Top FIVE novels of the NEW Millenium

[LoveToFreeRead]

Here's my Top FIVE novels of the NEW Millenium:

“Never Let Me Go” Kazuo Ishiguro
“The Darling” Russell Banks
“The Plot Against America” Philip Roth
“Atonement” Ian McEwan
“Middlesex” Jeffrey Eugenides

What are yours?

[THX-1138]

I can only think of three

The Kite Runner
The curious incident of the dog at the night time
the da vinci code

[Stassia]

The Incident of the Dog at the Nigh Time is brilliant! I can't really name five best reads of the new millennium, sadly I'm not up to date on modern literature. Was Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle written in the period concerned? It is a good book!

[Nossa]

You guys have already mentioned two of them..lol
Never let me go and The Kite Runner...additionaly, I'd say Angels and Demons by Dan Brown!

[cuppajoe_9]

The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman

[Niamh]

The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman


:nod: Agreed.
Curious incident of the dog in the night time-Mark Haddon
Hellfire-Mia Gallagher (Best read of last year!)
The Boy in the striped Pyjamas-John Boyne

Hum...I need to think long and hard about the fifth one....

[Panflute]

Good question. I think I'll have to get back to this, later, because I honestly can't remember the last time I read a book which was written in this millenium. :p

[Scheherazade]

“Atonement” Ian McEwan
[/I]“Middlesex” Jeffrey Eugenides

What are yours?I have read the last two from your list and, while I agree with you that Middlesex is a very good book (would probably be one of my top 5 too), I was not very impressed with Atonement. I didn't like the writing or the storyline much.

I will agree with many above me who mentioned Curious Incident; it is a unique book.

I have also enjoyed The Hours by Michael Cunningham and The Shipping News by Annie Proulx a lot.

Having said that I am not sure what my final list would be... Right now I am wondering whether I read more 'classics' than 'modern' ones.

Books published only after 2000, eh?

Let me have a think! :)

[Nossa]

Having said that I am not sure what my final list would be... Right now I am wondering whether I read more 'classics' than 'modern' ones.

I agree. I think I myself read more classics than modern things..I wonder why, since some of the modern books are really good and worth reading!

[cuppajoe_9]

I agree. I think I myself read more classics than modern things..I wonder why, since some of the modern books are really good and worth reading!Probably because, statistically speaking, a good book is more likely to be 'classical' then 'modern', as 'modern' covers a few decades where 'classical' covers a few centruries.

How about non-fiction? Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale is human evolution told in narrative form in reverse order starting from modern humans and working back to the common ancestor to all life on earth. As he goes back, other 'Pilrgims' join the humans in the form of modern species with whom we share a common ancestor, starting with the chimpanzees, then the gorilllas, and so on. Each new pilgrim tells a tale, in the shape of a somewhat unrelated biological tidbit about itself. I realize that Dawkins is not the most popular character hereabouts, but you have to admit that he's hit upon a pretty darn clever way of outlining evolution, even if you don't believe a word of it.

[Stieg]

World War Z by Max Brooks (son of director Mel Brooks). He also authored The Zombie Survival Guide.

The journalistic stories are equally frightening, hilarious, courageous, heartfelt, and PLENTY insightful political jabs via survivor interviews conducted by Max himself. Best damn zombie novel I have ever read and we're talking George Romero -type fleshing eating living dead.

READ IT! RELISH IT!

[tudwell]

I can't think of five books (lately I've been reading older novels) but House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsky definitely belongs up there. Wonderful novel. Very original and breaks all sorts of boundaries regarding the physical form of a novel (e.g. how it's printed on the page) though the story could've been a little stronger.

[malwethien]

1. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
2. Middlesex
3. Atonement
4. Life of Pi

I can only think of 4 for now. I liked A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, but I don't know if it's in my Top 5.......

[papayahed]

World War Z by Max Brooks (son of director Mel Brooks). He also authored The Zombie Survival Guide.
READ IT! RELISH IT!

Seriously? I never realized. I loved Zombie Survival Guide. I think I forced the book club to read the Zombie Survival Guide for some such occasion...

[higley]

These are only based on what I've read so far:

1. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
2. Grendel - John Gardner
3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
4. The Lovely Bones, perhaps
5. collective Harry Potter novels since 2000 :F

Honorable mention: Lullaby by Palahniuk, The Rising Tide by Shaara

As for nonfiction:

The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
1776 - David McCullough
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
Team Of Rivals - Doris Kearns Goodwin
Flags of Our Fathers - James Bradley

[stlukesguild]

As a work of art becomes closer to us in time it is more difficult to objectively judge it in any way. Truly "new" works have yet to be digested by the culture (think of how shocking Picasso and Matisse once seemed). At the same time there are many works that may seem to be of little importance... ignored... or lying outside of the realm of serious discourse which will with time grow greatly in stature. Nevertheless... among the writers active post-2000 I would keep an eye upon:

Cormac McCarthy, who had two powerful novels post-2000, The Road and
No Country for Old Men... and some even more stellar earlier works.

The great Portuguese writer Jose Saramago penned The Cave, Seeing, and The Double and has many earlier novels that are almost certainly "classics".

Gunter Grass is another "old master" who has produced at least one great novel post-2000- Crabwalk

I would also recommend E.L. Doctorow's The March

Peter Ackroyd is a brilliant and prolific writer across multiple genre. His Clerkenwell Tales is certainly a fine novel but his London, The Biography and Albion:The Orgins of the English Imagination as well as Shakespeare: The Biography and Chaucer:Brief Lives prove his strength as a writer of non-fiction as well as a scholar.

In a similar manner Anne Carson proves herself capable of masterful writing in various genre... or rather masterful writing that blurs the various genre. Her poetry/essay/prose fiction/non-fictions such as Men in the Off Hours (2001) The Beauty of the Husband (2002) and Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera (2005) are certainly among the best works being produced today. At the same time one should not miss her "translations" (Carson is a classical scholar): Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides and If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

One should also keep an eye out upon Don DeLillo, Philip Roth (The Plot Against America, The Human Stain), poets John Ashbery (perhaps THE greatest living American poet), Charles Simic, and the great and challenging Geoffrey Hill. As for The DaVinci Code...

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/mona.gifhttp://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/mona2.gifhttp://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/mona3.gif
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[Mortis Anarchy]

As a work of art becomes closer to us in time it is more difficult to objectively judge it in any way. Truly "new" works have yet to be digested by the culture (think of how shocking Picasso and Matisse once seemed). At the same time there are many works that may seem to be of little importance... ignored... or lying outside of the realm of serious discourse which will with time grow greatly in stature. Nevertheless... among the writers active post-2000 I would keep an eye upon:

Cormac McCarthy, who had two powerful novels post-2000, The Road and
No Country for Old Men... and some even more stellar earlier works.

The great Portuguese writer Jose Saramago penned The Cave, Seeing, and The Double and has many earlier novels that are almost certainly "classics".

Gunter Grass is another "old master" who has produced at least one great novel post-2000- Crabwalk

I would also recommend E.L. Doctorow's The March

Peter Ackroyd is a brilliant and prolific writer across multiple genre. His Clerkenwell Tales is certainly a fine novel but his London, The Biography and Albion:The Orgins of the English Imagination as well as Shakespeare: The Biography and Chaucer:Brief Lives prove his strength as a writer of non-fiction as well as a scholar.

In a similar manner Anne Carson proves herself capable of masterful writing in various genre... or rather masterful writing that blurs the various genre. Her poetry/essay/prose fiction/non-fictions such as Men in the Off Hours (2001) The Beauty of the Husband (2002) and Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera (2005) are certainly among the best works being produced today. At the same time one should not miss her "translations" (Carson is a classical scholar): Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides and If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

One should also keep an eye out upon Don DeLillo, Philip Roth (The Plot Against America, The Human Stain), poets John Ashbery (perhaps THE greatest living American poet), Charles Simic, and the great and challenging Geoffrey Hill. As for The DaVinci Code...

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/mona.gifhttp://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/mona2.gifhttp://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/mona3.gif
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/mona4.gifhttp://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/mona5.gifhttp://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/Stlukesguild/mona6.gif

Hahaha!:D

[Behemoth]

Here's my top 5 - took some thinking as I haven't read anything "current" for quite a while:

The Kite Runner
A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian
The Historian
The Time Traveller's Wife
The Amber Spyglass

[thescholar]

What about the book thief by markus zusak? I found it to be a very moving portrayal of WWII germany.

[JBI]

I don't know if Asherby is the "greatest living American Poet". Personally I think he is over rated, and not as great as people say. Though, the mainstream U.S., that is the white-non-immigrant U.S., is drying up in terms of poetic brilliance. I personally put Rita Dove above Ashbery, simply because she feels less like Wallace Stevens, and more like Rita Dove.

I won't give a top 5, because quite frankly, 8 years isn't enough to come up with a top 5. Most of the great works aren't wide known, and I guarantee even less of them are translated.

I will however say that I think my favorite volume of short stories so far is Alice Munro's The View from Castle Rock. That perhaps is an idiosyncratic preference, but she seems excellent at what she does.

I think I'll need to wait another 5 years at least before jumping - as it is, 8 years is barely long enough for literary books to get printings in Canadian editions.

edit: just read up - you are right Stlukes, Carson is very interesting, though a pain in the *** to pin down, as you keep wondering "is this poetry, or prose" or "is this autobiographical, or what" or some other such complication. I believe Linda Hutcheon has written an essay critiquing her work, and I think I may perhaps track it down, as Hutcheon is quite the critic.

[Joreads]

What about the book thief by markus zusak? I found it to be a very moving portrayal of WWII germany.

This gets my Vote to. Once I started it I could not put it down

[stlukesguild]

JBI... I won't argue with you about Ashberry. My feelings with regard to him have always been somewhat ambivalent. I far prefer Geoffrey Hill, W.S. Merwin, Charles Wright, even Charles Simic. American poets may be drying up... a least in comparison to earlier eras... but then it seems that this may be a trend of Western literature in general (although admittedly I can offer no proof, relying on the limited translation of poetry). It seems we are living in an era where prose reigns supreme (for better or worse) and I wouldn't underestimate contemporary American contributions here: Gore Vidal, John Barth, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, E.L. Doctorow, and a number of others are formidable writers.

I continue to grow more and more impressed by Carson with each added work I have read. I shall certainly look into Hutcheon's critique, if at all possible.

[JBI]

Meh, in terms of post-modernism, The U.S. doesn't feel quite there. You guys seem unable to shake your modernist ties, to the point where post-modern works, if they can be called that, look like late-modernist works, with certain post-modern elements. The American "tradition" doesn't seem to be undercut at all.

I think the problem though, is American society is obsessed with itself as a strong united tradition, to the point where you guys still have debates on whether or not forms are better than free verse. Notice how, for instance, most of your poets now seem to categorize themselves by groups, or movements. Problematic to say the least.

[stlukesguild]

I would argue that American poetry may currently be far less interesting than the best American prose for the very reason you site... it seems far too indebted to current "schools". Inevitably "Modernism", "Late Modernism", "Post Modernism" etc... become meaningless labels. Pushing the envelop or following the latest stylistic trend is no guarantee of artistic merit. Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian owes more to Faulkner, Melville, and even Shakespeare than it does to any Post-Modern/Contemporary trends... but I can think of no novel produced in the last 30 years that has struck me as powerfully. In my own field I might point out that Lucian Freud may just be the single greatest living painter... in spite of the fact that he owes more to Rembrandt, Hals, and Velasquez than he does to the whole of Modernism. Of course we are speaking of contemporary art where judgments are always tricky business... still what would you offer to rival McCarthy, Roth, Barth, DeLillo at their finest? Saramago, perhaps. Garcia-Marquez and Carlos Fuentes. Gunter Grass.

[JBI]

No, McCarthy, in terms of Blood Meridian, I would think owes more to post-modern trends. The anti-western is very much post-modern. You get that a lot; he is undercutting a genre, which is a very post-modern thing to do.

Post-modernism doesn't mean anything in the states, but I would say, for Canada for instance, it means a lot more. Post-modernism art in the Canadian sense is art that declares itself art, but at the same time undercuts what traditional perceptions of art are.

You get that with Carson (is she a poet, or an essayist? are her essays verse or prose?) and with, for instance, Atwood, Kroetsch, Munro, Ondaatje (are his novels verse-novels or prose? Where is the distinction), Joy Kogawa, P. K. Page and others.

Whereas I would interpret modernism to be of the ideas of "make it new", post-modernism on the other hand is more like "destroy the old". It is more apparent though, I would think, outside of the States, since there the destroy the old isn't really going on. American art has hit a stuck point, where forces want to move forward, and forces want to stay put, and hold the rest back.



Even your immigrant writers seem to be trying to adapt to the tradition, which is sad.

[stlukesguild]

But seriously... how new is that take on Post-Modernism? It is essentially the core of J.L. Borges... but also Lawrence Sterne, Jonathan Swift, and even Cervantes. It is certainly present in Pynchon, Barth, Barthleme, Roth, Mailer, Gore Vidal, etc... In some ways it has seemed from my own experience that Post-Modernism was itself a rather exhausted direction... that irony and the clever undermining of genre was becoming rather tiring... but I would almost suggest that in our Post-Modern era we are in a transitional period not unlike Mannerism (especially in the visual arts)... attempting to come to terms with the very real innovations of Modernism just as the Mannerists struggled with the innovations of the Renaissance... but stuck spinning our wheels a bit waiting for some idea as to where to go next.

[JBI]

As for your last bit, personally I would say Salman Rushdie rivals any of the prose writers you mentioned, but he, like them, is an old-timer too, though the Satanic Verses seems to be more relevant today than ever. Those guys are all in the past generation - they aren't really 21st century writers, but end of the twentieth century novelists, but still, I must take up your challenge.

Of all those authors you named, not one is consistently good, besides perhaps Roth, who seems the best of the lot.

McCarthy seems to be Blood Meridian, with a few ok. Novels,
Delillo seems to be White Noise and more importantly Underworld,
I haven't read Barth (you mean John Barth) so I won't comment,
and as for Roth, well he is perhaps the best of them.

But the point is, a) most of these works are the past generation, as I have said, and b) for a country of 300+million people, that's rather sad output. Basically, the E.U., for instance, is at near 500 million people, and outputting far more than twice the gold, I would wager.

But that isn't the point.

Those are 5 odd writers, many of which should be retiring soon, and I would think all of which have past their excellence. There is no point naming names, I want to just point out that America isn't really the be all and end all of prose. It's rather dry in terms of literature.


In terms of your new generation of writers, I don't want to have to poke around, but I would assume it will be relatively quiet.

And here we come to 5 authors I think are better, just for kicks.

Umberto Eco
Salman Rushdie
Anne Carson
Chuine Achebe
Wilson Harris


But seriously... how new is that take on Post-Modernism? It is essentially the core of J.L. Borges... but also Lawrence Sterne, Jonathan Swift, and even Cervantes. It is certainly present in Pynchon, Barth, Barthleme, Roth, Mailer, Gore Vidal, etc... In some ways it has seemed from my own experience that Post-Modernism was itself a rather exhausted direction... that irony and the clever undermining of genre was becoming rather tiring... but I would almost suggest that in our Post-Modern era we are in a transitional period not unlike Mannerism (especially in the visual arts)... attempting to come to terms with the very real innovations of Modernism just as the Mannerists struggled with the innovations of the Renaissance... but stuck spinning our wheels a bit waiting for some idea as to where to go next.

I'm on the other side - up here we've never seen a better movement. Finally people are stopping to buy your books for a while, and are reading ours. Seriously, you should try it - try reading, for instance, In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje. That's good post-modernism. Post-modernism isn't just "what is now." I think it is far more shaped - the only problem is it is shaped negatively, rather than positively, so we can more easily say what it "is" rather than it isn't. We can't really pick out trends.

[Petya]

I've read only a handful of new books, mainly keep to the classics for now but of all the ones I have read Middlesex would have to be up there.

[Kevets]

I am delighted to see so many Amber Spyglasses. Pullman's trilogy is one of my absolute favorites.

In addition to those mentioned, I loved:

Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Bluesman by Andre Dubus III

and non fiction:
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

[PabloQ]

These are only based on what I've read so far:

1. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
2. Grendel - John Gardner
3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
4. The Lovely Bones, perhaps
5. collective Harry Potter novels since 2000 :F

Honorable mention: Lullaby by Palahniuk, The Rising Tide by Shaara

As for nonfiction:

The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
1776 - David McCullough
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
Team Of Rivals - Doris Kearns Goodwin
Flags of Our Fathers - James Bradley

Grendel doesn't qualify under the time period. It's at least 30 years old.

[Bookworm89]

1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
2. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
3. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
4. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

[stlukesguild]

As for your last bit, personally I would say Salman Rushdie rivals any of the prose writers you mentioned, but he, like them, is an old-timer too, though the Satanic Verses seems to be more relevant today than ever.

Perhaps... but I would say that in some ways Blood Meridian is even more relevant. As I stated earlier I don't question that there are any number of other non-American writers who rival the best Americans (Gunter Grass, Jose Saramago, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, Milan Kundera, Haruki Murakami, etc...). I'm not suggesting American prose leads the pack... certainly not to the point of its reputation considering publishing and promotion. On the other hand... I don't see any other nation clearly taking the lead.

Those guys are all in the past generation - they aren't really 21st century writers, but end of the twentieth century novelists, but still, I must take up your challenge.

The same would be true of most of the non-American writers that I would include among the strongest contemporary writers: Saramago, Marquez, Kundera, Eco, Murakami, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, etc... are all getting up in years. Of course it seems somewhat difficult to imagine proclaiming someone as the next great writer based upon one... or a few books. I would be hard pressed to name any 30 or even 40-year old writer as the "next great thing". Even in the field of the visual arts... and more specifically painting... where I am even more aware of the best of what is happening among contemporaries, I would be more than reluctant to include any artist under 50... if not 60 or more... among the "greatest living painters".

Of all those authors you named, not one is consistently good, besides perhaps Roth, who seems the best of the lot.

Perhaps... but is that a standard measure of artist merit among many novelists? Flaubert, Melville, Hawthorne, and endless others are largely known for a single brilliant book. Gunter Grass never surpassed The Tin Drum. I would even argue that Faulkner never surpassed As I Lay Dying.

McCarthy seems to be Blood Meridian, with a few ok. Novels...

And Blood Meridian is not merely good, but absolutely brilliant... and brilliantly harrowing, IMO. I would also argue that Child of God is extremely powerful, and the Border Trilogy is pretty damn good.

Delillo seems to be White Noise and more importantly Underworld

Yes.

I haven't read Barth (you mean John Barth) so I won't comment...

I found the Sot-Weed Factor and Giles, Goat-Boy to be quite strong.

and as for Roth, well he is perhaps the best of them.

Perhaps... or at least the most consistent... or the most prolific is terms of very strong work.

But the point is, a) most of these works are the past generation, as I have said, and b) for a country of 300+million people, that's rather sad output.

But is it? How many novels of equal merit can we claim in looking at perhaps the peak years of American Modernism? The reality is that the strongest writers of any given era are always small in number.

Basically, the E.U., for instance, is at near 500 million people, and outputting far more than twice the gold, I would wager.

But that isn't the point.

Those are 5 odd writers, many of which should be retiring soon, and I would think all of which have past their excellence. There is no point naming names, I want to just point out that America isn't really the be all and end all of prose. It's rather dry in terms of literature.

Again... I don't disagree with you. But again I still ask you where you imagine the next influx of brilliant novelists is coming from?:confused:

[JBI]

Well, prose is about 10x harder to pin down than poetry, especially for me, as I am far more versed in poetry, than prose, but I'll wager some guesses.

First of all, India will continue to produce, as it already is, and will soon take over the foreign literature shelves everywhere. It is only a matter of time until their books are translated into English, or published outside of India, and take over. The prose tradition is clearly building up, and I think it is here to stay. They seem to have what to say, and the means of saying it.

I would expect a giant literary output also from the Middle East, though how much will be in prose I cannot say. In terms of poetry, a storm is already building, but prose seems to be going slower from my view, perhaps because of cultural reasons.

I don't know what is going on exactly in China right now - very few works seem to make it onto English shelves. But I wouldn't be surprised if something major is going on there.

The West Indies, and the Caribbean in general will continue to pour great works out, but how much in prose is again hard to say.

I wouldn't want to stop without somewhat a case for Canada, since it is perhaps the area of which I am most familiar. French Canada is just starting up, from what I know, into a radical take on prose, as they seem to have gone abruptly from realism, the traditional Quebec mode from my understanding, to radical post-modernism. Still, Quebec readers tend to prefer non-fiction, so what will happen there is hard to say.

As for English Canada, Toronto seems to be the scene, as Montreal was for the modernist movement. I can think of a few enduring names writing now, for instance, I think George Elliott Clarke's Whylah Falls will be here for a while, amongst others. But who knows - the movement in itself seems to have started late 80s - early 90s, and to have reached an unprecedented height in Can lit at that point, but who knows. We do, however, get the most immigrant voices in, especially to Toronto, so it should be interesting to see.

I am also interested to see what comes out of the x-Eastern Bloc countries, well perhaps not Russia. I think, perhaps in Romania, the countries that made up the former Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czech Rep., Slovakia, and others. But who knows.

[Etienne]

"Flaubert, Melville, Hawthorne, and endless others are largely known for a single brilliant book."

Oh! That take on Flaubert is absolutely wrong, and I'd tend to disagree for the others as well, if I had read them (sigh). Of course Madame Bovary is his best known work, but that's like saying that Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet are Shakespeare best known works. Would you say that Shakespeare is a man of two plays?

[Guinivere]

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The End of Mr Y - Scarlett Thomas
Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
The Piano Tuner - Daniel Mason

[hoope]

how come no one added TWILIGHT SAGA.. all the collections for Stephanie Meyer

The kite Runner for khaled hosseini
Heaven Eyes for David Almond

[TheFifthElement]

Well, maybe I'm unusual but I read a lot of modern fiction. I don't quite understand why modern seems to be synonymous with rubbish, as there's a lot of excellent writers out there. Personal faves are:

Oryx & Crake - Margaret Atwood
If nobody speaks of remarkable things - Jon Mcgregor
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

But this is, of course, not to mention all the other excellent authors out there like Ian McEwan, Douglas Coupland, Don DeLillo, Paul Auster, Markus Zuzak, Louis de Bernieres, R J Ellory, Salley Vickers (oh, well if my top 5 could have more than 5 Mr Golightly's Holiday would be in there too), Haruki Murakami, Banana Yashimoto, Brett Easton Ellis. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

[Guinivere]

I forgot The Time Traveller's Wife. I loved that book. One of the most original love stories I've read. :):)

[Jozanny]

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

My group, Disability In Arts, did a reading of this Haddon work without me, as my chair was down at the time, so I could not borrow it from the library to join in. A frustrating instance of knowing why a book made its mark only by virtue of reputation. The autistic children I worked with at UCPA were not of the Rain Man variety-- so if I ever do get my hands on a copy, the realism of this curious detective is something I'd be keen to assess.

[Guinivere]

Nick Hornby critized The curious incident of the dog at nightime as well for exactly those reasons. The little fella in the book notices things about his parents an autistic child couldn't. Empathy is hard and near impossible for children so aflicted. And as the child tries to solve a murder mystery that would mean intuition and empathy. Hornby knows something about having an autistic child - his son is.

[TheFifthElement]

Nick Hornby critized The curious incident of the dog at nightime as well for exactly those reasons. The little fella in the book notices things about his parents an autistic child couldn't. Empathy is hard and near impossible for children so aflicted. And as the child tries to solve a murder mystery that would mean intuition and empathy. Hornby knows something about having an autistic child - his son is.

This may just be a misunderstanding. The book is about a boy with Asperger's syndrome which is a specific form of autism. Here's some information about Asperger's and social interaction:


where they may be able to show a theoretical understanding of other people’s emotions; they typically have difficulty acting on this knowledge in fluid, real-life situations, however, people with AS may analyze and distill their observation of social interaction into rigid behavioral guidelines and apply these rules in awkward ways—such as forced eye contact—resulting in demeanor that appears rigid or socially naive.

which is consistent with the character in the book. Haddon did work with children with disabilities, including autistic/aspergers children, in his early career.

I have no personal experience of autism or Asperger's so I can't say whether the book is consistent with directly observed behaviour, but from what I've read he's stayed quite close to the mark. I'd be interested to hear Jozanny's views though, if she ever gets to read it :)

[JBI]

Who knows - I criticize the book for another reason - it simply didn't seem to me to be an enjoyable read, and merely one long, boring, run-on sentence.

[mortalterror]

With respect to what JBI is saying about Canada being on the rise and the United States being on the wane, I'd like to make a few tentative observations if I may. In regards to French Canadian literature, the entire talent pool draws upon a population of some six million people. That's a geographically diverse group with a combined population roughly the size of my home state of Washington. As for Canada itself with a peak population of just over thirty million, I feel it only fit to remind everybody that California is a state of thirty-seven million souls entire. Since the U.S. census bureau currently places the combined population of our fifty states at a little over three hundred million, ten times the population of our cousins to the north, I think it's safe to say that Canada has never and will never be a serious cultural rival. They just don't have the manpower for it. I concur with his estimate of the middle east and Asia, with the caveat that whereas we are on an equal footing with Canada in terms of literacy, economics, education, and life expectancy there is actually a disparity in our favor vis a vis the developing world which accounts for any disparity in literary representation on the world stage.

If he wants to compare relative cultural outputs of English speaking countries in the modern era he might better compare Canada's current crop of writers to America's in the 1860s or England's in 1900, when they each had a comparable population level. In America we had Melville, Hawthorne, Whitman, Twain, Dickinson, Longfellow, Emerson, Thoreau, Stowe, etc. In England they had Kipling, Conrad, Hardy, Maugham, Butler, Doyle, Swinburne, Dowson and others. In contemporary times, I think they are really better off comparing themselves to Australia, another large landmass sparsely populated with English speaking people.

[Etienne]

will never be a serious cultural rival.

What a strange notion... cultural rivalry...

[JBI]

Actually Mortal, sorry to say, but life expectancy, education, and other things show Canada to be higher. In terms of general UN HDI, we are way above you. But I doubt that is a contributing factor in itself, only slightly so.

I wouldn't, of course, judge country verses country, in more of a fair way. So I would say, well, the States has 10x the population, therefore they should have 10x as many great writers, if they were having the same output, and then I would come to the conclusion, if it were true, that since they don't, they are lagging behind in the race.

I would never assume a country could be "equal" in that sense, especially not today, when post-modernism has taken over.

I think of it more in terms of relative to the population, and in terms of the tradition.

So we say, for instance, French Canada has been quiet in prose for a while, so if they have a dumping of it now, we would say they are in a boom, whereas the States dominated the modern movement, and I would say the first half of the twentieth century, when it comes to English literature. By that notion, I would say now they are somewhat reduced, and quieting. There will always be writers as long as their is money in writing (something which, for the most part didn't exist in Canada until after the second world war, in terms of prose), and especially if there is money in writing literary works.

Though if I were to be a little more cynical, I would say that the reason why Canada may not rival the States, in the sense that I mean, is simply because you guys fill our shelves with your publications. Outside of romance novels, you guys seem to own too many publishers, and not to really buy our books. So we get yours, and you don't take ours, and the market gets swarmed.

That being said though, Canadians do read more than Americans. Of course, Americans seem to only read American books, whereas Canadians seem to read mostly American books, which is a problem.

It won't matter though, I think. Can Lit, as an area of study is opening up around the world, in numerous countries. Once an area of study is established, things become more profitable. It's only a matter of time - I know, for instance, French readers aren't afraid to read Quebec authors, so that could perhaps balance things. Either way though, 6million is a big enough population for prose. A giant best seller of a literary novel is only like 50,000 copies anyway.


What a strange notion... cultural rivalry...

I would say it isn't so strange, given that too many countries have distinct traditions, yet write in the same language. It poses a problem when one country, for instance, only buys theirs, yet hammers home with their superiority to the other countries

Not saying American literature is bad, but in terms of a post-colonial viewpoint, they have done enough to quiet other countries by the sheer power of their market force. Though, I think American mentality in general is ethnocentric in defining art. American academics seem to be doing that, anyway.

In the sense that American Highschools teach the American tradition, and "American literature" and if a minority voice is thrown in, it is an American minority, and not a world-minority voice.

Look at the number of Americans on Bloom's Western Canon. That has got to show something. Even a critic who claims to not care about "politics" or the authors background seems to put a lot of weight on the American tradition over every single other one. How is Olson on the list, for instance, and not Earle Birney, or Hollander on the list, and not P.K. Page.

[Etienne]

Well rivalry implies the notion of a fight, of authors writing for their "national team" to beat the other or something like that? I think this is a ridiculous notion.


Look at the number of Americans on Bloom's Western Canon.

Well I don't see this in being pat of some kind of rivalry. Perhaps English critics should take offense and write in answer a Cannon that is more centered on England?

I think the canon is ridiculous, as much as the so-called rivalry notion, but maybe we could excuse him and say that it's only the title that is ridiculous.


Look at the number of Americans on Bloom's Western Canon.

I do not question the relevance of the notion of national literatures, it's the existence of some kind of rivalry (outside some people's mind, at least) that I question.

[JBI]

It isn't exactly the authors, though American authors are typically American in audience objective, and often jingoistic in focus, but more of an economic war of trying to control every market.

Also, I see where you are going Etienne, but Cannon, as in a weapon, is spelled differently :p.

The problem is simply that the U.S. is a) rich, b) has a giant population, and c) radically patriotic, and doesn't seem to care about the rest of the world, unless seen in "American terms". This isn't ripping on all Americans, just simply stating the hegemonic viewpoint the country in general takes.

[Etienne]

The problem is simply that the U.S. is a) rich, b) has a giant population, and c) radically patriotic, and doesn't seem to care about the rest of the world, unless seen in "American terms". This isn't ripping on all Americans, just simply stating the hegamonious viewpoint the country in general takes.

Yes, I do agree with that, it's not new, the Nobel prize committee as said as much. Only I think it is beside the point of national rivalry, at least from a literary perspective. The rivalry you mention is economic or nationalistic, but not literary (note that by this I mean the artistic sense of the word).

There can be no rivalry if there is not some kind of competition. Is literature a form of competition? Not in my mind at least...

EDIT: By the way, it's spelled "hegemonic", du tac au tac ;)

[JBI]

EDIT: By the way, it's spelled "hegemonic", du tac au tac ;)

Too true, too true. (holds head in shame) :(

[mortalterror]

Actually Mortal, sorry to say, but life expectancy, education, and other things show Canada to be higher. In terms of general UN HDI, we are way above you. But I doubt that is a contributing factor in itself, only slightly so.

I wouldn't, of course, judge country verses country, in more of a fair way. So I would say, well, the States has 10x the population, therefore they should have 10x as many great writers, if they were having the same output, and then I would come to the conclusion, if it were true, that since they don't, they are lagging behind in the race.

According to the UN HDI Canada is number 4 in the world with a .961 score and we are number 12 with .951. The difference is negligible and would probably vanish if we did not include certain poverty prone sectors in the U.S. which tend to weigh us down in these sorts of measurements. We both have a marked advantage over people in the .3-.5 range which I think clearly translates onto the literary scene making us each more competitive. Your average Canadian lives to be 80 and your average American lives to be 78. We both have massive advantages on countries like Mozambique where life expectancy is about 40. Faced with these raw numbers your claim to superiority is little more than a quibble. You are hardly "way above" us in anything.

Notice I didn't say that since we have 10 times your population we have ten times the literature. Canada is a lot better at publicly funding the arts and that greatly diminishes our natural advantages. I'd say we probably only have 2-5 times as much good literature as a consequence, although I'm not an expert on the contemporary literary scene. The Canadian advantage in public funding is largely mitigated, as you say, by the fact that America has more publishing houses and a better commercial locale where artists can make a living off of their work.

I don't know where you get the idea that Canadians are better read than Americans. I'd like to see your data or what study you take that from. My personal experience has been that we are roughly equal in nearly all things so the determining factor should be population. We are so much alike that Canada is often referred to on this side of the border as the fifty-first state.

You do seem to have some sort of regional inferiority complex that makes you hyperbolize the merits of your local culture, fairly twisting yourself in knots trying to prove Canada is the greatest. It's like those guys I sometimes see in stadiums with the big foam fingers chanting "USA! USA!" Such quaint devotions to local franchises are the relic of bronze age tribalism and have no place in serious modern analysis. Not only that, but your otherwise sound criticisms show a marked bias in favor of post modernism. Therefore, since it's your favorite genre you discount the efforts of any number of writers currently working in other fields who have no interest in your personal hobby horse and bugaboos. You come from a background with strengths in the postmodern movement and then you make that your criterion for excellent writing standards, defining the argument in such a way that it's impossible for you to lose it.

[Guinivere]

This may just be a misunderstanding. The book is about a boy with Asperger's syndrome which is a specific form of autism.:)

No misunderstanding. Hornby placed Asperger's Syndrome firmly in the autistic spectrum. See The complete polysyllabic spree, page 64, penguin edition, 2007. But anyway he's no expert. He does however talk from experience too. And whether he's right in this particular case is another matter. But I do believe people tend to get the wrong idea about autistic children. Not all of them are rain man characters.

[JBI]

http://www.pch.gc.ca/progs/ac-ca/progs/padie-bpidp/reports/rapport-report_2007/4_e.cfm


There is conflicting evidence about Canadians' commitment to reading Canadian authors. For example:

* The PCH study found that 71% of Canadians are interested in reading Canadian authors, and 72% had done so (48% within the 12 months leading up to the survey).
* The CPC study found that more English-speaking Canadians disagreed (64%) than agreed (37%) that “it is important to read books by Canadian authors.”
* The CPC study found that an author's being Canadian was ranked very low as a purchase driver for books, and the PCH study estimated that despite its respondents' high claims of interest in Canadian books, Canadian authors made up only 12% of all books read in 2005 (down slightly from 17% in 1991).

However, whether or not they consciously seek them out, Canadians are buying Canadian books in significant quantities. Statistics Canada data reports that 2004 sales of Canadian-authored books (including both trade and educational titles) exceeded $750 million.



Despite many market similarities, Canada and the US appear to be following different trend curves at the moment regarding reading. For example, looking at the 2005 PCH study and the American Census Bureau's 2002 Reading at Risk study:

* Canadians' reading rate remained virtually constant over the past two decades, while Americans' declined.
* Where 87% of Canadians read a book in a 12-month time frame, 57% of Americans had.
* Where 79% of Canadians read literary materials in a 12-month time frame, 47% of Americans had.
* Where one-half of Canadians read virtually every day, almost half of Americans read an average of less than one book per year.


That's from a government of Canada website, which I just found now. I had read other data tables elsewhere.

As for proving Canada is the greatest, I wouldn't try - it's too difficult, and too pointless. As to the notion of working my self out of an inferiority complex, well, one only needs to read the history of Canadian literature to understand that. From its origins until the 70s, and even somewhat today Canada has suffered an inferiority complex, so trying to shake it doesn't seem to impossible. I simply want to refute that the notion of the U.S. as the literary power of the world, and my own learning is centered in Canadian literature, so that seems the easiest comparison for me to make.

[mortalterror]

From a cursory glance at your statistics it looks like the two studies operational methodology for gathering data may differ on a few points, thus negating their usefulness in comparison. For instance, I see that one is a cultural study and the other bears the unfortunate title "Reading at Risk." But lets not get bogged down debating a positive or negative bias inherent in the works. We can't know whether the crafters of the studies set out to prove or disprove anything, or what their agendas might have been. That said, I think that the website you linked to is reasonably upfront about their possible sources of error when they said:

"Reading is arguably a habit that connotes thoughtfulness, education, and even high-mindedness, and study respondents may be reluctant to admit a slipping reading habit.

In other words, many reading studies will overstate reading behaviours, simply because they rely on respondents' subjective estimations of an activity that is often laden with values."

I think that the studies indicate as much about cultural biases toward literacy, as they do about actual market trends. It's sort of like if I asked people on the street if they patronized prostitutes or cheated on their wives. I'm sure I'd get a different answer from what was factually evident from police arrest records, or public health statistics. I think the data clearly shows that Canadians have a more positive view of literacy, but whether they actually read more is still up for debate. Then you have to consider the competing market forces, and that a decline in book reading may not be the same as a decline in literacy. There may be a sharp increase in magazine and newspaper reading, which is not indicated by the sparse coverage of American culture cited here. But I see that they took such trends into account when discussing how Canadian habits are changing.

I know you are fond of saying that Canadians will read American books but Americans don't read Canadians but I think that the data you yourself presented shows that people read whatever is put in front of them. Canadian books account for about ten percent of the market in Canada and so Canadians read Canadian books at about that rate. Meanwhile, I wouldn't be surprised if American's read Canadian books at roughly the same level they are exposed to them. Seeing as how Canadians are a country of 30 million people and there are roughly 1.8 billion English speaking people on the planet that makes them a minority of about 2%, and I believe that Americans read at least that much Canadian literature. It's proportional to market share and well within standards. If you are talking English as a first language Canadians are still only 5% of the market. Why should they be read in larger proportions than say England, Ireland, or Australia?

As far as I can tell, Americans have never had hegemony in the arts except perhaps in North America. Europe has a similar standard of living, a two thousand year head start, subsidizes their literature, and has us beat population wise two to one. But I don't see any apparent decline in our powers since the early twentieth century. We don't have as many big writers but the skill level of your average writer has probably improved. It has a way of evening out like professional baseball. We don't see as many Babe Ruths, Hank Aarons, or Ty Cobbs shattering records because the level of play has generally improved. It takes more to stand out from the crowd now.

However, I don't think that the number of people practicing postmodernism in this country is any indication about the quality of our work. Postmodernism was a fad, a gimmick, a genre, a sideshow, a sham of a sham, and never a very popular one. I don't take it seriously as an artistic movement. You say it's on the rise in Canada. I think I might have found the reason people don't read Canadian literature. But for you to say that quirk of taste is what makes your literature better than ours is ridiculous. You define good literature as experimental postmodernist gobbledygook because that's just the kind of literature you yourself enjoy and have training in. Confining your parameters that way you will find whatever you want to find because you limit your options by your own personal experience. It's the same as how you and StLuke like to define art as elitist because you define yourselves as elitists, and your views are ultimately self-serving.

[JBI]

The over 12% of reading of Canadian fiction doesn't suggest 88% American fiction, but rather a wider world view, I would think. And note, this is also a study containing all forms of books, not just fiction, which is what we really seem to be talking about. Self-help books, cook books, non-fiction of all sorts is there.

But that being said, in terms of constructs of taste, we can say your refusal of post-modernism is a personal bias just as easily, and say you don't like post-modern literature because of your own aesthetic taste.

Then we can go further, we can say all literature comes down to is personal tastes, and there really are no "top five" books of the new millennium, and only the top five "most popular" books. What comes out of that though? Dan Brown goes up there, beside Rowling, and the other best-selling writers of the past 8 years.

If you want to make such assumptions, and equate post-modernism as a cheap gimmick (one which we are still in, by the way), then we can assume you are just a social construction as well. You do not like post-modernism because of YOUR biases, and your inability to accept it is based on YOUR elitism. Why should you deconstruct my tastes without me doing the same?

Honestly though, there is quite simply a way to solve this. For every 10 novels you have read of American literature, name 1 that you have read out of Canadian literature. Good luck. If Canadians only read 12% Canadian fiction, I doubt the general population of the U.S. gets over the 5% mark.


And as for the other countries - who said one shouldn't read their literatures? Irish, British, Australian, Indian - English, Caribbean, South African, and any other culture deserves to have the literature which is of interest to people outside their country read. I see no problems there. Like I said, my experience is just with Canadian literature, because a) it is what I study, and b) it is far more readily available for an affordable price than contemporary literature of other countries are here, with the exception of literature from the United States, and British literature (as Shakespeare is still in every store, on its own wall).

Also, I am curious as to how you define post-modernism. I basically equate it with breaking away from the tradition of the past, and cutting it up - but you seem to see it as a construct of itself. That though, isn't the point. I merely used the term to describe a sense of conservatism in American literature and poetry, which is corseting the artistic out-put of your country as I see it.

[stlukesguild]

The problem is simply that the U.S. is a) rich, b) has a giant population, and c) radically patriotic, and doesn't seem to care about the rest of the world, unless seen in "American terms".

My first inclination is to ask why these are "problems"... at least in terms of art. Certainly I and many other Americans are more than concerned about our nation's xenophobia. But again... how do these add up to negative influences upon art. The Renaissance was born of the wealthiest nations/city states in Europe. The "dominance" of French and British culture owes much to the continued wealth and power of these two nations. Japanese culture flourished in one of the most closed societies. I doubt that America today is any more chauvinistic than France and England during the preceding number of centuries... and yet they were able to produce some of the greatest literature and art of Europe... indeed one might suggest a number far exceeding what one might expect if looking only at population. Of course the reality is that art is not democratic or egalitarian. By population alone Russia should far exceed Italy in terms of the production of great artists... but they don't. Japan shouldn't begin to rival China in terms of visual art... let alone surpass them... but they quite arguably do. I agree that by all rites China and India and the Middle-East should present some formidable achievements in the arts in the near future... but that is but an educated guess at best.

[stlukesguild]

we can say all literature comes down to is personal tastes, and there really are no "top five" books of the new millennium...

If you want to make such assumptions, and equate post-modernism as a cheap gimmick (one which we are still in, by the way), then we can assume you are just a social construction as well. You do not like post-modernism because of YOUR biases, and your inability to accept it is based on YOUR elitism. Why should you deconstruct my tastes without me doing the same?

Although you are directing these comments to MortalTerror, I will suggest that I personally have never underestimated Post-Modernism. On the other hand... I must note that it was the literary strategy of choice some 15+ years ago when I was undergoing my own formal literary studies: Donald Barthleme, Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, Thomas Pynchon, J.L. Borges, Tomasso Landolfi, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Julio Cortazar, Alejo Carpentier, John Barth, etc...

Also, I am curious as to how you define post-modernism. I basically equate it with breaking away from the tradition of the past, and cutting it up - but you seem to see it as a construct of itself. That though, isn't the point. I merely used the term to describe a sense of conservatism in American literature and poetry, which is corseting the artistic out-put of your country as I see it.

I'm somewhat reluctant to define a term as broad... amorphous... and evolving as Post-Modernism. Even a far more defined movement such a Modernism or Impressionism is open to interpretation when one considers the individual efforts of individual artists. Neither would I be quick to dismiss everything that you... or critical champions of Post-Modernism imagine as "conservative". In spite of all the rhetoric to the contrary time has shown that many conservative artists dismissed by the avant-garde show themselves to have been equal... if not better... than many of the artists of the moment. I might also point out that is somewhat comic that Post-Modernists cling to the very notion of innovation and the avant-garde... in spite of the fact that these were actually central tenets of Modernism.:D

[JBI]

The problem is simply that the U.S. is a) rich, b) has a giant population, and c) radically patriotic, and doesn't seem to care about the rest of the world, unless seen in "American terms".

My first inclination is to ask why these are "problems"... at least in terms of art. Certainly I and many other Americans are more than concerned about our nation's xenophobia. But again... how do these add up to negative influences upon art. The Renaissance was born of the wealthiest nations/city states in Europe. The "dominance" of French and British culture owes much to the continued wealth and power of these two nations. Japanese culture flourished in one of the most closed societies. I doubt that America today is any more chauvinistic than France and England during the preceding number of centuries... and yet they were able to produce some of the greatest literature and art of Europe... indeed one might suggest a number far exceeding what one might expect if looking only at population. Of course the reality is that art is not democratic or egalitarian. By population alone Russia should far exceed Italy in terms of the production of great artists... but they don't. Japan shouldn't begin to rival China in terms of visual art... let alone surpass them... but they quite arguably do. I agree that by all rites China and India and the Middle-East should present some formidable achievements in the arts in the near future... but that is but an educated guess at best.

You forgot though, in the Renaissance, there was a "rediscovery" of classical texts, which acted as a cultural force, giving an enormous boost. Classical reverence was rooted to the core of Renaissance doctrine, from Petrarch through Milton.

But even so, literature is good when it is fresh/new and newness comes from a collision of influences, and newness in terms of infrastructure. If one only accepts one mode, you end up getting writing in the same mode, and art in the same mode, and only in that mode.

Social change seems to be the most important factor, being that it destroys the old all together. Great art, in terms of large amounts at one time, in all the examples I can think of, always rides the wake of major social, economic, and political change.

If one shuts out the rest of the world, generally the literature seems to collapse on itself - it needs variation in order to stay fresh.

[stlukesguild]

literature is good when it is fresh/new and newness comes from a collision of influences, and newness in terms of infrastructure. If one only accepts one mode, you end up getting writing in the same mode, and art in the same mode, and only in that mode.

I largely agree... but at the same time the native tradition... or the individual artists must be strong enough to transform the outside influences into something unique... and not merely a poor version of the exterior influences. If we look at Japanese art, for example, we find that they were able to transform the various innovations of Chinese art into something uniquely Japanese. They were not able to do this, however, when they were first exposed to Western art. A large majority of Japanese art from the late 19th through the mid-20th centuries is derivative... and but a poor copy of Western art. Western artists such as Matisse, Van Gogh, Degas, etc... however, were able to build upon Japanese influences without ever abandoning their own traditions. As a result the outside influences are there... but they have been successfully transformed into something new.

Social change seems to be the most important factor, being that it destroys the old all together. Great art, in terms of large amounts at one time, in all the examples I can think of, always rides the wake of major social, economic, and political change.

Agreed... but do we desire a jarring shake-up... a larger war, another Great Depression... merely to shake us out of our current complacency? Surely you have admitted there are better and worse eras in art (no fan of the 18th century... which is actually somewhat intriguing, considering the links between writers such as Sterne and Swift and Post-Modernism). I am largely of the opinion that Modernism was one of the most towering eras in the history of art... rivaled only by the Renaissance. In no way is the art of today... at least from what I have experienced... on the same level. Yes, there are still some great artists... but as a whole it seems as if we are spinning our wheels... still trying to come to terms with Modernism and where to go next.

If one shuts out the rest of the world, generally the literature seems to collapse on itself - it needs variation in order to stay fresh.

Eventually this would seem to be true- stagnation. But there are exceptions. I would also ask how we decide which outside influence we should build upon... and how much change is enough.

[JBI]

It doesn't need to be a negative change - the Renaissance was positive after all, and modernism, in the American sense, I would think comes from a sort of national coming of age. The wars seemed to have just got mixed in, and in American terms, reinforced the coming of age, by marking the beginning of the end of British dominance.

I don't want to touch on contemporary affairs and news, but what the future holds in store seems very oblique as of now. I am just guessing at what will come, based on the way I see things. But stagnation may be possible, it seems like that to me right now anyway.

In terms of influence, I would take Faulkner's advice:
Read, read, read. Read everything— trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window.

I think the biggest untapped well is definitely Eastern, with the exception perhaps of Japanese, art (since Japan seems to have been absorbed to some extent already). Those countries have strong traditions, many of them older than the western one, and I think it is only a matter of time before those traditions collide with the Western traditional focus, to create something brilliant.

[Jozanny]

As for proving Canada is the greatest, I wouldn't try - it's too difficult, and too pointless. As to the notion of working my self out of an inferiority complex, well, one only needs to read the history of Canadian literature to understand that. From its origins until the 70s, and even somewhat today Canada has suffered an inferiority complex, so trying to shake it doesn't seem to impossible. I simply want to refute that the notion of the U.S. as the literary power of the world, and my own learning is centered in Canadian literature, so that seems the easiest comparison for me to make.

But your argument does have a chip on the shoulder quality to it JBI, which makes the American intelligentsia roll its eyes. Canada never formed the sense of national identity that the USA had, never technically broke with the English monarchy or developed the *manifest destiny* mantra that forged the US into a growing regional power, and then, after WW2, a global one, and this carried over into the late 20th century. When I was still young, in my flirtation with Beat movement nostalgia, the editor who published me lived in Montreal, but he was an American native to my city who had been an anti-war protestor. How does an observer get a sense of Canadian character out of that? It is a character which assimilates well into the USA media and entertainment industry (Peter Jennings, Alex Trebek), but I can't say anything about it, not as I could about the national character of China, or India, and so on. How is Margaret Atwood a particularly Canadian author in her thematic approaches? I don't see it in what I know of her style, so I am hardly going to feel put off by her so called dominance of market forces. Her time has come and gone, perhaps, but she would never have any trouble getting her product to market--so I think your argument about American publishing dominance is off base. Multi-culturalism actually sells, as a literary norm, if not entirely a commercial one.

[subterranean]

Besides Life of Pi and Curios Incident, I kind of enjoy A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian too.

[Jozanny]

Returning to JBI's point of contention for a moment--there have always been competing traditions against the US milieu, even before the rise of multi-cultural authors left middle-aged white males at a loss to write anything worth reading. The literary genre, back *then*, and even today, is not driven by mass media marketing, so I think you're confusing things. For every Faulkner, or Hemingway, there was a Borges or Calvino, or any number of names I could produce with a little digging.

I am defining mass media in fairly modern terms. It started with Ted Turner and CNN; book publishing, in this sense, cannot compete with video or music recording, or Hollywood's studio distributive power. Books are like the old aunt way in the back of the wedding train, and I do not think publishers were the mass media of earlier centuries. Literacy was far more limited in the time spanning the 16th to 19th centuries than it is today. In this sense I don't think your complaint holds. Have a boat story from Haiti? You'll have an agent and 100k advance from Random House in about five minutes. Same goes if you are one of the lost boys from Sudan who can type. This isn't American modernism. It is post-global, post-generational, and very recently culminated the coronation of Barack Obama, who owes his rise in part to the fact that he can write in the multi-cultural tone publishers drool over.

As to the top five, the century is too young yet for that, and most writers publishing now who are up and coming still sowed their oats in the 90's.

[stlukesguild]

It doesn't need to be a negative change - the Renaissance was positive after all, and modernism, in the American sense, I would think comes from a sort of national coming of age. The wars seemed to have just got mixed in, and in American terms, reinforced the coming of age, by marking the beginning of the end of British dominance.

This much is true. There is something of a coming of age that precipitates the rise of many great cultures. Modernism may have been the realization of this coming of age for America... but it certainly started much earlier... especially in the writings of Emerson, Whitman, Melville, Henry and William James (I leave out Dickinson... perhaps the greatest of them all... due to the fact that her contribution was only discovered and recognized over time). Interestingly enough American music and paintings really come of age far later. Of course, as someone recently enamored of Leopardi must know, cultures in decline can produce some of the most marvelous works of art as well.

I think the biggest untapped well is definitely Eastern, with the exception perhaps of Japanese, art (since Japan seems to have been absorbed to some extent already). Those countries have strong traditions, many of them older than the western one, and I think it is only a matter of time before those traditions collide with the Western traditional focus, to create something brilliant.

I think that the East (and the Middle East) present unimagined possibilities... and something truly unique: they all represent ancient cultures with centuries of artistic achievement who have slipped into a sort of stagnation... a mandarinism... or even lost touch with their own culture in a mad rush to emulate what they admired of Western art. Now it would seem they are again undergoing a coming of age. Japan, is certainly farthest along in this development, but China is coming up rapidly. India represents a potential only rivaled by the Chinese... and may have the greater advantage as a result of its history with Britain and familiarity with the current lingua franca. Chinese and Japanese literature continue to find their way into American publications... and not without influence... especially if one looks at poets such as Charles Wright, Kenneth Rexroth, and W.S. Merwin (among others). Asian art has currently worked its way into the Western art markets... although it is mostly recognized mostly as a belated form of pop art with few exceptions. Endless American comic book artists and animation artists are influenced by Japanese animation, but I somewhat suspect that such influences are inevitably shallow. An exploration of the greater achievements of Japanese and Chinese art may prove far more fruitful in the long run.

[JBI]

But your argument does have a chip on the shoulder quality to it JBI, which makes the American intelligentsia roll its eyes. Canada never formed the sense of national identity that the USA had, never technically broke with the English monarchy or developed the *manifest destiny* mantra that forged the US into a growing regional power, and then, after WW2, a global one, and this carried over into the late 20th century. When I was still young, in my flirtation with Beat movement nostalgia, the editor who published me lived in Montreal, but he was an American native to my city who had been an anti-war protestor. How does an observer get a sense of Canadian character out of that? It is a character which assimilates well into the USA media and entertainment industry (Peter Jennings, Alex Trebek), but I can't say anything about it, not as I could about the national character of China, or India, and so on. How is Margaret Atwood a particularly Canadian author in her thematic approaches? I don't see it in what I know of her style, so I am hardly going to feel put off by her so called dominance of market forces. Her time has come and gone, perhaps, but she would never have any trouble getting her product to market--so I think your argument about American publishing dominance is off base. Multi-culturalism actually sells, as a literary norm, if not entirely a commercial one.

Margret Atwood, and perhaps Robertson Davies are exceptions. In terms of Canadian-style, linguistically, and perhaps syntactically it is rather the same as the American or English model, up until, perhaps 1970. In terms of theme, well, Frye wrote a famous essay entitled "The Conclusion to the Literary History of Canada" which kicked off a new approach to find similarities and differences with other literature, mainly based on theme. The result was, common thematic motifs were found in Canadian literature, and cross-compared to the United States and Britain, and then explained.

Atwood, a somewhat important critic on this subject, outlines one such as the idea of survival being a focus, with the two central causes of death in Canadian literature being drowning and freezing. Something known as "garrison mentality" (Frye's term) which explains Canadian mentality as a front, trying to ward of the States, and trying to fight the weather, and other influences. And most importantly perhaps, the concept of Nature as a malevolent force, which was there, even in the beginnings of Canadian literature, contrary to the movements in the States, and in America, which were preoccupied with Romantic natural idealism. But I think the sense of the vastness of the country in general, and the somewhat sparse population (then anyway) lead to some interesting artistic things, between those trying to "survive it" as Atwood suggests, the forerunner being Susanna Moody, and those who are trying to use it as a form of artistic expression, the most notable are the painters, the Group of Seven, and perhaps Emily Carr, who was influenced by them.

You get strange things, like this AY Jackson.
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=29&pictureid=2173


Atwood to some extent keeps with the Canadian thematic structures which she helped define. I think the best example would be Alias Grace. But really the theme bit changed drastically in the 70s as well. The reason? Well, look at the immigration rate in Canada.

We are getting over 250,000 immigrants each year, into a country of 30million. It's come to the point where English descendant Canadians aren't so unbelievably a majority, topped onto by a large French population. But more importantly, since we don't, as you said, have such a strong sense of national identity, essentially everything goes. In the States, for instance, there is still somewhat of a war between formalists and open-form poets, with debates going back and forth, and periodicals favoring one or another. What that essentially is, is the American Whitman-following tradition colliding with the English tradition, and neither side seems to relent. Whereas in Canada, such a debate wouldn't really do anything, as we have a more "you do your thing, I do my thing, and we'll both read each other's work as its own thing."

Also to be kept in mind, is that many Canadians have cultural heritages brought with them as well, from China, or Japan, or Italy, or India, or wherever. This allows even more mixing, and the ability for writers to really draw on those traditions in a new context.


Returning to JBI's point of contention for a moment--there have always been competing traditions against the US milieu, even before the rise of multi-cultural authors left middle-aged white males at a loss to write anything worth reading. The literary genre, back *then*, and even today, is not driven by mass media marketing, so I think you're confusing things. For every Faulkner, or Hemingway, there was a Borges or Calvino, or any number of names I could produce with a little digging.

I am defining mass media in fairly modern terms. It started with Ted Turner and CNN; book publishing, in this sense, cannot compete with video or music recording, or Hollywood's studio distributive power. Books are like the old aunt way in the back of the wedding train, and I do not think publishers were the mass media of earlier centuries. Literacy was far more limited in the time spanning the 16th to 19th centuries than it is today. In this sense I don't think your complaint holds. Have a boat story from Haiti? You'll have an agent and 100k advance from Random House in about five minutes. Same goes if you are one of the lost boys from Sudan who can type. This isn't American modernism. It is post-global, post-generational, and very recently culminated the coronation of Barack Obama, who owes his rise in part to the fact that he can write in the multi-cultural tone publishers drool over.

As to the top five, the century is too young yet for that, and most writers publishing now who are up and coming still sowed their oats in the 90's.

I don't think I can agree - in early centuries fewer people, and by fewer I mean WAAAAAY fewer, people could actually read. In most Western nations today, illiteracy is essentially non-existent.

The Novel in general was considered a form of pop-culture in its origins, and strangely, only fit for women. Prose itself was thought of as a low literary form.

The ones to shake that idea, of course, were the modernists, who seemed to have crossed verse with prose, and to have created what I call an "impressionist" point of view. That is to say, a break from the omniscient or focalized view, into a more personal, more relative view, in which unreliability, diversity, and other such things are able to strive.

Who knows though - comic books were huge by mid 20th century, but who is to say what influence they have had on novels, beyond the birth of that mostly hideous form they call graphic novel, which is essentially a thick comic book.

[Bitterfly]

The Novel in general was considered a form of pop-culture in its origins, and strangely, only fit for women. Prose itself was thought of as a low literary form.

The ones to shake that idea, of course, were the modernists, who seemed to have crossed verse with prose, and to have created what I call an "impressionist" point of view. .

I'm not questioning what you've said about modernists, but it's rather debatable to argue that they were the ones to make the novel genre acceptable. I think, rather, that the Victorians - George Eliot, Dickens... - made the novel into an "intellectually acceptable" form, suitable not only for female but also for male readership. Eighteenth century authors often thought it best to hide the fact that they were writing novels behind autobiographical or "realist" pretensions, but in the nineteenth century the shift towards acceptability occurred, even if it wasn't immediate. I doubt Eliot's novels were ever considered as low-brow, on the contrary.

Now romance carried on being criticized (until now, I'd say, except that some novels that have been considered as romances, or half-novel half-romance - Jane Eyre, for instance, or Frankenstein- have been rehabilitated).

And cubism fits modernist writing better than impressionism, I find, if you want to find parallels with painting. But that's a personal opinion.

[JBI]

By impressionism, I meant the idea that perception is based on the impression of the focalized. So that the text doesn't begin to be "realistic" and rather feigns to be based on an impression.

[Etienne]

[COLOR="DarkSlateGray"]Canada never formed the sense of national identity that the USA had, never technically broke with the English monarchy or developed the *manifest destiny* mantra that forged the US into a growing regional power, and then, after WW2, a global one, and this carried over into the late 20th century.

But aren't you defining here national differences between America and Canada? Is the fact that Canada "technically never broke with the English monarchy" makes Canada somehow culturally dependent? What about Quebec? To say it doesn't have a national identity is just plain wrong, and this relationship French/English (not just language but culture) Canada is quite a national identity trait. I am honestly not an expert in English Canadian literature (I believe I've read only 2 or 3 books from English Canada), but if you want I could point you out some French Canadian books and you can judge by yourself.

[Ronak]

I havent read ny of those

[mortalterror]

But that being said, in terms of constructs of taste, we can say your refusal of post-modernism is a personal bias just as easily, and say you don't like post-modern literature because of your own aesthetic taste.

Then we can go further, we can say all literature comes down to is personal tastes, and there really are no "top five" books of the new millennium, and only the top five "most popular" books. What comes out of that though? Dan Brown goes up there, beside Rowling, and the other best-selling writers of the past 8 years.

You are misframing the argument. It is not a black and white either or scenario and reductio ad absurdum is not called for. Admitting a bias does not automatically negate every opinion we have. The rejection of your list does not mean that Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling must perforce be raised in it's place.

I think you make a grave error when you suggest that literary opinion is either all taste or all experience, all elitist or all popular. That you must reduce every argument to one extreme or the other is a sign that you are either ignorant, which I do not believe, or uncomfortable debating a case on its subtle merits.

There is a middle ground between the two extremes which I think any serious scholar, any mentally honest person, should be aware of. The study you quoted began it's account with a list of possible sources of error. That is the scientific, the academically responsible way of presenting information. We all have informed opinions but we should not be afraid to admit up front the occasional prejudice. By admitting your own postmodern preferences and not offering your opinion so demagogically you allow a healthy skepticism to shed light on how you may have reached your conclusions. By stating the reasons you have for coming to your conclusions you make them falsifiable and open to peer review. Admitting a bias beforehand is like admitting a margin of error, and if we are thoughtful enough beforehand we may be able to correct for it.

What I seem to be hearing from you is that you either deny a bias, or deny that it effects your judgement. On the one hand you seem to readily admit some prejudice but scoff that it should be counted as nothing so long as it is less than mine. So, tell me, have my faults made you great? That is no defense of your own views, which you seem reluctant to answer for, but an attack on mine.

[JBI]

No, I am saying that if we say all tastes are subjective, and books are only better because we say they are, and not because of any "better quality", then it makes sense that the most popular, that is, the book which was preferred by the most people, would be the "best".

The point is, you dismissed post-modernism as a gimmick a line later. That is the same mistake. You assume that all my tastes are "elitist" yet you fail to realize yours are too. The only difference is, you like Hemingway, and I like post-modernism. Both elitist. A "populist" if such a term really works, would go with the most popular as being the best, because it reached the most people, and was desired by the most people. By that notion, Dan Brown, and JK Rowling win hands down.

I am not saying I am without fault, but merely your argument against has the same biases. Both arguments are constructed, yours arguably from your American perspective, mine from my Canadian.

It was you, keep in mind, who accused me of elitism, I merely accused you of hypocrisy. I don't know if I denied being an "elitist" (I don't think I adhere much to the opinion of, for instance the American elite), yet at least I can admit it.

And on the note of where my information comes from - most from personal reading, the rest from criticism and coursework, and of course, my self being Canadian. You know that. If you want to get into the texts, I would welcome it. All this fretting is rather silly, and it would be far more desired to get down to the actual texts.

So why don't we - lets say, start a thread on a text, if I haven't read it, I will, and then I'll give you my opinion, with quotes. As it is, you claim I lack evidence, but the truth is, it is not my fault nobody goes to the text. You haven't, may I remind you, provided any evidence to the contrary anyway. In fact, you haven't provided any support for your statements. Again, you accuse, yet don't accuse yourself.

[Jozanny]

But aren't you defining here national differences between America and Canada? Is the fact that Canada "technically never broke with the English monarchy" makes Canada somehow culturally dependent? What about Quebec? To say it doesn't have a national identity is just plain wrong, and this relationship French/English (not just language but culture) Canada is quite a national identity trait. I am honestly not an expert in English Canadian literature (I believe I've read only 2 or 3 books from English Canada), but if you want I could point you out some French Canadian books and you can judge by yourself.

I don't think I literally wrote that Canada doesn't have a national identity Etienne, just that I would be hard pressed to say what the **** it is (my asterisk, to spare the bot). China I can *say* things about, since I have researched it for a satire I am never going to finish. I might stereotype what I say, but it can be said. China has an ancient national identity, but Canada? No offense to JBI, but as a state it is pulled by both European sensibilities it never rejected, and seems to be what the US might have been without its bloodlust. I know very little Canadian history, but what I do know is tied to American Revolutionary history, and I draw a blank about why Canada is Canada, except, as I noted previously, that Canadians make excellent Americans, with better polish. Time Magazine had a snarky essay, when I was a teen subscriber, about Quebec secessionists not quite thinking their knee-jerking against the other provinces through, since secession would have forced Quebec to be more dependent on the Big Bully US.

It is the kind of humor that our little cousin provokes within--which is not to say a new Atwood couldn't fare as well as her successful counterpart down here; if I understood JBI, I don't think the US shoves its literary pretensions down anyone's throat.:p

[mortalterror]

No, I am saying that if we say all tastes are subjective, and books are only better because we say they are, and not because of any "better quality", then it makes sense that the most popular, that is, the book which was preferred by the most people, would be the "best".

I think that taste is subjective, but my opinion is not entirely based on taste. It is one of many factors that can push an analysis four or five degrees to the left or right. It's not the primary criterion I use for a judgement of literary merit, but I don't dispute that it has some role. I prefer Ovid to Virgil and Racine to Shakespeare. That's a matter of taste, but all figures are at least in the same ballpark, and I remain conscious of where the general opinion lies. Most people when they say that taste is subjective use that term because all they have to judge by is taste, and when your sole criterion for making decisions is 100% bias you do tend to get radically different results from other people.

We use the same tools of analysis, i.e. not taste, to arrive at a reasonable consensus or approximation of the truth. That usually puts us in the same latitude if not the same longitude. However, I distrust the popular opinion of academics almost as much as I distrust the popular opinion of the masses. The specialist and the amateur are both prone to error, but different kinds of error. Each makes the mistakes common to it's kind. You and I are both young men so we make the mistakes common to young men. Older men make the mistakes common to older men. The uninformed make the mistakes of the uninformed and scholars make the mistakes of scholars.

There's no way around that. However knowledgeable, however high you rise, you're still going to make mistakes. By now you've seen your professors make many. Man is like a snowball who holds the first things closest to his heart as he rolls downhill accumulating knowledge, and you never know if the advice he gives comes from a fourteen or a forty year old. Have the ideas he espouses been tempered in the fires of a lifetime of experience or merely a caprice of the moment? Are they the type of person to learn and change their opinions as they age or do they use the things they learn to further reinforce the opinions they already have?

You are very intelligent for your age, and very well read, but your biggest asset is also your biggest liability. Most people are either not smart enough or are too unschooled to challenge you when you make a mistake. You can out argue them, overcome them with superior reason, and persist in your own error.

That's what I mean when I say that we cannot trust the opinions of the best educated, or the sharpest minds, or the quickest wits. I do not seek to put the common man above the expert, but I do maintain that the expert is not without his own faults. I do believe, as you do, that some books are better than others and that it is possible to know what those books are. The expert's opinion is far sounder than the layman's but we should always leave a bit of wiggle room just to keep ourselves intellectually honest.



The point is, you dismissed post-modernism as a gimmick a line later. That is the same mistake. You assume that all my tastes are "elitist" yet you fail to realize yours are too. The only difference is, you like Hemingway, and I like post-modernism. Both elitist. A "populist" if such a term really works, would go with the most popular as being the best, because it reached the most people, and was desired by the most people. By that notion, Dan Brown, and JK Rowling win hands down.

I am not saying I am without fault, but merely your argument against has the same biases. Both arguments are constructed, yours arguably from your American perspective, mine from my Canadian.

It was you, keep in mind, who accused me of elitism, I merely accused you of hypocrisy. I don't know if I denied being an "elitist" (I don't think I adhere much to the opinion of, for instance the American elite), yet at least I can admit it.

I've never claimed to be a populist, nor denied I was a hypocrite.:)

[JBI]

Now that that is established, maybe we can get on to some texts, rather than this bickering. And by text, I mean not some of this "which is better than which" but more, what is the text itself doing. As it is, I think there are perhaps too many of these "what's your favorite" or "recommend me some" threads, and not enough threads actually cutting up literature.

Perhaps though, it can be said that many of them are buried on the author forums, but as it is, I think too many people read only classics, or are only willing to discuss classics, and contemporary works seem hushed.