Old Classics or New Literature?

Having studied a reasonable number of classic books - by no means all - in the past, and seeding classics into my reading, I am becoming more and more interested in books that may become modern classic novels.

This doesn't seem to be much of a focus on the forum, with the exception of the book club which does a good job of trying to look at a range of styles, periods and types.

What we often get are discussions about lists of classic novels with opinions about particular books from individual posters. This is fine as far as it goes, but should we be looking at more recent novels- in the light of member's experience at what constitutes a classic?

I don't know how you regard awards such as The Man Booker Prize, but in my opinion I think they may be a good starting point for predicting and discussing which novels may become classics. Do we focus enough on these?

I can see the problem - the mass of new novels that are written each year - but we do have a rudimentary filter. Even with this problem, it is possible to spot and study longlisted authors. This year's winner was The Narrow Road To The Deep North, which is the title of the Haiku Master Basho's famous work. The fact that the winner concerns the suffering of allied POWs whilst building the Burma railway has certainly sparked my interest. Hilary Mantel's recent two winners employ an interesting narrative style which worked very well in Wolf Hall.

Should we be looking at more contemporary work on these boards?

I think I've seen a few conversations on here about the canonization process. What keeps getting reiterated, and what I think is true, is that canonization is basically a plutocratic process, with those who have the time and temperament to dedicate their life energy to studying literature (or whatever medium) being the ones who decide what art will feature in the annals of the great.

But, reading contemporary literature can sometimes have the added value of being easier to relate to! The mannerisms of the past can be off-putting and, I believe, have a distancing effect on modern readers. That doesn't mean that quality of writing shouldn't factor into what we read of contemporary literature, just that the masterworks of the present, if we happen to unknowingly stumble across them, may be more accessible to current generations than any others that will follow.

I'm reading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson right now. My friend who is also reading it said that she had zero interest in the subject matter, but was sucked in simply for the graceful presentation of said subject matter. I don't agree with that view entirely, but I do empathize with it. Some of Ames' concerns seem to have relevance to me, others don't, but it's his attitude toward them that I find intriguing.

I often wonder myself whenever I read a list of top great books, whether the classics of the past really are better than the books written now. I don't suppose there were very many people trying to write fiction in the past as there are now. How many authors were there in the C18th compared to now? Authors were not more intelligent or better educated. They lived in different times so they had that interestng perspective. Maybe the classics that have come down to us are just the best of what was available at the time they were written, and that there are numerous contemporary books that are just as good.

That's an interesting point Kev. But I think if you came forward to the mid 19th century you would find a very large number of books being published throughout the British Isles (Not all fiction) and a huge readership despite illiteracy still being common. The classic authors of the past may be like the "classic"authors of today - a couple of great books and four or five ordinary ones. I think reading was a very important activity for the 19th century Middle Class and the educated Working Class. I suspect there were a large number of writers trying to satisfy that and most of them are long forgotten.

I think unfamiliar language and circumstances may very well pose a problem for the modern reader who relies on translations from the remote past and requires detailed notes to access the language used in Shakespeare for example. (This isn't helped by schools in the UK requiring his plays to be studied and read when that was not the author's original intention).

My OP really concerns whether we should have more focus on modern works here given that classic literature is a fairly sealed Canon. I've read some really good modern works which employ interesting and innovative narrative structures. One book I'm in the middle of is The Kills by Richard House which concerns the US involvement in Iraq and how this affects the lives of individuals caught up in the corporate exploitation detailed in the book. (This was long listed for the Booker last year). It is the first book I have come across that has a subtext accessed through web pages which can be listened to independently or alongside a reading of the text. As I have the paperback - not realising it had this feature- I haven't accessed these to any great extent. I think it offers a new direction for novels though which could allow the reader to follow up links to relevant history or other works. Would War and Peace benefit from links which could give some historical perspective to the battles? In my opinion it wouldn't make the text better, but could enrich the reading experience further.

I don't think modern novels are easier to read either. Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall keeps the reader on their toes as you don't get any authorial foreground to chapters through usual description, but are plunged into Cromwell's mind stream, orientating yourself as you go along. You can almost hear Mantel calling "keep up"!

Julian Barnes "The Sense of an Ending" was a fascinating read, not for the rather prosaic story, but for how the original narrative presented becomes revised years later and allows you to reflect on how one kind of memory can be interpreted and modified in startlingly different ways.

The modern literary writer often has a very sophisticated arsenal of techniques which they can be used in ways they weren't in the past, good as those classics were.

old skool versus modern.
minimalist versus crowded.

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Originally Posted by cacian

old skool versus
minimalist versus crowded.

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Meaning what?

Well, you are focusing in some kind of modern novels. Even in this site, guys like Dan Brown, J.K.Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Murakami, Stephen King, etc are mentioned and discussed. Are them out of the race for canonization? Can we tell what is the status of Tolkien?

I often wonder myself whenever I read a list of top great books, whether the classics of the past really are better than the books written now.

Certainly they are better than the vast majority of what was written in the past and present.

I don't suppose there were very many people trying to write fiction in the past as there are now. How many authors were there in the C18th compared to now?

What do numbers have to do with it? There are more students being coming out of schools every year with BFAs and MFAs in the visual arts than there were people alive in Florence, Venice and Rome during the Renaissance... yet the sheer number of brilliant artists that came out of the Italian Renaissance far surpasses what might be expected based upon demographics... and far surpasses the number of brilliant artists actively working today.

Authors were not more intelligent or better educated.

That's debatable. We may have a far broader education. The writer today is likely familiar with literature from ancient Greece to the present and familiar with writers from Britain, American, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and even Asia and South America. Dante probably owned a couple hundred books at best and may have had access through various libraries (private and academic) to a thousand more. What he knew was less broad... but he likely knew it in far greater depth. In most cases what he read, was read in the original language (Latin, Italian, French).

They lived in different times so they had that interesting perspective. Maybe the classics that have come down to us are just the best of what was available at the time they were written, and that there are numerous contemporary books that are just as good.

The "classics" are essentially those books that continue to resonate with an audience across time and space. It is quite likely that there are books written in the last 50 or 20 years that will eventually be recognized as classics... but "numerous" contemporary "classics"? Highly unlikely. Of course we are all open to your suggestions as to what contemporary works qualify.

My OP really concerns whether we should have more focus on modern works here given that classic literature is a fairly sealed Canon.

SHOULD? WE? It seems to me that WE SHOULD be reading and studying that which we take the most pleasure in. Personally, I have enjoyed any number of Modern and Contemporary works of literature, but honestly I don't follow contemporary fiction... especially novels... as much as I once did. I read much more poetry... and I might ask SHOULD WE not be discussing poetry more? :D
Seriously, I don't think anyone with any real passion for literature imagines that the "Canon" is sealed. Jose Saramago, Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez , Yves Bonnefoy, Geoffrey Hill, Anne Carson... can't we all name a number of writers who are prime candidates for "canonization"?

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

Meaning what?

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hi Paulcem
i meant old skool versus modern
minimalist versus crowded
what i meant to say is that classic literature is crowded with images/ideas plots and so the writing is dense
today the writing is rather minimalist compared to it.
there are no more Iliads or De Sartre types of writing.
we tend to veer towards heavy loaded science fictions or fifty shades of grey type of style.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

[COLOR="#B22222"]Gabriel Garcia Lorca

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Gabriel Garcia Lorca! I'd love to see what the child of Marquez and Lorca would produce :D

Speaking of fiction, what has come down to us as canon should be looked at as history of literature. History as in not the sum total of what was produced but a succession of new discoveries and new breaks in the novel. So the vast, picaresque, adventurist narrative of Cervantes unbounded by time and space takes a definitive break in the expression of Balzac, Flaubert and Dickens, which is quotidian, bounded by modern structures, social institutions, and where time takes on a finite and vicious quality of the cause-and-effect formula. Go further and the disillusionment with the quotidian, in Kafka, breaks into a fusion of dream and reality (Metamorphosis), and later takes on a form of an enormous, uncontrollable, incomprehensible genie of that is a modern state (in The Trial, The Castle).

These are just three major discoveries I have mentioned; there are many other twists and turns and many good novelists that contributed to it. Much of that has found its way into the broader consensus of canon.

Shall we pay less attention to the classics that define for us the history of the novel? I think not. It is vital for our education to approach contemporary or near-contemporary fiction with a balanced view of what came before, how society which produced new writers absorbed it, and made further discoveries for the posterity. Though some might object to Marquez's contributions as yet to meet the test of time, I am in no doubt he represents a definitive new discovery in the onwards journey of the novel, that of primordial myth guiding our destinies in this post-modern world. Like in Macondo, where beds of polished stones, white and enormous, were like prehistoric eggs (One Hundred Years of Solitude), we live in a time where we are in the process of rediscovering ice.

We may ignore classics of the canon to a certain extent, where minor works may be left out for the unavoidable names (a few of those mentioned above), but the more we ignore classics, the more we forget how we arrived in Macondo or how we traversed Terra Nostra.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

I often wonder myself whenever I read a list of top great books, whether the classics of the past really are better than the books written now.

Certainly they are better than the vast majority of what was written in the past and present.

I don't suppose there were very many people trying to write fiction in the past as there are now. How many authors were there in the C18th compared to now?

What do numbers have to do with it? There are more students being coming out of schools every year with BFAs and MFAs in the visual arts than there were people alive in Florence, Venice and Rome during the Renaissance... yet the sheer number of brilliant artists that came out of the Italian Renaissance far surpasses what might be expected based upon demographics... and far surpasses the number of brilliant artists actively working today.

Authors were not more intelligent or better educated.

That's debatable. We may have a far broader education. The writer today is likely familiar with literature from ancient Greece to the present and familiar with writers from Britain, American, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and even Asia and South America. Dante probably owned a couple hundred books at best and may have had access through various libraries (private and academic) to a thousand more. What he knew was less broad... but he likely knew it in far greater depth. In most cases what he read, was read in the original language (Latin, Italian, French).

They lived in different times so they had that interesting perspective. Maybe the classics that have come down to us are just the best of what was available at the time they were written, and that there are numerous contemporary books that are just as good.

The "classics" are essentially those books that continue to resonate with an audience across time and space. It is quite likely that there are books written in the last 50 or 20 years that will eventually be recognized as classics... but "numerous" contemporary "classics"? Highly unlikely. Of course we are all open to your suggestions as to what contemporary works qualify.

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It depends what you call a classic, but for instance I recently read Humphrey Clinker, written about 1771, which is marketed as one of the Pengiuin English Library novels. I found it interesting from an historical point of view, but if a contemporary version of similar quality was written today, I doubt it would find a publisher. I have just finished Nostromo, which has been described as Joseph Conrad's masterpiece. Conrad was listed as one of the four most important writers in the English tradition by F.R. Leavis, who was a legendary English professor and critic (the other three were Jane Austen, George Elliot and Henry James) I also read recently Leaving Cheyenne by Larry McMurtry. I have read several books by Conrad and several by McMurtry. I think Larry McMurtry is a better writer.

In a top 100 of great novels of all time published by The Guardian, the top 10 were

1. Don Quixote
2. Pilgrim's Progress
3. Robinson Crusoe
4. Gulliver's Travels
5. Tom Jones
6. Clarissa
7. Tristram Shandy
8. Dangerous Liasons
9. Emma
10. Frankenstein

The only two of those I have read were the first part of Don Quixote and (I think) the whole of Gulliver's Travels. I liked the first part of Gulliver's Travels with the Lilliputians, but I did not think the rest of it was so good. I thought Don Quixote was a real bore. It was a joke flogged to death. I slogged my way to the end of the first part, but could not face the second part. I plan to read Robinson Crusoe next year, but I also intend to read The Martian by Andy Weir, which is about an astronaut trapped on Mars. I will be interested to see which is better. I also plan to read Frankenstein next year, and I might read I Robot by Issac Asimov. Again it will be interesting to compare. In the list above, Don Quixote was described as the first modern novel, and Robinson Crusoe was described as the first English novel. To me this suggests that they were important because they were the first, not necessarily because they were the best.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

Well, you are focusing in some kind of modern novels. Even in this site, guys like Dan Brown, J.K.Rowling, Neil Gaiman, Murakami, Stephen King, etc are mentioned and discussed. Are them out of the race for canonization? Can we tell what is the status of Tolkien?

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It's a moot point and worth discussing. I'm thinking particularly of literary works, though there are those who think these authors have merit. Times have changed and it is uncertain what the criteria will be for classic status.

When I suggested that the Canon was sealed, I merely meant historically. No more 19th century novels are likely to achieve classic status. I'd like to be involved in discussions about classic candidates from the 20th and 21st century. I think they offer the innovation that can be found in classic novels Marbles - my intention is not to suggest that established classic literature shouldn't be read and studied - but that there is scope for discussion about how the techniques used in classic works are being innovated and improved on. In my view they are.

I would also like to study more poetry. Whether we should is down to members, but I think classic and modern novels and poetry will give a picture of how the traditions have developed and what they are developing into. I find that interesting.

Gabriel Garcia Lorca! I'd love to see what the child of Marquez and Lorca would produce.

Yes... the love child of Lorca and Marquez might be quite interesting... although I think I'd prefer the child of Borges and Calvino.

It depends what you call a classic, but for instance I recently read Humphrey Clinker, written about 1771, which is marketed as one of the Pengiuin English Library novels. I found it interesting from an historical point of view, but if a contemporary version of similar quality was written today, I doubt it would find a publisher.

Of course not. It is highly unlikely that Smolett or Dante or Shakespeare would be writing in the same manner if they were living today. Artists build upon their experiences... the world they live in... including the art they know.

I have just finished Nostromo, which has been described as Joseph Conrad's masterpiece. Conrad was listed as one of the four most important writers in the English tradition by F.R. Leavis, who was a legendary English professor and critic (the other three were Jane Austen, George Elliot and Henry James) I also read recently Leaving Cheyenne by Larry McMurtry. I have read several books by Conrad and several by McMurtry. I think Larry McMurtry is a better writer.

The fact that you like something better does not mean that it is better.

In a top 100 of great novels of all time published by The Guardian, the top 10 were

Don Quixote
Pilgrim's Progress
Robinson Crusoe
Gulliver's Travels
Tom Jones
Clarissa
Tristram Shandy
Dangerous Liasons
Emma
Frankenstein

This seems like a rather dated... and Anglo-centric list. Pilgrim's Progress? Really?

The only two of those I have read were the first part of Don Quixote and (I think) the whole of Gulliver's Travels. I liked the first part of Gulliver's Travels with the Lilliputians, but I did not think the rest of it was so good. I thought Don Quixote was a real bore. It was a joke flogged to death. I slogged my way to the end of the first part, but could not face the second part. I plan to read Robinson Crusoe next year, but I also intend to read The Martian by Andy Weir, which is about an astronaut trapped on Mars. I will be interested to see which is better.

Again, it seems you are confusing your personal likes or dislikes with a judgment of what is "better" or "worse". You weren't thrilled with Gulliver's Travels and found Don Quixote a bore... thus they are "overrated"... and likely the whole of the Canon or "classics" are likely "overrated"?

I also plan to read Frankenstein next year, and I might read I Robot by Issac Asimov. Again it will be interesting to compare. In the list above, Don Quixote was described as the first modern novel, and Robinson Crusoe was described as the first English novel. To me this suggests that they were important because they were the first, not necessarily because they were the best.

Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe are important, in part, due to their innovations. But while this may be enough to maintain their reputation with academics, it has little to do with why these works continue to resonate with an audience of what Virginia Woolf called the well-informed (not-so-common) "common readers". The Don and Sancho are two of the most memorable characters in literature, ranking along with certain characters of Dickens, Shakespeare, etc... It is easy to imagine them living outside of the confines of the fiction that they inhabit. Their relationship is one of the great male friendships in literature... along with Sterne's Uncle Toby and the narrator's father, Twain's Huck and Jim and Pynchon's Mason and Dixon. Don Quixote continues to passionately inspire subsequent writers and artists in other genre of great merit.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

It's a moot point and worth discussing. I'm thinking particularly of literary works, though there are those who think these authors have merit. Times have changed and it is uncertain what the criteria will be for classic status.

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Well, of course you may consider the best works of those authors, but the point about trying to find the classics of today is how you do it. That is why I suggest something complicated as exercise: Tolkien. There goes half of century and no signal of his popularity and even influence be reduced. Why exactly? Tolkien is not a typical best-seller formula (it is too slow, descriptive, not so memorable characterization, rythim constantly broken by old-fashioned poetry, etc). It is not also a clear tradition work - unlike Stephen King who you can trace the american tradition from where he came - Tolkien is where? His world creation may have traces with Robert Howard's Conan, his early children works with Lewis Carroll, and all his medieval work is not his tradition, yet, it is clear from him a kind of fantasy novel became popular, also it is clear, he is already read without being read for real. But is him canonized? Or not. What is wrong that his status is not secure? If we cannot be sure about Tolkien, how we do with more recent books?

There is often an assumption that canonization is a process effected predominantly... or solely... by "experts" and academics... the "cognescenti". I would suggest that a figure like Joyce... especially with Finnegan's Wake... is dependent almost exclusively upon the judgments of the cognescenti: academics and subsequent writers. Almost no one else reads him. Harold Bloom suggested that for better or worse Joyce will almost certainly end up an author studied almost wholly by specialists, like Spenser (or like Loka's Icelandic dudes). Other writers have seemingly survived... in spite of less-than-glowing assessments from the experts. Here we might include not only Tolkein... but also Alexandre Dumas, Arthur Conan Doyle, and even... in the opinion of some... E.A. Poe. We see the same in the realm of music. The cognescenti are champions for Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Ligeti, Xenakis, Boulez, etc... whom almost no one else listens to for pleasure. And then we have Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss, Aaron Copland, Puccini... even Bizet's Carmen and Mozart's Magic Flute... often dismissed by the cognescenti as trite and populist. But I'm not so certain.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

In a top 100 of great novels of all time published by The Guardian, the top 10 were

Don Quixote
Pilgrim's Progress
Robinson Crusoe
Gulliver's Travels
Tom Jones
Clarissa
Tristram Shandy
Dangerous Liasons
Emma
Frankenstein

This seems like a rather dated... and Anglo-centric list. Pilgrim's Progress? Really?

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They are English critics—do they have an obligation to center on any culture but their own? But why the distaste for Pilgrim's Progress? It would seem, or so I thought, an easy pick for one of greatest novels in English—it's never been out of print, considered the first English novel and has been translated to more than 200 languages; and it's morals seem no more dated than Robinson Crusoe's, except Bunyan's style is far more brilliant—it appears a time-less English style, always in fashion. Unless, you simply dislike the novel than, that's fine. I'm just wondering about your surprise at seeing it.

They are not just english critics, but bad critics (however, I assume this list was just misquoted here). Another englishman, in the 20's, E.M.Foster was eager to defend the superiority of french or russian novelists over english (or in english language, not sure if he considered americans and I am sure he was unware of Moby Dick), complaining the inexistence of any novel to be up with Dostoievisky, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Hugo or Balzac. Of course, the point is not how this is arguable and Joyce was coming to hit Ulysses on everyone's head, but the point is that nobody would in good sense, suggest the list of 10 best novels of all time is made of 9 english works and 1 spanish, placed there more as a guilty trip. Even if look the novels listed, even those who are remarkable on their genre at the time, like Tom Jones or Gulliver... those are really the english novels to be praised with Don Quixote? No Dickens? Really? (Hence, why, maybe the critery for this list wouldn't be exactly the "best" novels of all time...)

Stlukes

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There is often an assumption that canonization is a process effected predominantly... or solely... by "experts" and academics... the "cognescenti". I would suggest that a figure like Joyce... especially with Finnegan's Wake... is dependent almost exclusively upon the judgments of the cognescenti: academics and subsequent writers. Almost no one else reads him. Harold Bloom suggested that for better or worse Joyce will almost certainly end up an author studied almost wholly by specialists, like Spenser (or like Loka's Icelandic dudes). Other writers have seemingly survived... in spite of less-than-glowing assessments from the experts. Here we might include not only Tolkein... but also Alexandre Dumas, Arthur Conan Doyle, and even... in the opinion of some... E.A. Poe. We see the same in the realm of music. The cognescenti are champions for Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Ligeti, Xenakis, Boulez, etc... whom almost no one else listens to for pleasure. And then we have Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss, Aaron Copland, Puccini... even Bizet's Carmen and Mozart's Magic Flute... often dismissed by the cognescenti as trite and populist. But I'm not so certain.

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Well, I am guessing that much of the popularity of Tolkien is that his book is over descriptive, completely unlike Dumas or Doyle (both master of a popular formula, perhaps some of the best at it), who had a fast rythim, but mostly, a lot of dialogue to explore their aces (and maybe the reason of their canonization): over charismatic characters. Like someone named Borges would say, we can believe in Sherlock, probally we can believe in D'Argtangnan too, but, despite Joyce genius, we can believe in Molly Bloom?

I suspect tolkien managed to capture something with the description, in the mind of the modern readers, those readers over affected by visual stimulation. We may not believe in any of Tolkien characters, they are as vague, old, stranger as the medieval characters he like (maybe Loka can believe in many those characters, I think we still believe in King Artur or Lancelot because modern authors made them for us, when the french abandoned the modernization of Roland and Charles Magne, they kind got a bit of dust and lost some credibility), but maybe we can trust in his world. In the movies, it is the best part of it, fans could reckon the places (they had the care to use the classical illustration as reference as well). The artwork originated from terramedia is very rich. Maybe that is the reason, but I am of course not sure. I will let JBI to prove me wrong.

Yet, that is my point to Paul, if we are unsure with something who had already some time for us to analyse, how to do with more recent works. You can guess if a cake fresh from oven is good by tasting, so I guess to find modern classics, you need to use the gutts more than mind. There is not a real valid critery, a technique, a system...

Great topic, Paulclem.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

I don't know how you regard awards such as The Man Booker Prize, but in my opinion I think they may be a good starting point for predicting and discussing which novels may become classics. Do we focus enough on these?

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The Scottish writer A.L. Kennedy, a former Man Booker judge, claimed that the award is based on "who knows who, who's sleeping with who, who's selling drugs to who, who's married to who, whose turn it is." I'm sure that is too strong, although I'm not sure why I'm sure--Kennedy was in a position to know.

Still, it would be hypocrisy to pretend that I don't follow Man Booker or base many of my contemporary literature purchases on its judge's decisions. Last year I hurried off to buy Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries as soon as I heard that it had won. I found her prose occasionally evocative:

The storm was borne on greenish winds. It began as a coppery taste in the back of one’s mouth, a metallic ache that amplified as the clouds darkened and advanced, and when it struck, it was with the flat hand of a senseless fury.

But it was sometimes silly, and occasionally it was groaningly bad ("You say Thomas— I say Tamati" comes to mind). Some of the characters were exceptionally well drawn--the prison master and his chaplain, for example, but others seemed little more than politically-correct props whose major function was to give the book an acceptable degree of diversity. The clever structure, featuring characters changing with the planets and chapters waning with the moon, was--well, clever. But it was also dismissive of substance in favor of form. In my opinion, the sooner the post-moderns divest themselves of that Warholian nonsense the better. Give us the Byzantine plot structure if you must, but damn well finish what you start.

In other words, The Luminaries was a perfectly good book by a promising writer of serious literature. But that was all it was. I enjoyed it. I would even recommend it with only a few reservations. But its status as a Man Booker winner hardly qualifies it as--to use your term--a modern classic novel.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

I can see the problem - the mass of new novels that are written each year - but we do have a rudimentary filter. Even with this problem, it is possible to spot and study longlisted authors. This year's winner was The Narrow Road To The Deep North, which is the title of the Haiku Master Basho's famous work. The fact that the winner concerns the suffering of allied POWs whilst building the Burma railway has certainly sparked my interest. Hilary Mantel's recent two winners employ an interesting narrative style which worked very well in Wolf Hall.

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If by "rudimentary filter" you mean the Man Booker long list, I agree, again with some reservations. I dismiss the ultimate choice of the judges as irrelevant (or do I? I just bought a copy of The Narrow Road to the Deep North), but I use the long list as a guide to books that won't be a waste of my time to read (I have plenty of time, but there are more good books to read than could ever fill it). Those of us who bear the mental illness that requires us to finish a book once we start it cannot be too careful. The Kindly Ones should never happen again. Neither, speaking of Hilary Mantel, should A Place of Greater Safety :)

But the trouble with a filter is that it works both ways. There are plenty of good authors who know, sleep with, sell drugs to, or are married to the wrong people, and who are out of turn besides (or are merely American :) ). Filtering in necessarily means filtering out. That problem can be alleviated to some extent by using other filters--The Pulitzer Prize, New York Times Notable Books, etc.-- but ultimately a direct human exchange of views is preferable.

So to answer your question at long last:

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

Should we be looking at more contemporary work on these boards?

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Yes. Human beings talking beat the pants off of rudimentary filters.

But I would add that terms like "classic" and especially "canon" are unhelpful. The Luminaries is a much better book than The Three Musketeers, or The Screwtape Letters, or--God help us--The Last Days of Pompeii. It's not nearly as good as Tom Jones, The Brothers Karamazov, or War and Peace. Who cares? Rather than concocting a canon (again, filtering in and filtering out), I suggest that we read for ourselves; and that we read what we love (The Three Musketeers is a hell of a lot of fun); but push ourselves beyond what we find comfortable. But a canon is a term borrowed from ecclesiology that implies an adherence to orthodoxy rather than a free range of choice. Besides, you post-moderns should have figured out by now that orthodoxies are no fun at all. :)

And as far as "modern classics" go, isn't the term an oxymoron? A classic is a work that withstands the test of time; and no one, not even our "betters" at Man Booker, can tell us that.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

When I suggested that the Canon was sealed, I merely meant historically. No more 19th century novels are likely to achieve classic status. I'd like to be involved in discussions about classic candidates from the 20th and 21st century. I think they offer the innovation that can be found in classic novels Marbles - my intention is not to suggest that established classic literature shouldn't be read and studied - but that there is scope for discussion about how the techniques used in classic works are being innovated and improved on. In my view they are.

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In that case, yes, we should devote more time to the discussion of good modern works of literature, especially considering the sheer amount of output that's become common in our age of informed literacy, which makes it more difficult to separate wheat from the chaff.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

They are not just english critics, but bad critics (however, I assume this list was just misquoted here). Another englishman, in the 20's, E.M.Foster was eager to defend the superiority of french or russian novelists over english (or in english language, not sure if he considered americans and I am sure he was unware of Moby Dick), complaining the inexistence of any novel to be up with Dostoievisky, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Hugo or Balzac. Of course, the point is not how this is arguable and Joyce was coming to hit Ulysses on everyone's head, but the point is that nobody would in good sense, suggest the list of 10 best novels of all time is made of 9 english works and 1 spanish, placed there more as a guilty trip. Even if look the novels listed, even those who are remarkable on their genre at the time, like Tom Jones or Gulliver... those are really the english novels to be praised with Don Quixote? No Dickens? Really? (Hence, why, maybe the critery for this list wouldn't be exactly the "best" novels of all time...)

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Critics ranging from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Hazlitt to James had no fear of comparing English novels favorably to European. English Novels were extremely popular, even in Europe, throughout the 19th century. And after F. R. Leavis, I didn't think anyone seriously questioned English's reputable place in novel-writing—apparently there still are some who do. La Monde filled their top ten with 7 French works and I'm sure any reputable Spanish newspaper would do the same—cultural bias towards one's language is natural. After all, how do you judge the literary merit of a novel if you can't read it in it's original language? Chances are there are few people who speak both Russian, Spanish and French.

And has for Don Quixote, how many Spanish novels compare with that? How Many Spanish novels are actually read that weren't written in the last 60 years?

Reading living authors is a suckers game. Say you find someone you like. You read their stuff. Then you wait for the next book to come out. And you wait. And you wait. And you wait. Meanwhile, I still have stuff from the middle ages and the Eastern Canon to read.

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Originally Posted by Aere Perennius

Critics ranging from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Hazlitt to James had no fear of comparing English novels favorably to European. English Novels were extremely popular, even in Europe, throughout the 19th century. And after F. R. Leavis, I didn't think anyone seriously questioned English's reputable place in novel-writing—apparently there still are some who do. La Monde filled their top ten with 7 French works and I'm sure any reputable Spanish newspaper would do the same—cultural bias towards one's language is natural. After all, how do you judge the literary merit of a novel if you can't read it in it's original language? Chances are there are few people who speak both Russian, Spanish and French.

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You are completely missing the point. It is not about the popularity, or comparing the english novels to french novels or whatsoever. It is about what you call normal, the bias. It is also absolutely normal that someone, as Stlukes did, to point out that bias and say how naked they were. Also, it is absolutely normal to show how unreasonable a bias can be. You are basically acting as if you are a soldier stopping the little kid to say "the king is nude", because it is normal to be naked and it is very unreasonable of the little boy to be reasonable. And as I said, that list i kind of threw here, perhaps completly out of the context.

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And has for Don Quixote, how many Spanish novels compare with that? How Many Spanish novels are actually read that weren't written in the last 60 years?

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Verry few works compare with Quixote, but what is the point? The way the list was presented, Quixote was placed there as the only non english novel as a nod to tradition, rather than anything else. I suppose, however, that Tyrant Lo Blanch and Lazarillo Tormes still read, since they are published and translated until those days.

And of course, not nitpickin the 60 years limit you proposed, but even the "realism magic" founding novel (El reino de este mundo by Alejo Carpentier) is older than this. But absolutely relevant.

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

Reading living authors is a suckers game. Say you find someone you like. You read their stuff. Then you wait for the next book to come out. And you wait. And you wait. And you wait. Meanwhile, I still have stuff from the middle ages and the Eastern Canon to read.

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A living author might have written dozens of novels, scores of short stories, and a variety of other scribblings. Although it is true that (say) Phillip Roth might still write something else, his output already far exceeds Jane Austen's.

It seems to me that one point of the canon is to give fans of literature some common ground for discussion. I looked at National Book Award winners and Booker Prize winners (for novels). I've read 11 of the winners from the past 30 years (11/60). If I look at some list of 100 greatest novels of all-time, I've generally read 60 or more (and I've never studied literature). There's a good chance I'll find some takers here at litnet if I initiate a discussion about Anna Karenina, or The Red and the Black, or Barchester Towers. I might have less luck if I talk about "The Good Lord Bird", James McBride's excellent 2013 National Book Award winner.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

You are completely missing the point. It is not about the popularity, or comparing the english novels to french novels or whatsoever. It is about what you call normal, the bias. It is also absolutely normal that someone, as Stlukes did, to point out that bias and say how naked they were. Also, it is absolutely normal to show how unreasonable a bias can be. You are basically acting as if you are a soldier stopping the little kid to say "the king is nude", because it is normal to be naked and it is very unreasonable of the little boy to be reasonable. And as I said, that list i kind of threw here, perhaps completly out of the context.



Verry few works compare with Quixote, but what is the point? The way the list was presented, Quixote was placed there as the only non english novel as a nod to tradition, rather than anything else. I suppose, however, that Tyrant Lo Blanch and Lazarillo Tormes still read, since they are published and translated until those days.

And of course, not nitpickin the 60 years limit you proposed, but even the "realism magic" founding novel (El reino de este mundo by Alejo Carpentier) is older than this. But absolutely relevant.

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You are bringing up points and then saying that "it's not about that." I never disagreed with pointing out the bias but only the fact that they have no obligation to usurp it (and I wasn't saying St. Luke's explicitly or implicitly said that, either). I don't consider cultural bias unreasonable, only inevitable. Any list will have it's bias.

You brought up Don Quixote and said "what English novel compares to that?" And I don't understand the "60 year" comment...I said their aren't really any Spanish novels that weren't written around 60 years ago that are widely popular in the West as a whole. This is just my perspective, but I could be wrong

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Originally Posted by Aere Perennius

You are bringing up points and then saying that "it's not about that." I never disagreed with pointing out the bias but only the fact that they have no obligation to usurp it (and I wasn't saying St. Luke's explicitly or implicitly said that, either). I don't consider cultural bias unreasonable, only inevitable. Any list will have it's bias.

You brought up Don Quixote and said "what English novel compares to that?" And I don't understand the "60 year" comment...I said their aren't really any Spanish novels that weren't written around 60 years ago that are widely popular in the West as a whole. This is just my perspective, but I could be wrong

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100 Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, The General in his Labyrinth all by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes, 2666 by Roberto Bolano, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, etc.

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Originally Posted by mortalterror

100 Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, The General in his Labyrinth all by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes, 2666 by Roberto Bolano, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, etc.

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Thank you? I didn't need examples but these were all written within 60 years from today...Also The Alchemist is Portuguese, but that's okay. I mean, if you can think of some widely-read Spanish novels before 1950 than thank you, but none of these qualify. It's really a minor point and has nothing to do with this thread, so actually best not to ponder it.

I did listed novels in spanish that are widely-read, older than 60 years and I will not go further, because there is more than enough, because as I said ,the members of south americam boom, the magic realism, etc were all older than 60 years...

And no, I didn't asked which English Novel compare to Don Quixote, I questioned the novels in the list, which are, as pointed, not even a good list of english novels (really, no Dickens?). There is not point in the list, the bias is so obvious and unreasonable (there may be reasonable bias, but not one as such as the list) that how it can be used as an argument. That is the point.

There are lots of top ten/hundred lists (see here). I only chose that one because it illustrated a point I was trying to make. I agree that reading a British newspaper's top 100 book list is like reading a list of top 100 footballers of all time (that's soccer players to you). They tend to be rather over-represented with British players, while Italian or Argentine lists would be completely different.

I just thought that I may add Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. A spanish writer who was very popular at the beginning of 20th century. I don’t think he is so popular now, but I suppose many people at least heard about The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, because of the adaptation made by Hollywood.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

I did listed novels in spanish that are widely-read, older than 60 years and I will not go further, because there is more than enough, because as I said ,the members of south americam boom, the magic realism, etc were all older than 60 years...

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I'll end this and say that I don't consider any of those texts to be widely read (some of them I don't even consider novels), even in Spain, but you're experience may be somehow different. This is a silly point, one that you said yourself didn't matter so let's not continue it.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

And no, I didn't asked which English Novel compare to Don Quixote, I questioned the novels in the list, which are, as pointed, not even a good list of english novels (really, no Dickens?). There is not point in the list, the bias is so obvious and unreasonable (there may be reasonable bias, but not one as such as the list) that how it can be used as an argument. That is the point.

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I think I get your point: the list leaves out what you think are deserving novels and does not incline towards your own bias, therefore it is there is no point to it. I think that ends the discussion as there is nothing I can really argue against that.

However, I would like to hear your definition of reasonable bias. That sounds interesting.

It is a reasonable bias to suppose Brazil have a lot of the best football players ever, considering that it is the most succesfull footballing nation. One could overated the brazilians based on this. However, it was very unreasonable spaniards to claim the same because their amazing succes in the recent years. Of course, the bias towards Dickens being mentioned among 10 best english novelist is quite reasonable, not because it is mine, of course.

It is like, how unreasonable that you are arguing 3 novels from spain are not widely read when they are translated to Brazil for example, going way beyond their fronteirs.

I must agree with JCamilo with regards to the bias I sense from the list:

In a top 100 of great novels of all time published by The Guardian, the top 10 were

Don Quixote
Pilgrim's Progress
Robinson Crusoe
Gulliver's Travels
Tom Jones
Clarissa
Tristram Shandy
Dangerous Liasons
Emma
Frankenstein

Pilgrim's Progress is not exactly a book that gets mentioned or studied much today. The most recent book in the list dates from the Romantic period... nothing from the late 19th century... let alone the 20th century. Don Quixote seems but a nod to the non-English world. Dangerous Liasons? That one I can't figure out for the life of me. Zola, Flaubert, Balzac, Stendhal and Prousr (among others) would have offered a greater example of non-British European literature. But what are we to make of a list of the 10 that places something as esoteric as Thomas Love Peacock's Nightmare Abbey above anything by Dickens, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky... any Russian, American, or German writer.

No, there can be no truly representative "Top Ten" list... but certainly almost any semi-literate person can come up with something more balanced with little effort:

1. Don Quixote- Cervantes
2. Madame Bovary- Flaubert
3. War & Peace- Tolstoy
4. The Brothers Karamazov- Dostoevsky
5. In Search of Lost Time- Proust
6. Lawrence Sterne- Tristram Shandy
7. Lolita- Nabokov
8. Moby Dick- Melville
9. Doctor Faustus- Thomas Mann
10. A Tale of Two Cities- Dickens

I suspect most here can do as well.

I can see some vallue on Dangerous liaisons, but who with any sanity will pretend hugo, balzac,flaubert sequence has huger impact on the world of novels unlike anything else since rabelais in france. go figures...

Yeah, nevermind, I'll just let this go—I'll agree to disagree. Checking this thread on this site is becoming a pain. For some reason my browser won't remember my password?

Looking at the list of essential 21st century books selected by 'Die Zeit',

2000 Smith, White Teeth
2000 Esterhazy, Celestial Harmonies
2002 Pamuk, Snow
2003 Modiano, Accident Nocturne
2004 Enquist, The Book about Blanche and Marie
2005 Kehlmann, Measuring the World
2005 Nadas, Parallel Stories
2008 Tokarczuk, Bieguni
2008 Tellkamp, The Tower
2009 NDiaye, Three Strong Women

I am quite confident that Nadas's Parallel Stories and A Book of Memories will be canonized. Many have called him the successor of Proust and Musil which certainly indicates that he is a colossal talent. I haven't read the rest on the list yet.