Sorry for the lack of post yesterday. Busy busy day.
Here’s one for tomorrow’s history books: which authors will we be reading 50 years from now?
This is a tricky question, because who is famous today is not necessarily who will be remembered by the scholars. Many of the authors we most associate with a time period, such as Melville and Faulkner, were not the most popular or famous writers of their own time. THE GREAT GATSBY wasn’t even F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most popular or best-reviewed book.
So who do you think is writing books that will stand the test of time?
JK Rowling
Diana Gabaldon
Jasper Fforde
Susanne Clarke
Louisa Burton
for Romance:
Georgette Heyer
Lisa Kleypas
Judith McNaught
Jo Beverley<--Canadian
Eloisa James
Julia Quinn
(funny, they’re all historical)
Of course this is JMO
And as a Canadian–I’d think Robertson Davies and Timothy Findley and Margaret Atwood.
me
Nabokov’s Lolita; McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes; and Erica Jong’s (zipless) Fear of Flying.
And until the end of time, pre-pubescent girls everywhere will read the Judy Blume staple, “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret”
I sense a theme, here…
Stephen King and JK Rowling both seem like they’ll be very widely remembered.
Then, there’s always the bible.
Cormac McCarthy. And not just BLOOD MERIDIAN.
I think Stephen King will be thought of later as the Anthony Trollope of our generation. Long-winded, appreciated by a few in the future(for different reasons than Trollope), but unfortunately forgotten by much of the literary establishment. I think great description and characterization- and story and some minor thematic triumphs here and there- aren’t enough to get you remembered if you’re so linked to genre(even though King stepped out of it and defied it in quite a few places). Of course, remembered in the mainstream establishment, as opposed to horror. Horror critics have been talking about the Gothic for years and years, extending theory to Beowulf and ancient myths.
A few people may still remember McMurtry for The Last Picture Show and Lonesome Dove. I hope.
Alice Walker, Philip Roth Maybe John Grisham
MacEwan, Chabon, Roth, Updike, Atwood, Oates, Brett Easton Ellis, Kingsolver, and James Frey.
All for different reasons.
And King, of course. He is The King.
Peace, Linda
Oh, and Tom Wolfe.
For literature classes, I think whoever the academics think worthy to read and talk about will be read in classes.
For pure enjoyment, I think whoever we guide our children to read. I got a lot of my first book recommendations from my parents, and I imagine that I will recommend books I loved to my own children. And so on and so forth.
On that reason alone, I imagine a lot of the next generation will be reading Rowling, since their parents enjoyed her story so much.
@natalie – Good point. Did you know they are using Harry Potter for University curriculum? I can’t remember which university but I do know that it is being used in a class looking at ‘christian themes’ and the debate on it and what have you.
I don’t think all of Stephen King will survive. I think he might end up like Alfred Hitchcock – a handful of his work will be considered really, really important, and the rest of it will end up in the 99-cent bins. (Of course, in 50 years, those might be the 99-dollar bins.)
(And for the record, I’m not much of a Stephen King/horror reader.)
I would have to say Ian McEwan. Especially Atonement! I loved it!
Also, even though it already IS 50+ years old, East of Eden from John Steinbeck. Another great read.
https://www.
comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/index.html
What will people be reading in 50 years? The archives of Nathan Bransford’s blog posts, of course!
I mean, duh.
Definitely J.K. Rowling! I mean, come on, boy wizards never go out of style.
Richard Price
Pete Dexter
James Salter
Daniel Woodrell
Laurie King
Lee Child
and please god, at least three of my authors!
Whichever author has gone through the most emotional angst without ever being recognised for their greatest works before undergoing a horrible death.
Sorry I sound morbid. But I feel these authors are the ones who are most recognized. Past authors who made achievements in having the most wonderous and imaginative of writing styles never seem to get a chance to wallow in the riches and praise they should have received from the people in their generation.
I believe society will be reading the same classics in fifty years from now as they were fifty years ago. Powerful writing is timeless.
Paulo Coelho
Khaled Hosseini
Nicholas Sparks
Mitch Albom
Those are some I could see being used educationally.
I know this definitely will not be a very popular choice, but I will never stop reading Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. The themes and concepts he deals with and the way he presents them are just plain awesome. I dont think we’ll ever stop quoting Tyler Durden.
I remember a few years ago some newspaper or magazine had written a “100 future classics” article and it had sparked alot of discussion. One dissenting voice called the whole venture foolish because we really can’t accurately predict such a thing, and much of what becomes a classic is reflective of the society and it’s current socio-economic state.
I think that Moby Dick was one of many examples cited. I don’t really remember. But you only have to look at the Shakespeare/Jonson example to see that what is popular at the time, does not necessarily stand the test of time. I’ve studied Jonson in school, I think he’s a brilliant playwrite, but I would never willingly pick up one of his works for the sheer enjoyment of it. Shakespeare on the other hand is both brilliant and enjoyable. And it’s not just because he wrote plays that any bum on the streets of London could understand in his time, but because he wrote about universal themes and more so stated them with such wit and clarity and beauty that he still has no rival.
Further to that I really resent the people who seem to believe that English Lit. classes force boring and uninteresting works on students. These works are classics for a reason. They may demand more of your concentration and attention then you may be used to or willing to give, but the day that popfiction is taught in schools, is the day my future children are homeschooled.
Anyways, my personal picks:
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Umberto Eco
Cormac McCarthy
Margaret Atwood
Micheal Ondatje
Neil Gaiman
And I suspect many, many science fiction novels will make it through the decades as well.
We’ll be eating each other in 50 years, not reading books. Just ask Ted Turner.
I think J.K. Rowling, for sure, and not just because of the impact she has now. Or…related to it, I guess, but…this is hard to explain.
Most of her first readers were kids. As popular as the books became with adults, the first readers were kids. Those kids, especially the ones who’ve been in it since book one, have grown up with Harry Potter. That’s a huge influence. In 50 years, those kids might be parents and grandparents, with war stories: “When I was your age, we had to wait two years to find out what the seventh Horcrux was! And we had to wait in crowded Books-a-Millions for hours to get our hands on the new books!”
In short, I think she’ll stand the tests of time, but not on accident. Her hardcore fans won’t let Harry Potter die.
A set I personally won’t let die would be Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy, which I think are better-written than Harry Potter (and that’s saying something). Seeing as they’re not all that widespread and popular right now, though, it’s hard to tell.
@miri- I agree. Also though, parents reading to their kids.
This question got me thinking about what I was reading way back when. I’m 43, so I can only go back about 35 years, but that’s still a respectable amount of time. The first scifi/fantasy book I ever read was Romance of Atlantis by Taylor Caldwell and it made me fall in love with the genre. I kept my copy for 3 decades, plus some. Or so I thought, because I couldn’t find it this morning when I looked for it. In a near panic, I searched Amazon and Barnes & Noble and I discovered that it’s out of print. So I bought a paperback and a hardcover copy. The point is, everybody has a favorite book, and it might not be a title that would impress anybody when you mention it, and they might even snicker at you, but as long as there’s somebody who is willing to shell out $250.00 for a first edition of their favorite book, whatever it is, it will still be around in 50 years. As for the books that’ll have their own college courses in 2058, well, I was an English major and I read a lot of lofty books that I’d be proud to name drop, and half of them put me to sleep.
And Dave F., lots of people remember who Jacqueline Susann and Harold Robbins are, you and I included, and you can still buy them on Amazon. Valley of the Dolls, well into it’s 40th decade now, is $11.00.
In response to the bestseller list of 1958: “Doctor Zhivago” and, especially “Lolita” are the only ones still being read and discussed.
Interesting on the non-fiction: I don’t believe *any* of those books are being read now. Fiction is often accused of being “irrelevant” but beyond certain historians and those of us researching the non-fiction books of the 2000s for our novels, who’s the hell’s going to reread “Treason” by Ann Coulter? Even the good nonfiction books about the Iraq debacle will likely be supplanted by updated histories (Exception “Rise of the Fall of the Third Reich” by William L. Shirer, written over forty years ago is considered by some to still be the best introductory text about Germany and World War II.)
As for those of our time who will last: I only know those I would *like* to last: Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow”; “Ghost Story” by Peter Straub; Ramsay Campbell’s fiction. “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry . . . there are others, but I’ve talked too long.
I had forgotten about Lonesome Dove. That’s a good pick.
Just for some perspective, I mentioned the 1958 list to my husband, who is himself well-read, and he said, “Doctor Zhivago was a book?”
What will be our future classics? I vote for the works of David Foster Wallace. Don DeLillo. Toni Morrison. Denis Johnson. Zadie Smith. I think The Corrections is terrific and will stand the test of time.
Eleven Future Fitzgeralds (or Spillanes or Kerouacs or Lovecrafts)
Elmore Leonard
Ian McEwan
Joyce Carol Oates
Jack Ketchum
Ed McBain
Cormac McCarthy
Richard Matheson
Ray Bradbury
Larry McMurtry
Harry Crews
Stephen King
(Jonathan Janz)
Nathan,
I just love this question. It’s something I think about and wonder about.
There are four types of books I can think of that make it into the ranks of timelessness.
1. Books that convey a message that is timeless. Hero stories such as Harry Potter fall into that category.
2. Books that are significant due to context. So, imagine that you are a literature professor a hundred years from now. Based on what’s being written right now, what would you tell your students to read to help them understand what it was like to be alive in the U.S. in the mid 20th to early 21st century? Looking just at the U.S. as an example, many books draw a picture of our culture, what it’s like to be alive at this time in this place. Pop authors like Stephen King do an excellent job of getting into the lives and psyches of Average-Joe-USA. His books show what we care about, what we fear, even what we don’t notice.
3. Books written by authors who are just brilliant. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is, I think, the greatest living author. His books will survive.
4. Books that are stylistically significant. Mary Gaitskill is a writer who has taken the baton from predecessors. She has taken stream of consciousness and brought it forward.
Looking a head 50 years I dont beleive many if any of the current 2000’s will be sitting around on the self. The books I beleive that will appear will come from the current 20 – 30 something authors who are just making thier head way into the world of writing. I think those great works will be soon to appear on our shelves once the Harry Potter crowd makes it into complete adult readers.
McCarthy and Roth certainly come to mind.
While I was reading through the list I was shocked to see how many people did not say Jodi Picoult. Hello have you people read Nineteen Minutes completely transformed my views surrounding the issue of mass shootings. I don’t think there is another author out there right now who takes a social issue and examines it the way she does.
I also would have to say Janet Fitch, although she has only written three novels every single of them is so strong and so potent that I felt myself whispering lines to myself days after completing the book.
Last but not least I really think that Alice Sebold will be read in 50 years. While she has only written two books, three if you count Lucky I feel as if everything she writes stands out and is so strong in itself that people will continue to pick it up for years to come.
I wonder if people will still dive into Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin the way many of us are still willing to give Dumas and Hugo a try unabridged.
James Patterson
Yes, that’s right – James Patterson