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/lit/ - Literature

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1904830 No.1904830 [Reply] [Original]

So, /lit/, what books written after 1950 will be read 200 years from now?

>> No.1904833

Anything by Tao Lin.

>> No.1904837

Infinite Jest becomes more and more relevant.

>> No.1904839
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1904839

>> No.1904843

Not so sure, in all honesty. Maybe Dylan Thomas.

>> No.1904845

>>1904837

if by that you mean more and more idiots are reading it, then yeah.

>> No.1904848

>>1904845
You are totally right. it's way too popular now.
I only read rejected manuscripts, once a book gets published, it's not worth reading.

>> No.1904865

>>1904843
Philip Larkin as well.

Plus, Samuel Beckett's trilogy.

>> No.1904870

Terry Pratchett? I'd like to think so, anyway.
Maybe George Mackay Brown too.

>> No.1904871

>doesn't know the answer to the question
>feels bad about that
>not that bad though

>> No.1904883

John Gardner's Grendel.

>> No.1904884

Harry Potter, Stephen King, all that. A lot of the literature that survives does so due to extreme popularity.

>> No.1904900

>>1904884

Nah, not really - who reads Fanny Hill or Shamela these days? They were huge bestsellers in their time. Yeah, they're in print, but a hundred others of the same quality and popularity from the same time aren't.

Longevity is as much about luck and fashion as anything else - a lot of books we consider 'classics' these days languished in obscurity for a couple hundred years before professional academic literary criticism rescued them in the early 20th c. However, since the academy is growing all the time, this means that a lot more books will be read in the future than from the past - largely due to all the PhD theses that are going to be written about Twillight over the next 50-100 years. So sorry, /lit/ but I think that Meyers has a better chance of being read in 200 years than David Foster Wallace.

>> No.1904905

>>1904900
I think we may be in better luck than you think. A great deal of books are now digitally formatted, and with luck all of them will be free to download within 70 years. Combine this with the increasing popularity of ebook readers and I think we will see a reading renaissance.

>> No.1904929

>>1904865
>>1904843
Too obvious

>> No.1904951

Cien años de soledad

>> No.1904966

>>1904905

Too some extent I agree, but I didn't express it very well in my shambling and incoherent post. There is the possiblilty though that there will be so much literature available from the current time that it will efectively be the same as having none - the overload of digital books will be enormous, and people will still rely on the academy and the pundits and those who know to tell them what to select from the sea of data. I don't think it will change a lot in terms of what is read, but at least things won't go out of print, and they'll be available for the next vagary of fashion to resurrect.

>> No.1904970

A Prayer for Owen Meany, I should hope.
The Catcher in The Rye.

>> No.1905037
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1905037

>>1904970

>The Catcher in The Rye.

I have no words - is it possible to have one thread without this piece of shit coming up? Do Americans genuinely venerate this book so highly, or just the children?

>> No.1905044

>>1905037
>Do Americans genuinely venerate this book so highly, or just the children?
No, just Americans in high school. I seriously wish there were some way to keep the underage shitlings out.

>> No.1905046

>>1905037

just the pseudo-intellectual Americans, they'll usually name drop Catcher as their favorite book to sound like more of an intellectual hipster, even though it's really a piece of shite

>> No.1905051

>>1905046
>>1905044
>>1905037
This board is so unbelievably clueless

>> No.1905052

>>1905037 That's precisely what I am talking about in this >>1905022 thread. Teacher's like to assign it for some unfathomable reason, therefore it is popular.

>> No.1905055

>>1905051

how so? how is Catcher a good book in your opinion? To me it's just a whiny kid complaining about shit that the rest of us just go through without complaint.

>> Hey if I buy a hooker and just complain to her about shit can I be a hipster too?

>> No.1905058
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>> No.1905060

I'd have to say Invisible Man by Ellison, The Bell Jar by Plath, some of Bukowski's writings, Fahrenheit 451, among countless others.

>> No.1905067

>>1905055
Why are people so apt to cast Holden off as whiney? Perhaps I read the book differently, but I almost never see him as whining. To me, he's merely telling the world as he sees it.

>> No.1905066

>>1905037

I'm from Switzerland originally, but I spent one year in an American High School. And I can tell you that in EVERY SINGLE discussion about literature someone will mention "The Catcher In The Rye". Always.

>> No.1905069

The Dream Songs, by John Berryman - I think that will stand the test of time, but I'd never make this kind of prediction except anonymously, because predictions have the habit of making a fool of you.

Burroughs will probably continue to be studied - there's enough meat in there, with the content (and reaction to it), the breakaway style, the genre content, the sexual-political content. It's endlessly interpretable, and that's what makes a work last, imho.

inb4 shitstorm about Burroughs - I didn't say he was good or bad, but I think his work fits the pattern for the things that people continue to study and debate professionally.

In similar light, John Fowles is probably over-due a revival already. I expect he'll get one in the next century or so.

I also wonder if Chucky P. will survive - I can see future generations of teenage chuckleheads being just as struck by the oh-so-edgy Fight Club as ones today are. Then professors who want to be cool put it on the reading lists and then people do their PhDs on it and then go on to carve aout a niche in Palahniuk Studies, and bingo-bango, you're a classic.

It pretty much happened with Dickens, so maybe Chuckles can go the same way.

>> No.1905070

Infinite Jest
The Corrections
Freedom
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Cancer Ward
In the First Circle
The Gulag Archipelago
John Updike's Rabbit novels
One Hundred Years of Solitude
A Clockwork Orange
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Ham on Rye

more I don't feel like listing

>> No.1905073

Despite the fact that Catcher in the rye is shitty book, the rest of J.D Salinger other writings are f-ing Fantastic.

>> No.1905079

A Song of Ice and Fire

>> No.1905087

The Lord of the Rings

>> No.1905088

>>1905067

The strangest thing to me about the book is that it was actually written by a grown man.

a grown man who knows a lot about teenage boys, if you know what I mean

>> No.1905094

>mfw no one gets the humor of catcher in the rye
>mfw most people here of the opinion of a 60 year old pleb
>mfw people can only think on one level
>mfw people don't understand symbolism
>mfw im mad
>mfw when it hits too close to home for you

>> No.1905095

>>1905094
there is no need to get excited.

>> No.1905096

>>1905079

Unlikely

>>1905087

Unfortunately probably true.

>> No.1905100

>>1905094
>mfw i see what you did there
2/10

>> No.1905107

>>1905100
ok but my glorious points remain

>> No.1905104

>>1905088
Because he was one?

>> No.1905113
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1905113

>PhD theses that are going to be written about Twillight over the next 50-100 years

the thought of that... makes me sick

>> No.1905118

>>1905113
don't hate

>> No.1905120

>>1905094
Tybrax?

>> No.1905122

>>1905113
lol don't get too upset. phd's get earned over all kinds of stupid shite. i recently read an abstract about how people change their identity every time they go to the toilet.

>> No.1905129

>>1905122
whats so great about ph.d's then? it just seems to be 3-4 years writing a big argument about anything as stupid you want, then you get to be called doctor?

>> No.1905136

>>1905129
takes more time and work than most people want to commit. you can contribute to the frontier of knowledge too, or at least have a foot in the door to do so

>> No.1905765

>>1904848
SO EDGY

but like someone else said, the a song of ice and fire series will survive. was LOTR written post 1950? possibly. probably some William Golding, the selfish gene, this sort of stuff

>> No.1905772

>>1905765
>the selfish gene
blurg

>> No.1905784

>>1905113

You know it's going to happen - it's the way of academe.

A Wolf in Man's Clothing: Lycanthropy, Orientalism and the Depiction of 'the native' in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Series.

A Different Kind of Love: Towards a Feminist Reading of Power Relationships in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Series.

When the Vampire Feeds the Reader: Deconstructing the Character of Edward Cullen in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Series.

Fucking Mary-Sues, Mary-Sues Everywhere: Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Series in Relation to the 21st Century Fanfiction Phenomenon.

Just literally pulling them out of my arsehole - imagine the stuff people will come up with to get a scholarshi[/tenure.

>> No.1905789
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1905789

>they think people will still read books 200 years from now

>> No.1905828

>>1905055
of course it is to you. but even so, it has such a strong appeal exclusively to that age range for a good reason. i can think of very few pieces of literature that are actually appealing to every generation. the brilliance of Catcher is not the same brilliance as you would find in more mature, intellectual works like those of say, joyce or hawthorne, but instead one that has took refuge as a strongly identifiable and impressionable piece among the teenage age group. that's why it will survive; it is novel written to deeply imitate the duress (even if it is hipsterish) of being in the pubescent stage of life.

>> No.1905840
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1905840

As a piece of social and psychological history:

My Immortal

Not even joking

>> No.1905841

>>1905840explain theimage

>> No.1905848
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1905848

>>1905841

>on a literature board
>hasn't read My Immortal

I seriously hope you preps don't do this.

>> No.1905921

>>1904830
That is one of the funniest things ive ever seen in my life

>> No.1905932

>>1905037

I finished reading this crock of shit today. I thought that reading it years after being forced to read it in school would change my opinion... Still a crock of shit.

The fact that this book allowed Salinger to "retire" off of it and spend his time banging college chicks infuriates me.

>> No.1905938

Updike's Rabbit tetralogy

Maybe some Norman Mailer. Perhaps some Gore Vidal.

>> No.1905947
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1905947

>>1905938
MOTHERFUCKIN THIS

>> No.1905960

bamp

>> No.1905966

>no mentions of Bolaño
>not as single one

Oh, come on.

>> No.1905972
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1905972

>> No.1905979
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1905979

This.

Also, u mad?

>> No.1905985
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1905985

>enter thread
>everyone just posting their favorite books
>MFW

>> No.1905992

A Game of Thrones

>> No.1906798

>>1905979

Good God, the writing in this book was so atrocious but I did not care one bit. It's not often I'm so drawn in by a plot. I even read the fucking sequel.

>> No.1906908

Fight Club

>> No.1906935

>>1905037
Everyone raging against the genius that is Salinger

This is how I know the book will survive, just like every other classic that caused many "intellectuals" to rage.

>> No.1906943

The Adventures of Augie March
Geography III
Gravity's Rainbow
The Corrections & Freedom
Beloved (alas)

>> No.1906946

Let's just go full shitstorm and debate which books from 2011 will be read 200 years from now. Which books from July 2011. Which books released this week.

>> No.1906954
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1906954

>>1906943
>"alas" in re toni morrison and not johnny franzo

>> No.1906971

Cormac McCarthy's work

>> No.1906976

>>1905094
Catcher isn't good. Idk what cock your english teacher fucked you with but you liked it too much

>> No.1906982

>>1906908
Probably.
Is any of Palahniuks work any good?

>> No.1907024

>>1906976
Salinger just reels in the butthurt

>> No.1907044

>>1906982
Wait, do you really think Fight Club is going to be read 200 years in the future? Really?

>> No.1907047

>>1906971
Certainly not all of it. The Road, for instance, I think will be largely forgotten.

>> No.1907062

>"alas" in re toni morrison and not johnny franzo

I think in 50 years time, people will not be afraid to say "Toni Morrison really hates white people". This happens to be true, and it's a serious limitation on her work.

Whereas in 50 years time, people will say of Franzen that his prose was overrated during his time (it's actually pretty pedestrian) but he provides a really accurate snapshot of the last decade of the 20th century and the first of the 21st. We'll see him as a sort of earnest American Zola or something. Nothing huge, but still....those books will stay canonical, if only because nobody else seems to have attempted to capture the spirit of the Clinton-Bush era.

>> No.1907061
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1907061

This man will be hailed as a saint and a prophet. And perhaps a martyr of sorts. Plus, I've never read anything that alternately gives me an erection, and perception shattering truths in the same page. If he falls out of favor, well that's a world I don't want to see.

>> No.1907558

I expect some genre stuff will still be read. Foundation, Ender (maybe), LOTR, and Harry Potter.

>> No.1907559

Tao Lin

>> No.1907560

From the last 15 years, perhaps?

Atonement

>> No.1907564

I'd like to think some factual books will still be read; in particular, Dead Ground by Raymond Gilmour and Blackwater: The Rise of the World's most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill.

>> No.1907588

>>1907564

Er, why? Do you really think that Blackwater is significant enough to be read about in 200 years? It's a fringe concern really, and to the extent that it is important, people will not often read contemporary accounts (except a very few specialists). Nobody today reads contemporary accounts of the South Sea Bubble, and I suspect that most people haven't even heard of it.

>> No.1907599

>>1907588
Blackwater is significant, the book's about the outsourcing of military operations from the Pentagon to private agencies. As the largest of those agencies, Blackwater is an interesting model. I know I'd find the book interesting if it was set hundreds of years ago, say if it was a book called 'The White Company; the Rise of one of the World's most Notorious Mercenary Armies' or something similar.

>> No.1907604

>>1907599

That's because you're dull.

>> No.1907606

If High Fidelity isn't regarded as an important historical document regarding life in the 1990's I'll be pretty pissed off.
Its at least as good as Catcher in the Rye.

>> No.1907614

>>1907606
>Expressing interest in the practice of military science
>Dull
Please just buy a gun, a bottle of good wine, then go to a secluded place and do the decent thing.

>> No.1907616

>>1907614

The thing is, every single person on earth agrees with me except army guys. Nobody cares, brah.

>> No.1907617

Hopefully some Yellow Pages books will survive. I think that will be best and very valuable to future scholars. Think of what you can learn about our times from a phone book, especially a business directory, which also usually contains local maps, some town ordinances and other interesting bits.

>> No.1907619

>>1907616
>Military science
>'Army guys'
Please just fuck off. I'd hoped /lit/ was more or less trolling free, thanks for ruining my day.

>>1907617
It's likely we'll have electronic records, but yeah. Kind of like how the domesday book is an important record today.

>> No.1907623

Soul on ice

>> No.1907625

Isolde and Tristam is still around, so Twilight will still be around too.

>> No.1907628

>>1907619

I'm not trolling. What's the problem?

>> No.1907629

I honestly thought Blackwater was Whitewater for a minute.

>> No.1907635

MY BAAALS

Post fuckers.

>> No.1907651

Considering the way it has been in the past, the authors who wrote/published the most books have the highest chance of being read in 200 years. Just because the chance of there "survival" is higher.

That means in 200 years Stephen King and Stephanie Meyer will be like Edgar Allan Poe and (having a hard time finding a relevant female author)...Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach.

>> No.1907652

>>1907651
>of there survival
>there
I am very sorry about this. Please hit me with an hammer.

>> No.1907661

>>1907652
You know, the hammer is my penis.

But if you are fine with this...

>> No.1907664

>>1907661
A Dr.Horrible quote?

Oh, I love you /lit/.

>> No.1907669

midnights children
satanic verses