They may have something of a cult following but they are undeniably brilliant authors, often giving insight (albeit sometimes obliquely and sometimes rather satirically) on many cultural spheres. I also think Kundera aught to be on this list. I certainly second Garcia Marquez, McCarthy, DeLillo and several others already mentioned. The only one I have trouble with is Grishman. I find his longevity fairly doubtful.
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I'm gonna agree with you guys on Stephan King and Cormac McCarthy. Most of the others I haven't heard of.
Also; what about Hunter S. Thompson? I'm pretty sure Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas will be used in the far future as an example to warn students against the dangers of excess and to demonstrate how "primitive" we were were back in the 20th century.
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Oh, I forgot: I highly doubt Stephen King will be read a hundred years from now, mainly because he's not very good and also because works in the horror genre rarely have longevity (for a lot of reasons I don't fee like going into).
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i don't know.
i think people will still be reading The Stand and The Dark Tower series in a hundred years.
and by extension: many of his other books.
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Augusten Borroughs
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Clive Custler, the greatest action writer. Dirk Pitt is the perfect combination of James Bond and Indiana Jones. Despite being slightly formulaic the plots are always rich, the characters and setting well realised and not mention a lot of fun.
Jasper Fforde will be the Go-Betweens of 1970's literature onwards.
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Oh, I forgot: I highly doubt Stephen King will be read a hundred years from now, mainly because he's not very good and also because works in the horror genre rarely have longevity (for a lot of reasons I don't fee like going into).
I don't think he's very good either, but an awful lot of people disagree with you and me.
What about Dracula? Frankenstein? Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde? Those have shown some impressive longevity. I will admit, though, that those books are quite different from modern horror.
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I think it's interesting that Scandanavian War Machine has only heard of the two authors in this thread that I mentioned where I really wouldn't mind at all much if they were forgotten.
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What about Dracula? Frankenstein? Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde? Those have shown some impressive longevity. I will admit, though, that those books are quite different from modern horror.
For works of horror to have any particular longevity they must either become part of popular culture or have some special philosophical or literary significance. The reason these works have survived is much more to do with Universal Pictures and Hammer Horror than their merit as books, though I enjoy all of them. Far, far, FAR more people can recognise the characters of Count Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and Jekyll and Hyde, than have actually read any of the works in which they appear. Additionally, each work has particular things about it and sub-texts that make them historically interesting. Dracula is an interesting illumination of Victorian ideas about sex. Frankenstein was written by the daughter of one of the first feminists, whilst she was a teenager married to a famous romantic poet, not to mention being one of the first works of science-fiction, and being far enough ahead of its time to raise issues that are still debated in scientific ethics today. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde plays on vivid and troubling psychological issues. Even then, these issues pale next to the popular currency given to them by their film (and before that stage) adaptations. There are other works of the period in the same genre with even more interesting concerns that are almost unknown nowadays. For example, Le Fanu's Carmilla, in my opinion, is better written than Dracula, and must be just about the first work in the modern western canon to deal with female homosexuality, yet today it is relatively obscure, living on mainly as the inspiration for the 'lesbian vampires' meme.
Stephen King, on the other hand, writes novels about evil trucks and demonic clowns killing small town Americans. Just about the only reason I can see for his novels being studied in the future is his curious obsession with the magic negro cliche. Just about the only 20th century horror writer I can see being studied seriously for a long time is HP Lovecraft, who seems to pretty much grow more in stature as time passes nowadays. Apart from him, maybe Anne Rice.
Also, remember, popularity doesn't ensure longevity. Imitation, adaptation and influence and a somewhat arbitary canon (mainly decided by the tastes of educators and academics) are I think what secures the legacy of literary works. Grisham, for example, writes very popular books, but they don't have a particularly wide cultural influence, not on the scale of, say, Ian Fleming. J.K. Rowling, on the other hand, writes books that are not only almost inconcievably popular, but have had a significant cultural impact. She is one of the few modern writers who I think will live on in the popular imagination: I imagine this will actually be quite a small number, though of course many more authors will live on as subjects of academic study. The one really arbitary factor, which we cannot even begin to imagine, is the effect that future critical readings, philosophical trends and cultural shifts will have on the popularity of modern authors. Sometimes even being vastly popular in its day will not save a book. How many of you have read Pamela?
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Myla Goldberg
I named my cat after her.
Well, I named my cat after the Decemberists song, but the Decemberists song is named after her, so...
If Sue Monk Kidd were to write a few more books that were as good as The Secret Life of Bees and not as shitty as The Mermaid Chair, she would be up in my book. I haven't read any of her memoirs, though.
And Tim O'Brien. The Things They Carried is one of my favorite books, if not my favorite book of all time.
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Good points, Khar. I think though, that Stephen King, maybe unlike a Grisham, has made a pretty big cultural impact. As per the older horror writers like Stoker and Shelley, no matter how people know about them, their work is still recognized even to the point of being household names. It seems reasonable that figures such as Carrie and Cujo may be recognized a long time from now. Good point about Lovecraft. His recent surge in popularity is pretty interesting. Cthulhu is popping up everywhere.
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Here's looking at Michael Crichton and Brian Jacques, but I suppose that's more wishful thinking than anything.
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Brian Jacques writes about Furries! Hah, who's gonna remember that!! :-D
[quote author=KharBevNor For example, Le Fanu's Carmilla, in my opinion, is better written than Dracula, and must be just about the first work in the modern western canon to deal with female homosexuality, yet today it is relatively obscure, living on mainly as the inspiration for the 'lesbian vampires' meme.
[/quote]
Where can I obtain a copy of Camilla?
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Good points, Khar. I think though, that Stephen King, maybe unlike a Grisham, has made a pretty big cultural impact. As per the older horror writers like Stoker and Shelley, no matter how people know about them, their work is still recognized even to the point of being household names. It seems reasonable that figures such as Carrie and Cujo may be recognized a long time from now. Good point about Lovecraft. His recent surge in popularity is pretty interesting. Cthulhu is popping up everywhere.
The thing with Lovecraft was that he was, literally, ahead of his time in some respects (though his attitudes towards women and non-whites weren't). It may seem cliche, but I think that most of us, nowadays, are much more ready to believe a world of lurking, formless, unseen horrors and deranged, vile cultists. Also, I suppose changing religious attitudes might have something to do with it. A lot of his work is actually pretty blasphemous, in a way.
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I personally believe that Lovecraft is the only entertaining misogynist ever.
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I'm not sure I'd call Lovecraft a misogynist as such. Not by the standards of his day, anyway. Racist, definitely. Even for his time, his obsession with miscagenation, degeneracy and genetic decadence is significant, though he did write at a time when eugenics was a worryingly popular idea. Lovecrafts attitude to women is more conservative and dismissive, I think. I always got the sense that women feature so rarely in his stories because they were at home cooking. When he does give the appearance of misogyny, I think its more his asexuality and hatred of being touched talking than anything else. As far as I'm aware, his closest relationship was with his mother. The only tale of his I can think of that could be considered misogynistic is The Thing on the Doorstep, and I think that's more just straight body horror. Indeed, the only other stories I can think of off the top of my head with female characters are The Dunwich Horror and The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and in both of those negative portrayals of women are more to do with the fact that those women are half-deep ones or inbred cultists who fornicate with Yog-Sothoth. Both those also have, however incidental, positive female characters. The historical society curator in The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Dr. Armitages wife in The Dunwich Horror, for example.
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from wikipedia:
Gender
Women in Lovecraft's fiction are rare, and sympathetic women virtually non-existent; the few leading female characters in his stories — like Asenath Waite (though actually an evil male wizard who has taken over an innocent girl's body) in "The Thing on the Doorstep" and Lavinia Whateley in "The Dunwich Horror" — are invariably servants of sinister forces. Romance is likewise almost absent from his stories; where he touches on love, it is usually a platonic love (e.g. "The Tree"). His characters live in a world where sexuality is negatively connotated — if it is productive at all, it gives birth to less-than-human beings ("The Dunwich Horror"). In this context, it might be helpful to draw attention to the scale of Lovecraft's horror, which has often been described by critics as "cosmic horror." Operating on a grand, cosmic scale as his stories are, they assign humanity a minor, insignificant role. Consequently, it is not female sexuality to which the stories categorically deny a vital and positive role — rather, it is human sexuality in general. Also, Lovecraft states in a private letter (to one of the several female intellectuals he befriended) that discrimination against women is an "oriental" superstition from which "aryans" ought to free themselves: evident racism aside, the letter seems to preclude at least conscious misogyny (as does, indeed, his private life otherwise).
Keeping in mind, the earliest contact Lovecraft had with women, first, was his mentally ill mother, and later on, a life spent living with two elderly aunts. No serious misogynistic elements are evident in his fiction.
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That's...pretty much exactly what I just said?
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sorry, i forgot to take it out of context.
from wikipedia:
Gender
Consequently, it is ... female sexuality to which the stories categorically deny a vital and positive role.... Also, Lovecraft ... in a private letter (to one of the several female intellectuals he befriended) precludes at least conscious misogyny (as does, indeed, his private life otherwise).
there.
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I think the comparison between King and Lovecraft is valid (I actually think King is at his best when aping Lovecraft). Both aren't terribly good writers, but they spin good yarns, so to speak, and they've made engaging mythologies. King will certainly leave a mark on popular fiction, but he ain't Vonnegut or Garcia Marquez. I don't think he has to be, though.
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Not Robert Boyle, do you know what 'precludes' means?
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My apologies, I wonder if any current fantasy/sci-fi writers will be remembered in a Tolkienesque manner a hundred years from now?
If so, i reckon it would be Frank Herbert or Robert Jordan.
Herbet, because of how the Dune Mythos is being handled by his descendants
Jordan because The Wheel of Time is unbelievable long and 'epic'.
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I'd say the handling of the Dune universe done by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert will leave those books less likely to be remembered in the long run, if anything. They are certainly severely cheapening his magnificent creation.
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Man. If the only books from the last thirty years that anybody reads a hundred years from now are from horror, fantasy or thriller writers, the fury from my rage will awaken my frozen brain from its cryogenically-induced slumber and I will make my robot-slave body start beating the shit out of people reading books from the Wheel Of Time series.
YET THIS IS THE EXACT DIRECTION THIS THREAD SEEMS TO BE GOING
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Most of the things I've read lately that I can see being canonized are mostly short stories and none of those are fantasy/horror/thriller, such as Ira Sher's The Man in the Well. There is good fiction out there that isn't a part of any of those genres and if that's all the past century is remembered for, I'll be quite sad. I can't add too much on actual books, though, because I've been mostly reading things that are already classics.
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Man. If the only books from the last thirty years that anybody reads a hundred years from now are from horror, fantasy or thriller writers, the fury from my rage will awaken my frozen brain from its cryogenically-induced slumber and I will make my robot-slave body start beating the shit out of people reading books from the Wheel Of Time series.
YET THIS IS THE EXACT DIRECTION THIS THREAD SEEMS TO BE GOING
Sorry if I really only like Sci-Fi, Fantasy, or Satire that happens to be lumped into those categories (which Vonnegut falls into to an extent). If I didn't find real-life boring, I'd probably read more plain old fiction. I read a sizeable amount of older things which are probably deemed as classical literature. And I guess O'Reilly could count as a memorable author. But the point is, there's not a lot of good books left that don't fall into those categories (and I'm assuming we're talking books written in the last century or so).
And for the record I didn't like Dune or The Wheel of Time.
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there's not a lot of good books left that don't fall into those categories (and I'm assuming we're talking books written in the last century or so).
You are wrong. Seriously.
Here are books you need to read. Promptly.
Nicholson Baker - The Fermata
Martin Amis - Money
Don DeLillo - White Noise
Colson Whitehead - The Intuistionist (I guess this could be sort of maybe argued as a science-fiction-ish thing though)
David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas (Parts of it are definitely science-fiction, so it would make a good stepping stone, maybe)
All of those should be books which you can get in to, since they have decent fantastical moments, and don't come across as narratives of everyday life at all.
After that, or before that, or whenever, read The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields. If you have learned to appreciate things which are worth reading, you will love this.
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Man. If the only books from the last thirty years that anybody reads a hundred years from now are from horror, fantasy or thriller writers, the fury from my rage will awaken my frozen brain from its cryogenically-induced slumber and I will make my robot-slave body start beating the shit out of people reading books from the Wheel Of Time series.
YET THIS IS THE EXACT DIRECTION THIS THREAD SEEMS TO BE GOING
Don't worry, no one has a) enough time to read all 13/14 b) a long enough attention span or c) society will be so mentaly devestated by TV that they will be too mindless to be able to read anymore.
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You are wrong. Seriously.
Here are books you need to read. Promptly.
Nicholson Baker - The Fermata
Martin Amis - Money
Don DeLillo - White Noise
Colson Whitehead - The Intuistionist (I guess this could be sort of maybe argued as a science-fiction-ish thing though)
David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas (Parts of it are definitely science-fiction, so it would make a good stepping stone, maybe)
All of those should be books which you can get in to, since they have decent fantastical moments, and don't come across as narratives of everyday life at all.
After that, or before that, or whenever, read The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields. If you have learned to appreciate things which are worth reading, you will love this.
The key words in my statement were A LOT. Not trying to be a bastard, but you've listed 5 and a 6th. That's not a lot. But I will look for them at the library when I get a chance. As it is right now, I don't have a lot of time to read because I've been doing a lot of school/work/homework which will probably continue on until summer.
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I listed books that I felt might be accessible to you based on what you described your likes as being. I did so in a rather restrained fashion, with hope that the list wouldn't seem overwhelming and you might go pick up one or two, and have your viewpoint changed sufficiently to delve deeper into general fiction and modern literature. If I wanted to list a lot of books, I could likely do so, and I'm sure there are many people on this forum who could list more.
And how posting a reply might it so that you were born of parents out of wedlock is beyond me.
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Dude read Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley.
In fact, all of you read it. The literature that survives is what we make survive.
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Dark Flame, Martin Amis is a great call. The work I've read by him seems really timeless and brilliant.
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I actually haven't read much Amis at all, but I've loved what I have. I'm reading Time's Arrow, among other things, at the moment.
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guys guys guys
we all know that the Da Vinci Code is the most important book of our generation, and will be the only contemporary novel worth reading 100 years from now.
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You win.
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Do people ever read it now? To me it feels like it stopped having any sort of popular hold pretty soon after the huge phenomenon. I kind of hope his next book crashes, truth be told.
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No, I don't think people are still reading it, really. I think the only reason so many people read it was because of the hype. I read it because of the hype, but honestly, the writing is pretty much crap.
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Isaac Asimov and Douglas Adams will probably be the icons for sci-fi and British humor in a couple decades.
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I pride myself on the fact that I have never so much as touched a copy of "The Da Vinci Code."
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It was seriously over-hyped. Fun for what it was worth, but that was only about an afternoon's worth of time. Incredibly predictable.
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It was seriously over-hyped. Fun for what it was worth, but that was only about an afternoon's worth of time. Incredibly predictable.
agreed. very poorly written, the story itself was fun, but kinda mindless and predictable. Angels and Demons was slightly better IMO, but still rather forgettable. And his earlier shit is godawful. I read Deception point and Digital Fortress one summer when I was incredibly bored at work and read my coworker's copies. They're seriously horrible. The main thing that pisses me off about Dan Brown's stuff isn't that he's a horrible writer, but that he presents a lot of complete bullshit as fact. I know he's got the disclaimer at the front of the books, but 90% of people reading it still spout his artistic license bullshit as the gospel truth.
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gospel truth... heh....
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In fact, Dan Brown has never actually written a book worth the time taken to read it. Anyone read Digital Fortress? Jesus Christ. Alongside Clive Cussler, Dan Brown is one of the authors I would love to see retire.
Dan Brown will never be able to write as well as Cussler, ever.
Cussler is the better writer hands down, from Valhalla Rising:
They moved through the morning mist like ghosts, silent and eerie in phantom ships. Tall, serpentine proes arched gracefully on bow and stern, crowned with intricately carved dragons, teeth bared menacingly in a growl as if their eyes were piercing the vapor in search of victims. Meant to incite fear into the crew's enemies, the dragons were also believed to be protection against the evil spirits that lived at sea.
Brown, from the Da Vinci Code:
Renowned curator, Jaques Sauniere staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece towards himself until it tore away from the wall and Sauniere collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas.
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The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
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Win!!
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haha, I gotta agree. the only Clive Cussler book I've read was absolutely ridiculous, well-written or no. Also, the movie Sahara sucked.
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I would also like to point out that in that book Dirk Pitt saves a plane full of handicapped children from crashing into skyscrapers.
I don't care how eloquent his sentence structure is, this shit has been done before, and it has been done much, much better.
Did Robert Langdon do it? No he didn't. I'm not saying that Cussler is a great writer but that he is a better one than Brown.
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Guys, Clive Cussler is a good writer. I'm not sure what your problem with his book is all about. In fact, he wrote it so well, all you need to do is think up a new way to threaten the world, research another important shipwreck of the past, and come up with a new way to tie said shipwreck into the solution for said threat, and you get to read it again, but for the first time! You could read this book for the first time more than a dozen times, maybe two dozen, before you exhaust what it has to offer. Clive Cussler has written a masterpiece of a novel.
I really like his books, actually. It's not the sort of thing that you read for posterity, but it's still time well spent in its own way.
I would want Tom Robbins to survive, but his legacy will only live on through word of mouth. Unless some revolution in US culture puts his books into literature classes, his work is probably not going to get any public recognition after he is gone. Likewise Robert Anton Wilson.
In terms of sci-fi, I definitely think Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke are going to survive past the 20th century. Philip Dick will, if there's any justice in the world. William Gibson might make it too. Within the sci-fi genre they will be the equivalent of Austen or Dumas for at least a couple centuries, but this is true of other writers as well ... I'm only including these in specific because they wrote books that were important across genres.
J. K. Rowling is really the only fantasy writer I'd put on the list. People will be reading her books 50 years from now for sure, and maybe longer. And Neil Gaiman has an impressive enough portfolio to give him a lasting name.
In terms of current or recent novelists/writers, I'd look at Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison (unfortunately), Alan Moore (yes, I think he counts, and yes, I think he'll stay important), Joseph Heller, Hunter S. Thompson, and maybe Chuck Palahniuk if he's lucky (although his books, along with most I've mentioned, will be as dated as Treasure Island in probably less then 60 years).
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I think Terry Pratchett and Orson Scott Card will, probably. To add to onewheelwizzard's list. Terry Pratchett hasn't really wrote anything bad yet. Critics keep comparing him to Vonnegut, him and Neil Gaiman collaborated to write one of the best books ever. Orson Scott Card is a little hit-or-miss, but Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow I think are substantial enough on there own to keep him from being forgotten.
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I really cannot see Orson Scott Card making it. His books, beyond Ender's Game, are really only read by a very select group of people, and tend not to be talked about much. Even Ender's Game recieves as much criticism as praise, if not more, and even in ten years are so, I think it will scarcely be read.
Another author that I think would be likely to last a good while in Margaret Atwood. She's widely read around the globe, has written a number of books already heavily studied, and will likely continue to write for a good while. She has enough awards to her name, and I would not be surprised if she managed a close shot at a Nobel prize at some point. Not saying she deserves it though.
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Really? In Maryland, a lot of the school systems are putting it up for suggested summer reading or whatever it's called now right along with The Time Machine, I Robot, and Moby Dick. I'm not saying the school board is an authority on books or anything, but typically that's a sign that's it's memorable.
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The only problem I think with Ender's Game is that if someone doesn't care for sci-fi, I don't think people will like it, but I guess that could be said about a lot of books. It's not like Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World, which I can definitely see being read 100 years from now, though. But then again, I only thought that Card's book was okay compared to those two. (I was having chronic headaches when I was reading it, which may have something to do with my not liking it as much.) And Bradbury has been one of my favorite authors for about the past 10 years.
As for horror authors, I can see Palahnuik being more successful than King down the line. King has more work, but Palahnuik's is better and personally I find it more interesting. (I like reading Stephen King every once in a while, especially his older stuff, so I don't dislike him.) Also for horror, has anyone else read The Other by Tom Tryon?
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I fully expect my child to read Ender's Game for class in middle school. I really hope so, anyway. But aside from that one book I don't think Orson Scott Card is going to have much of a lasting legacy.
Keep in mind that Ender's Game is not quite at the same difficulty level as either of the others mentioned. I'd expect a teenager to be ready to read it at least a year or two before being ready to read Huxley or Bradbury.
I really hope Terry Pratchett stays at least as popular as he is now, but he doesn't really have a big splashy masterwork, just a constantly evolving and improving fantasy universe of wondrous proportions.
Maybe Snow Crash will give Neal Stephenson a posthumous following, but I'm not holding my breath for it.
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I imagine Pratchett will probably be remembered in the same way that Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft are remembered. Even though Good Omens IS a masterwork....
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I'd go for Mort or Guards! Guards! before Good Omens, probably.
Are Huxley and Bradbury difficult? I read Brave New World and The Illustrated Man when I was 11, Fahrenheit 451 maybe a year later. The only author I remember finding too difficult and putting off for a while was Mervyn Peake, and then only 'Titus Alone', which is fucking batshit.
Mervyn Peake deserves to be remembered, actually. Gormenghast is utterly fantastic. I suspect the fantasy trappings put a lot of people off (though really, it's not fantasy at all), and also, they are quite difficult works. I don't know many people of my age who have read them.
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My favorite so far was Night Watch, actually, followed by Sourcery and The Last Hero, then Good Omens.
Fahrenheit 451 was basically a more abstract version of The Giver (or vice versa), which I think everyone in Maryland had to read for sixth grade (11 years old). I know not all of his books are like that, but dystopia is kinda easy to pull off, when you look at the sheer number of books/movies/video games that use it as the center element of the story. And as far as I know, The Giver is the easiest to read. Theoretically, once you've read that, you've read all of them. But a lot of people seem to get a kick out of dystopia. I wonder what that says about us?
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I wouldn't particularly hold The Giver up as a great example of dystopian fiction. Fahrenheit 451, 1984 and Brave New World are what I would call the canonical 'trilogy' of dystopian fiction. The reason the dystopia is so popular, and done so often (though not that often), is that it is of course a way to comment on present politics and social conditions
Also, on the subject of genre fiction, raised earlier, I would like to enquire why someone who only (or mainly) reads genre fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, historical, war, detective, thriller) is so easy to criticise, but someone who never reads genre fiction is alright.
Science fiction, I would argue, has been the most important literary genre in the second half of the twentieth century, for many reasons. This is not just my own geekery talking. It has shaped our cultural discourse and attitudes to technology and its social and personal ramifications in ways no other genre has. Information technology, the internet, surveillance, conspicuous consumption, the war on drugs, the war on terror: science fiction wrote about them first and best.
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Of course The Giver isn't supposed to be the epitome of Dystopia stories. But seeing as that's probably the first one you'd read, you'd basically be rereading it when you do go on to read Bradbury/Huxley/Seuss/etc. They all have their own unique characters and such, but if you didn't like The Giver, you don't really have a reason to read 1984/Brave New World/Cat in the Hat/etc.
But I totally agree with you on the science fiction part. Ender's Game invented the political blog and to an extent WiMax.
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The Giver certainly was not the first dystopia I ever read. It wasn't even on the syllabus, as far as I remember.
Oh, and Handmaids Tale, speaking of dystopias.
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In my tiny state, anyways.
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The Giver was on my 8th grade reading list, but I read it when I was still in elementary school. I'd read quite a bit of Bradbury by 8th grade, too, because as I said earlier, I love his work. But if I'd read Brave New World around that age, I probably wouldn't have understood it fully. I'm not insulting The Giver, I really enjoyed it, but it's a older kid's/young adult's book. It was written for that age range, while it's my understanding that the other two weren't. I can see it staying on a reading list for junior high level for a while, but I don't see it going any further than that. That's kind of how I see Ender's Game.
Now, if I don't see The Hobbit or anything by Tolkien on my kid's reading lists, I will be sad.
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What about Philip K. Dick and Robert Heinlein? Where does Asimov fit in here? These guys have written controversial enough books that their memories will probably hold for a while. The real question that I have is, will we have a Shakespeare? Who will be remembered hundreds of years from now as a master of his art in front of others?
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Maybe Asimov??? He has books in almost every section of the Dewey Decimal system. I mean, there are some writers who can be compared to classical authors, but I haven't seen any compare to Shakespeare. Vonnegut is kinda like Swift, Asimov/Heinlein/Clarke are kinda like Verne/Wells, but I can't really think of a good comparison to Shakespeare. Wouldn't they have to be a playwright/poet, anyways? How many of those do we have now.
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The big comparison I'm making is that Shakespeare is basically the go to for, as Harold Bloom would say, the 'invention of the human'. Shakespeare--whether or not he was Sir Francis Bacon--is considered to have written in the greatest examples of the English language, or used it the most beautifully. Now, my question is whether or not our time might have a writer of any kind whose influence is not seen for what it is now, but will be remembered hundreds of years from now as extremely genius as Shakespeare. This person does not need to be a playwright or poet, but that doesn't mean that they can't be. A requirement must be simply, absolutely timeless writing.
My vote goes with Philip K. Dick. This is mostly because I'm having trouble remembering all of my favorite authors. Remember that the sixties can still be considered a part of our time, considering the span of time in which Shakespeare was unrecognized. I would have liked to say, potentially Neil Gaiman, because I feel that if he continues for a while, his material might become such that much greater. Also, I say Dick because we need a sci-fi Shakespeare.
Thoughts? Personal nominations? Should this be a seperate thread?
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Also, on the subject of genre fiction, raised earlier, I would like to enquire why someone who only (or mainly) reads genre fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, historical, war, detective, thriller) is so easy to criticise, but someone who never reads genre fiction is alright.
Science fiction, I would argue, has been the most important literary genre in the second half of the twentieth century, for many reasons. This is not just my own geekery talking. It has shaped our cultural discourse and attitudes to technology and its social and personal ramifications in ways no other genre has. Information technology, the internet, surveillance, conspicuous consumption, the war on drugs, the war on terror: science fiction wrote about them first and best.
Genre fiction can be decent and science fiction and fantasy both have an awful lot to offer, and they've proven this over and over again. Besides Asimov and Heinlein ther are a bunch of authors in the genre who've created great works.
But there are some brilliant people out there writing fucking incredible books that don't come with their own little genre stickers at the library and it always pisses me off to hear people ramble on about how brilliant Clive Cussler is and nobody has the taste to mention Jonathan Lethem or Michael Chabon or Mordecai Richler or Timothy Findley. Hell, since we're largely ignoring the "of the last thirty years" bit, where the fuck are Henry Miller and Charles Bukowsk and Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Heller (and yes I know most of his stuff was released in the last thirty years)? At the end of the day these people have written masterpieces - in some cases, multiple masterpieces - and they don't get the recognition they deserve for breathing new, beautiful life into thousands of tired words.
I'd also like to meet these people that don't read any genre fiction ever. I personally don't know any of them. I do know plenty of people who only read genre fiction and series fiction.
EDIT: I forgot "be." "Science fiction can decent." AWESOME.
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Sci-fiction and fantasy provide a wide array of tools and accessible to themes to explore topics that my be considered taboo, Animal Farm through political allegory, or are just hard to cope with.
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Yeah, I know.
science fiction and fantasy both have an awful lot to offer
What I'm suggesting is there is so much out there that isn't science fiction that is good literature.
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Please recommend me some then and I'm saying this in all earnest. Especially contemporary authors, I stopped reading a lot ofcontemporary fiction awhile ago beacause i couldn't really find anything that wasn't cliched into oblivion.
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Nicholson Baker - The Fermata
Martin Amis - Money
Don DeLillo - White Noise
Colson Whitehead - The Intuistionist (I guess this could be sort of maybe argued as a science-fiction-ish thing though)
David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas (Parts of it are definitely science-fiction, so it would make a good stepping stone, maybe)
Also:
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
John Updire - Rabbit, Run
Carol Shields - The Stone Diaries
Julian Barnes - England, England
David Eggers - A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius
Alice Munro - Who Do You Think You Are?
Ian McEwan - Saturday
Richard Ford - The Sportswriter
John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy Of Dunces
Iris Murdoch - The Sea, The Sea
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...
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
The Hummingbird's Daughter - Luis Alberto Urrea
Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami
My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok
Bee Season - Myla Golberg
Night Train - Martin Amis
The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara
Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier
The list really goes on and on. There is some great science fiction, but there is an abundance of fantastic literature elsewhere.
I do agree, however, that science fiction has made an incredible impact on our culture in the last half-century or so. For that reason, I think a lot of great science fiction authors (Dick, Bradbury, Heinlen, Asimov, etc.) have a good chance of entering the canon of classic literature. That's a big step for a genre that was barely taken seriously less than a hundred years ago.
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Except don't read The Life Of Pi.
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Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov wrote speculative fiction.
Just sayin'.
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Mikhail Bulgakov.
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I'd say Harlan Ellison, but I'm just not sure you can have the legs when the bulk of your work was in short stories and scripts. That and he did the bulk of his writing split between the '60s and '70s, so I'm not really sure he meets the OP criteria, but I figured he's worth a mention.
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Mikhail Bulgakov.
I only ever read Master and Margarita (does he even have anything else anyone's read?) and it was awesome.
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Nabokov wrote speculative fiction.
Just sayin'.
He also wrote Pale Fire and Lolita.
Mr. Boyle, allow me to break down my last post into a list so you can glean the necessary parts from it.
Jonathan Lethem
Michael Chabon
Mordecai Richler
Timothy Findley
Hell, since we're largely ignoring the "of the last thirty years" bit,
Henry Miller
Charles Bukowski
Vladimir Nabokov
Joseph Heller
Lethem writes science fiction on a fairly regular basis but he also writes straight fiction quite well.
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Speaking of which, I reckon/hope for Iain Banks to be well remembered, both for awesome pieces of non-genre fiction such as The Wasp Factory, The Bridge, The Crow Road, Complicity and Whit, as well as for awesome science fiction works such as Against a Dark Background, The Use of Weapons, Feersum Endjinn and The Algebraist.
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Mikhail Bulgakov.
Heart of a Dog, heck yes.
Also, I think Harlan Ellison will be more remembering for being an outspoken douche than his actual body of work. That's his own fault, though, because he's far louder than than his work is.
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Very true. I figured that to be such common knowledge as not to be worth mentioning, however. I mean, really, Ellison is a tiny, extremely bitter man. If I remember correctly, he had a fictional "about the Author" section in one of his books that described him spending jailtime for murdering his most outspoken critics. He went into considerable detail as to the methods used.
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With any luck, Dan Brown will be looked back on as an over-bearing, talentless nobody who doesn't understand the concept of subtlety. The Da Vinci code was the biggest piece of trash I've ever laid hands upon.
I'm sure J.K. Rowling will retain her place for quite some time, at least through Harry Potter, in the way that The Chronicles of Narnia have, for now, immortalized Lewis. Cormac McCarthy will be remembered, but likely only as a niche author, along with Thomas Pynchon. Speaking of Pynchon, "V" and "Gravity's Rainbow" will remain classic giants of literary genius in the same category as books like Les Miserables and War and Peace, not because their subject matter or writing style is in any way similar, but because only the most devoted of readers will take it upon themselves to wade through such a dense, deep, emotionally and mentally draining masterpiece.
I'm not sure about King. He could be looked back on and mocked, or he could be hailed as some kind of horror-genre hero.
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Astrid Lindgren is, and will hopefully remain, one of the most memorable writers of our time :)
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With any luck, Dan Brown will be looked back on as an over-bearing, talentless nobody who doesn't understand the concept of subtlety. The Da Vinci code was the biggest piece of trash I've ever laid hands upon.
Dan Brown will not be looked back on at all. In 20 years no one will even know his name.
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How about the people who wrote Go Ask Alice and Jay's Journal. Whoever actually wrote these should be praised as unintentional comedic genii/genius.
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Dan Brown will not be looked back on at all. In 20 years no one will even know his name.
I would have hoped the same about Danielle Steele. Look how that worked out.
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I don't know. Maybe if Dan Brown can consistantly write 3-5 books a year and target them at a very specific demographic...
Danielle Steele will probably get footnote mentions in history, but only for her prolific output and popularity. Maybe just to point out how popular culture has turned this era into one ruled by zombies.
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I would have hoped the same about Danielle Steele. Look how that worked out.
Well, I had to wikipedia her. I've never heard of any of her books. Probably confined to the US.
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Holy shit, who honestly has enough time to right that much?