help:What's the trend of the Western Literature now?

[Gibran]

Hello everyone,I'm working on a historical book of western literature these days, and will someone tell me what's the main trend of western literature nowadays?

Many thanks

[Union Jack]

Main current Trend of Western Literature= Entertainment.

[SleepyWitch]

where are you from Gibran?
is Western lit available in your country? i mean, are books easy to get etc?
if you are going to publish your book, maybe you should do some in-depth research so your readers can profit from your knowledge?

what kind of Western literature do you mean? American? British? French? Swedish????
i think there are many different trends in each country... but i'm not an expert

[Virgil]

Hello everyone,I'm working on a historical book of western literature these days,since I'm not a westerner myself,I know little about it.Could someone tell me what's the main trend of the western literature nowadays?

Many thanks
That is an awfully large question to answer. And I'm not sure any of us are qualified to answer it. It needs a bit of research and i'm sure you will find different and conflicting answers. It's hard to judge what a trend is until it's passed.

[subterranean]

Western as in Cowboy stuffs? Or, Western as in American/European literatures?

[Bastet]

Well, if you mean America and Europe mainly, I'd say in the past few years there has been a revival of pseudo-historical fiction, that is, books about the grail (Da Vinci Code) and everything related to secret societies. But the others are right, there's so much to account for both in lengh of time and in variety of books published...

[mono]

I think the preceding posts mostly tend to hint that a lot of Western literature these days revolves mostly around entertainment (such as The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams), imagination (as in fantasy and science-fiction - the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, for example), and controversial works (such as with ethics, religion, etc., like The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown or The Celestine Prophecy series by James Redfield). Of course, also, fitting under the category of entertainment may come many of the suspense, thriller, and mystery books that seem to newly appear monthly, by Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Grisham, and co.
This seems a very rough sketch of today's Western literature, for which, I admit, I cannot give too many compliments, but I see a lot of the emotion and art disappearing from the artistic works of literature. Virginia Woolf, Gustave Flaubert, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, D.H. Lawrence, Sylvia Plath - these seem people, among many in classical literature, who entirely poured out themselves in literature and literally explored themselves while writing an artpiece; needless to say, I have not encountered many contemporary writers (excluding poets) have that talent.

[Bastet]

I agree with you mono. I find very few authors have any artistic talent when writing. It seems like having a "catchy" subject matter is all that matters and that people are less and less interested in conveying ideas in an artistic way.

[Gawaine]

I believe todays directors in film are the authors of the past, though there are still many writers who are tremendously talented. Sometimes these great works are often not even considered of merit until some time later after they are published.

Film right now is telling some amazing stories from some truely talented authors - both the writers, directors, producers. This 'different way' is much less solitary and I think there are both advantages and disadvantages to the medium.

I would like to find some modern literature that was more exciting for me, but I can't say I've looked very much either.