Really because given that you wrote this in your original comment:Originally Posted by conartist
I don't see how it's obvious you weren't saying that.themes, philosophy, politics only matter once you've registered that the novel's really really good. Aesthetics and the depth of characterization are what really matter.
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I was saying that within the novel those things are considered after a connection with the characters and the artistry of the work has been made. "It's a novel that's really really good; themes, philosophy, politics only matter once you've registered that the novel's really really good." As in the novel in which these themes are being presented. As in the novel whose strength is being appraised. My statement simply meant that you look at other things first, in assessing a novel. It had nothing to do with the independent worth of ideas.
There is no classical novel written in the last 100 years. If still there is people who was alive when Proust, Woolf and Joyce where giving cards, then time is just not enough. It is possible that by the end of the next 2 centuries any of those 3 will be gone while Tolkien and Clarke are still read and people will laugh about our judgment which ignored the, in 200 years, obvious fact, they adapted the language to a pulp style, which was the obvious thrend since Dafoe, etc...
Clarke is not that bad (a genre author as he is), his density is much due his effort towards scientifism, but one or another short story is interesting (one about the millions name of god pops to my mind).
Anything is possible, but what you're saying is the equivalent of artists having forgotten Picasso and Matisse and instead studying and admiring stills from Family Guy... maybe not that ridiculous, but nearing the same order. It's like throwing away Fellini for Michael Bay.
Imagine someone mentioning that Anatole France would be less read or recalled than Saint-Exupery...
Probably any novel which has lived up to the test of times...
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You know, I agree with you Pensive. I think what when we use the term "classic", time (and all the cultural filtering that accompanies it) is what distinguishes a classic book from all the rest. I guess that this is why I'm fairly critical of modern writers being included in literary anthologies. . .there's a part of me that wonders this: "How do we really know that this writer is any good?" This of course, begs me to define "good". . .for that there's endless debate. But, for me, at least one criterion is that the writer appeals to (offers meaning to) more than a couple generations.
I mean, I was looking at an old cookbook the other day, and I saw a recipe for lamb heart with whipped pears and another one for (essentially) spinach pizza. Now why did pizza make it and and the lamb heart and whipped pears not make it to "classic" status?
“Oh crap”
-- Hellboy
There's a produce/meat store near me that has always has fresh lamb hearts, so somebody's buying them (though I live in between heavily Indian and heavily Korean neighborhoods; the store's closer to the former). They even had fresh lamb heads once.
Offhand I'd say that the pizza is less gross, and reality TV aside, people prefer less gross. That said, since I have access to lamb hearts, any chance of posting the recipe so my friends and I can demonstrate our manliness?
It occurs to me that a couple of different definitions of "classic" are at work here:
1) Popular -- It's a classic because lots of people still like it even when it's older than they are.
2) Heavy -- It's a classic even though hardly anyone actually likes it because it struck People of Thought as something Deep and Profound and thus must be inflicted on students forever that they may be Enlightened.
Classic = moral, ethical and political potency relevant to the human condition.
Whilst indulging myself into a cup of mud at a local diner, I happened to glance at a young couple sitting in a booth across from one another, glaring into their own laps. Upon further investigation I discovered they were not in mourning, but rather silently text messaging on their cell phones with exceptional dexterity and incredible speed.
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Good one, Oxyster. Clemens was surprisingly succint and on the nail almost all the time.
What a terrible definition of 'classic'.
Whose morals? Which society's and time periods' ethics?
Political potency? Whose? Yours?
So a book with terrible prose, poor characterization, technically deficient and so on can be a classic, if it's 'moral' and 'politically potent'?
Truth and beauty.
Today we have so many writers writing from different corners of the world and to find any piece of writing to be a classic is unconvincing. In the past there were a few writers and we could read and appreciate all of their works. Today we have many and we have many other things of entertainment.
What quality makes a novel classic is indeed a good question and that in turn may demand of budding writers something from readers' point of view. A novel must have a lot of philosophy and a little bit innovation to survive the taste of time or else they will lose their sheen in a decade and they become almost forgotten.
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