/lit/ - Literature

>>5446877
define classics and you'll have your answer

>>5446883
Classics, you know, like, books that will always be ranked as the greats.

>>5446877
>>5446890
Taipei

>>5446877
Infinite jest by bandana man

>>5446890

Amazingly enough books considered classics today were considered kind of shit when they first came out the majority of time.

If they were considered good when they first came out it was because they were extremely pretentious.

>What do you think will be considered classic from the past 20 years?

Dresden Files series.

>>5446890
anything by Will Self.

House of Leaves.

It has all the makings of a classic already. Makes people think, litfags of the time think it is kind of garbage, it avoids popular themes and memes, and it is a unique read.

>>5446877
Yes.

>>5446906

>>5446877
Most "classics" are part of the "canon" which was a marketing ploy to sell more books. However, this was co-opted by the academic elite and now means whatever the consensus agrees upon is a classic. Or in some cases, whatever a particularly influential individual says is. Bloom has his own canon of course.

The classics of today will more or less remain as clasic while more modern books will be classified entirely different, though not better or worse.

I think Harry potter will remain popular for a long fucking time. Its pretty much the ultimate in reading for young children.

>>5446902
I recognized that book was trash as a pothead 16 year old who browsed /x/

>>5446877
Kafka on the Shore

>>5447486
haha
>anime picture
TOP KEK

>>5447507

The Infinite Deadlock by Dmitry Galkovsky

>>5446877
Hilary Mantel probly

>>5447172
but muh dark materials :(

>>5447697
I dobut it

>>5448810
>>5447697
i haven't actually read any of her books but with two booker prizes i'd say she's got a better than average chance of being well known for another 100 years at least

Who Moved My Cheese

mason and dixon and underworld

>>5446897

>>5446897
>Amazingly enough books considered classics today were considered kind of shit when they first came out the majority of time.
not really though

>>5449015
Moby Dick was given mixed critical reviews on release and was generally ignored for over a hundred years.

Only time can tell what will be considered great.

>>5449034
wow you named one book, and funnily enough it's the exact book i thought you were thinking of

that's hardly "the majority"

>>5449034
Moby Dick is the infamous exception in that way. Tens of thousands showed up to Dostoyevsky's funeral because they all wanted to chat about what a pretentious asshole he was, right?

>>5449044
>>5449059
I wasn't the guy that said that works that were well received in their time were pretentious, that guy is a fucking moron.

I do agree with his idea that a great work can be ignored upon it's release and be recognized later by academia, though.

My vote is for pic related. One of the best books I've read in a long time.

>>5449002

Is Underworld really that good? I'm wondering because I always try to find a reason to justify committing that much time to a book.

>>5447181
how's your 17th year treatin' ya?

Kafka on the Shore by Murakami. It will be called a classic as soon as he wins the nobel peace literature science award

>>5449044
Gatsby was another book

Who is the James Joyce of this era?

>>5446883
Influential on subsequent literature.

>>5449397
litwritesabook

>>5449426
/lit/ isn't as smart as he is probably.

>>5449397
He hasn't shown himself yet. DFW maybe could have been a truly sublime writer in ten years' time if he hadn't offed himself.

>>5449434
But he has no discernible talent. Stephen King is Cervantes compared to him.

Hopefully this.

>>5449397
Kolsti Nguyen

>>5449457
He keeps talking about the little brother from Even Stevens.

>>5449477
Kolsti is basically Shia plus Kanye with a style that bridges Faulker and DFW. Shia might be the Pynchon of the era.

>>5449453
Mah nigga

From the last 20 years: Doubtful. Nothing really stands out.

From the last 40+: LOTR actually has a decent chance. It's already being taught in a few college/high school settings.

>>5449490
I read the thing he wrote and it's pretty insufferable and not very interesting or clever or well-written

The Fault in Our Stars
Harry Potter
Hungry Games

>>5446877
Considering i like to think as classics the same as a I do vintage....at least 30 years old..

no

>>5449552
Which thing?

>>5449553
Obvious b8 is obvious.

The Corrections
War & war

>>5449571
>Franzen

>>5449397
I actually know who it is but haven't heard anything from him for the past couple years.

the wind up bird chronicle
the corrections
taipei
no country for old men
bleeding edge?

>>5449197
But Gatsby IS shit.

>>5446877
I think a better question is whether "classic" will mean the same thing in 50-100 years as it has meant for the last 200 or so. Take someone like Tao Lin, who has been greeted with critical indifference almost everywhere but who has managed to stand out by being resolutely different than pretty much everyone else writing (except the people copying him). Or even David Foster Wallace--Infinite Jest got a lukewarm reception from major critical outlets and owes its reputation today largely towards individual evangelists. It's possible that the gateways to "the canon" will be so different in 100 years that we can't meaningfully speak of books as classics in the same way we can agree right now that Crime and Punishment is a classic.

>>5449653
Ingwit?

>>5449567
Although he's probably partially right in that HP was too big a phenomenon not to be considered a classic by the general populace.

>>5446877
Possibly a couple of the following:

2666 by Bolaño
Of Love and Other Demons by Gabo
Cormac McCarthy's Borderlands Trilogy
Baudolino by Umberto Eco
Something by Saramago
The Feast of the Goat or The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa
Something by Krasznahorkai
Something by Ajvaz, although that's pure wishful thinking on my part
Possibly some Alice Munro collection depending on how long it takes before literary critics and academics stop treating her like a sacred cow and realize she just writes the same type of story over and over again (people love her stuff and I have no idea why).

Again, only a possibility. I think in the future this will be identified as a great period for S. American and Central American lit that spawned many classics. Just not sure what they'll be yet.

Why do people like McCarthy?

>>5449900
Because his books are good. Plebs need not apply.
Yes, that movie was terrible. Move on.

>>5449900
Blood Meridian. Great imagery. If anything else by him is remembered in fifty years it will be "this is the author who wrote Blood Meridian, and here's some other thing he wrote."