Old Classics or New Literature?

[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.

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.

[stlukesguild]

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.

[stlukesguild]

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.

[JCamilo]

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.

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?

[stlukesguild]

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.

[Aere Perennius]

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?

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.

[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...)

Stlukes

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.

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...

[Pompey Bum]

Great topic, 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?

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.

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.

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:

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

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.

[Marbles]

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.

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.

[Aere Perennius]

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...)

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?

[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.

[JCamilo]

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.

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.

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?

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.

[Ecurb]

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.

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.

[Aere Perennius]

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.

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

[mortalterror]

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

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.