100 years from now.

[Old Crow]

Alright, I'm not trying to start a debate about "The Cannon" so I'll try to avoid that type of collegiate terminology, but which books from the past ten years do you think will survive and still be read and loved one-hundred years from now?

I'm asking because, aside from The Corrections and Underworld, I've read nothing from the past ten years but I definitely have faith that a classic book can still be written. I'm looking to modernize my reading list and, as a classical fiend, I would love to read something immortal that I could say was from my time and place. I have a high threshold for meta-fiction and difficult works don't hold back. If you feel it will last list it.

[Vautrin]

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

In a 100 years someone still alive will find it in an abandoned gas station and enjoy it with a coke.

[dfloyd]

which will become a classic, including the two you mentioned. Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian may, but certainly not The Road with its repetitious dialog. Some of John Le Carre's novels have the stuff classics are made of, such as Tinker,Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but no recent ones. In the crime genre, some of P. D. James' books are as good as any. But you can never tell. Maybe Thomas Pynchon will write one. But forget about Roth or Delilo. If a classic is written in the near future, I'm betting it will be by an Englishman. Not that I'm an Anglophile, but the English do seem to have a better grasp of the language. They should have. After all, they invented it!

[prendrelemick]

Ian MacEwan could be one to watch. But a hundred years ! Who knows?

[sixsmith]

which will become a classic, including the two you mentioned. Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian may, but certainly not The Road with its repetitious dialog. Some of John Le Carre's novels have the stuff classics are made of, such as Tinker,Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but no recent ones. In the crime genre, some of P. D. James' books are as good as any. But you can never tell. Maybe Thomas Pynchon will write one. But forget about Roth or Delilo. If a classic is written in the near future, I'm betting it will be by an Englishman. Not that I'm an Anglophile, but the English do seem to have a better grasp of the language. They should have. After all, they invented it!

I disagree with most of this statement, particularly the assertion that the English have a better 'grasp' of the language. Indeed, I think there's reason (discussed on these forums previously) to give American novelists a good deal of credit for pushing the language in new and vital places. I suspect Roth and De Lillo will both be read one hundred years hence, along with Pynchon, Bellow, and McCarthy (though the last decade presents fairly lean pickings). And if he hasn't done so already, I'd back David Mitchell to produce a novel worthy of long-term survival.

[Captain Pike]

I'm still wondering about the Coke. Okay, so it survived their taking the cocaine out but once the artificial colors and sugars are out, we'll be back to just water. And who'd have thought people would be drinking water... bottled water!?
I'll submit this: is it really some kind of inherent quality that makes something good after 100 years -- still good? Or is it more to do with what we've evolved into -- that tells us what were supposed to read or drink? There was something floating around the Internet that struck me: people will line up and pay hundreds of dollars to see a certain concert violinist, but if that same guy is down the subway playing with his case open on the floor, most of those people will step around him, fearful of catching something. It was actually done and confirmed. The great mass of public opinion is all hype. [People are going to hate me for this] take this American Idol show, for example. People hold their breath and swoon -- unable to be part of something real -- like community theater, most of us will sit, just eating dumbly, cheering on that propped up winner of public opinion. There abilities are mediocre at best; it's arbitrary who wins out, I think it's more that they happen to look that certain way or their story is pitifully heartrending. Somewhere in some back room, some big fat guy with a cigar is probably controlling the whole thing -- betting on it in Vegas. I better stop.

[dfloyd]

Dickens and Melville, to give both English and American writers their due, will still be read. Roth and De Lilo will be in the throes of obscurity. I'm not saying not to read them, I'm saying they don't have the command of the language which makes a classic.

[AimusSage]

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, it'll only become more popular as time goes on, or so I want to belief because it is a splendid novel.

[mal4mac]

This is like trying to predict the weather 100 years from now. A futile pursuit. The canon can only be built retrospectively, so if you want to read books that (just about) everybody agrees are great then stick to texts more than fifty years old. That Dickens and Melville will still be read is a pretty safe bet. Roth and De Lilo may be in the throes of obscurity, but I can easily quote critics who rate them highly, so who knows?

No modern critic can ever know if a book published in the last ten tears will be "as immortal" as Dickens because they will be dead long before any critical comparison for longevity can be made.

Why are you so interested in reading something "immortal" from your time and place? Besides being an impossible aim, it seems to me rather arbitrary. Surely a better aim is, to read something "immortal", full stop; or (more accurately) something that "most serious critics" think is truly great.

I read modern novels now and again because I think you should do something to support living writers, but I don't expect modern novels to be immortal, and they have always lived level with my expectations (with the possible exception of Ian MacEwan.)

[prendrelemick]

Have a look at this . http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/ The Nobel Laureates for the last 100 years or so. There are some unfamiliar names in there, It just shows that obscurity beckons for even the most highly regarded authors of today.

[dfloyd]

I just have a hard time finding good ones. No Country for Old Men and Blood Meridian held my attention, both as you know by Cormack McCarthy. I finished The Road, but only because it was an easy read. Its repetitious dialog made me want to put it down .... forever. I started De Lilo's Underworld and was excited by the first section on the 1951 pennant playoff game, but after that it was all down hill. It was just too long to keep pursuing it. I started three of Roth's books. didn't finish one of them. Ian McEwan the same way.

Part of it is my age. I am at the age where I have to be selective what I read. But after all these false starts, I read Fenimore Cooper's The Prarie. With all of his faults, or literary offenses as Twain called them, he is still a good read, especially for American's. He tells an interesting story about our early history, and his words, sentences, and paragraphs have the unity, coherence, and emphasis I have come to expect from fine writers.

I am now reading H.G. Wells' Tono Bungay, not one of his early science fictions, but more about the English class system. The novel is well written and holds my attention. Show me a modern author who can compete with Cooper and Wells, two writers of disparate talents, and I'll rush to Amazon.com.

[JBI]

Hmm, depends on too many factors - the whole game seems kind of silly actually - the only definite thing is the sustenance of some classics, and I doubt much of American canonical literature as is would fall into that anyway. Shakespeare will still be read, as will Dante, but McCarthy? I think probably Marquez is the best bet of current living authors, but beyond that I don't wish to speculate.

[Modest Proposal]

I wouldn't be surprised if Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" was one of the survivors. Its language and craftsmanship aside, the work has two other major criteria for canonization. It deals with a very important issue in world history, that of the ending of one of the largest and most established colonies in the world. And it deals with the issue with what may be one of the only seemingly-new developments in the novel form: magical realism.

I think based on these three things, quality of prose, relevance of dealings, and uniqueness--somewhat--of form might make this one of the lasting works. I also tend to agree with JBI that Marquez will last for similar reasons.

[Old Crow]

Rushdie and McCarthy will certainly last at least a while longer, I feel, but both of their respective masterpieces (which I would give to The Satanic Verses and Blood Meridian) were written over ten years ago. Now Roth...well I'm in the minority that actually thinks his later work is overall much stronger than most of his flagship novels (especially Portnoys Complaint). If anything of his is going to last, it will probably be Sabbaths Theater, but I have my doubts. The last book that I can say will still be read when I am dead is probably Infinite Jest, but even that's elleven years old. It's just kind of sad to look at all the literature from the last century and realize how vapid most of what gets touted today is.

[wat??]

which will become a classic, including the two you mentioned. Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian may, but certainly not The Road with its repetitious dialog. Some of John Le Carre's novels have the stuff classics are made of, such as Tinker,Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but no recent ones. In the crime genre, some of P. D. James' books are as good as any. But you can never tell. Maybe Thomas Pynchon will write one. But forget about Roth or Delilo. If a classic is written in the near future, I'm betting it will be by an Englishman. Not that I'm an Anglophile, but the English do seem to have a better grasp of the language. They should have. After all, they invented it!

Yes! The current generation of English youth created the language, which endows them with a better grasp of the written word!!!

You sure are smart man. How did you become so smart?

Is that why Mexicans can't write in Spanish as well as the Spaniards can? No wonder all that French Canadian literature, written in french (and English for that matter) is so terrible!!!

Genius theory. A brilliant mind, unequalled.

[Pryderi Agni]

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

In a 100 years someone still alive will find it in an abandoned gas station and enjoy it with a coke.

Agreed. The Road is a definite everlaster.

[pooteeweet]

What about novels which are made into movies? Sparks, King, Rowling, et cetera.

I fear that I will come home and ask my grand children what they are reading, and they will look up from their Norton and say, "We're studying The Notebook in English class"


ughhhhhhh

[grace86]

What about novels which are made into movies? Sparks, King, Rowling, et cetera.

I fear that I will come home and ask my grand children what they are reading, and they will look up from their Norton and say, "We're studying The Notebook in English class"


ughhhhhhh

Haha oh my that would be quite a disappointment! :smilielol5:

I give Sparks the credit of being a good storyteller. But as for a hundred years from now, I kind of hope there is more than The Notebook to be considered widely read, and good literature.

Don't get me wrong...I have enjoyed Sparks.

[pooteeweet]

Haha oh my that would be quite a disappointment! :smilielol5:

I give Sparks the credit of being a good storyteller. But as for a hundred years from now, I kind of hope there is more than The Notebook to be considered widely read, and good literature.

Don't get me wrong...I have enjoyed Sparks.

yeah, I have to agree with you, Notebook and Walk to Remember are good stories, I'm not knocking Sparks :) seems like his work will be studied by scholars much like those authors from the K-Mart Fiction genre.