Old Classics or New Literature?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paulclem

Good points. I think the one about a body of work is interesting as we haven't really touched on it, though we skirted the issue a bit when discussing Cormac McCarthy.

I suppose it depends. Dickens clearly has a well known body of work, but there are authors like Melville for whom only one is regarded as a classic. Maybe Don Delillo's work will qualify.

By the way, from this thread we started the Nominations for modern classics thread where the intention is to recommend modern works as potential classics. I, personally, am bored by the extensive lists of books that are regularly posted in response to questions. They often don't say very much about what really recommends the books.

I'm much more interested in why posters nominate certain books in terms of ideas, narrative form and other stylistic features. I think it adds a bit more depth to the discussion.

Ahhh, I posted over there but didn't really explain my nominations very well. I will have to edit it later. Plus I forgot a few :)
I like this topic, and I think it is relevant. I like to connect modern authors with the ones that came before them, which is probably a silly exercise, but when I read Steinbeck I always think of Dickens. I think the classics deal with things that are universal and timeless. When the books start to lose relevance to the current age, it creates a void that new authors step in to fill. Farewell to Arms may or may not be the classic WWI story, but is it relevant in the same way to the Vietnam generation? The Iraq War generation? Doubtful. So insert Tim O'Brien and maybe someday Phil Klay.
So I guess what I'm saying is, more than anything else, it is how modern books connect on an emotional level to people and events that will determine their future status.