I generally agree with your sense of who will last. I was a huge Bellow fan in my 20s, but like you--and while I think he deserved his accolades--I don’t see him being a top read. Same with Updike. For me past of the reason is race and class. As a Black man, I eventually tired of the strata of people they focused on.
Several writers you don’t mention l think will continue to be read: Octavia Butler comes strongly to mind, and so does Vonnegut. In very different ways, they both get not only to a broader swath of humanity but also to human conundrums that run more deeply: our tendency toward self destruction but also our tenacious capacity for love, hope, care for one another. A third writer I would add is Ursula Le Guin, who deals in stunningly original ways with similar themes. These three are also have incredibly original writing styles. Their novels ask the big questions and none of them offer easy answers.
The welcome increased diversity of what is paid attention to as "great novels" and novelists definitely challenges some of those writers from the mid 20th century who were colossuses of an era where we just didn't have as many voices. Not to discount their work, but I feel similarly about Bellow. I tend to agree about all your choices. There's a distinctiveness to all of their work that is meaningful to why they were popular and acclaimed in their time, which I think could also lead to persistence. I think Butler's reputation has only increased since her passing. She looks like a soothsayer read in today's world.
Butler really is amazing in that regard. The other thing about Le Guin for me is the beauty of her prose. I’d heard a lot about her world building and cultural depth of her work before I read her. But I wasn’t at all prepared for the music of her writing. Her ability to render imagined times and places and people without it bogging down the fluidity of the writing amazes me. I didn’t expect it.
In looking at my list, I also realized that the three writers I mentioned all write speculative fiction. I find something mythic in all of them, and strangely that makes them more real to me. Whether it’s Vonnegut dark humor, Butler’s brutal and unflinching reality (whether aimed at past, present, future, or all three), or Le Guin’s deep examination of individuals in a range of social systems, they don’t just tell stories. They build worlds that reveal fundamental things about who *we* are or were or might be.
You mentioned three of my very favorite authors! LeGuin especially to me is one of the greatest of all time. I would venture to add Philip K. Dick to this list.
Philip K. Dick is on my short list of writers I want to explore. I’ve come to speculation late, aside from Vonnegut, and I feel like I have of very good writing to catch up on.
My very favorite PKD novel is Ubik. In a weird way, I consider it a companion to LeGuin’s The Lathe of Heaven. Man in the High Castle is also a good entry point.
LeGuin and PKD were exact contemporaries, in the same high school graduating class, although they didn’t know each other personally, however they did correspond by mail late in PKD’s life.
Chances of David Foster Wallace being remembered by segment A of the future reading population: 3-1.
Chances of segment B proclaiming at length, at parties, at funerals, projecting it onto the moon, that they've never even heard of the man, never mind read his infinite warblings: bookies are no longer taking bets.
As the owner of two used bookstores in Seattle I look at sales for these writers every day as I decide what to buy for my customers. Updike has definitely downtrended the past couple of years. Didion we buy everything we see. Ehrenreich had her time but I haven't bought a copy of Nickel and Dimed in years, though I loved it way back when. Bellow is a solid buy, day in and out, though not a barn burner. McCarthy, we buy everything always. I would make a case for Philip K. Dick, Flannery O'Connor, Philip Roth, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Lethem, and Susan Sontag. I'll leave it there.
This is fantastic data. I think Philip K. Dick has probably already passed the test, O'Connor too. I avoided speculating about still living writers, but I have to say I'd be surprised if Eugenides lasts (no shade to the man, I like his works), but I don't see the hook that keeps him part of the culture. I have similar thoughts about Lethem. Sontag is an interesting case. My gut says she'll persist. With Ehrenreich, I think there will be cyclical phases where folks periodically return to her work. I'd love to hear more about your approach and philosophy to what you decide to acquire.
I am an avid reader but I have been a merchant for over thirty years. We look at data in our buying system and also use our guts. My database tells me how many titles I've sold by an author in the past month, six months, year etc. Another interesting aspect we look at is whether it is just one or two titles of an author that sell (i.e. My Antonia, Cather) or the whole oeuvre (Faulkner).We are adjacent to the University of Washington so get a lot of students' feedback as well. I find the topic really interesting.
I would love to pour through a database like that sometime. I find these patterns fascinating. I love that there's still a gut element to it, though. I think it's not only unavoidable, but desirable. We often choose the books to read for ourselves with our guts, why not do the same when choosing which books to sell?
If you're ever in Seattle, come by Magus Books. Yes, if buying was just using the technology, anyone could do it. But you'd miss current trends, understanding when lower sales are due to stock outs etc etc. We train our buyers for years before they are truly competent.
I see NO African American writers here. This is plain and simple what I call the blotto biggotry of the upper echelons of the white middle to upper middle class reading public.
Can any of you find a more daring,boldy=plotted and superbly written novel than Toni Morrison's Beloved? Same goes for poetry- while all canonnaders prattle about the prissy pantheon of Eliot,Pound, Wallace Stevens, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth to the tiers of the highest tedium,STILL,with too many intraansigent college Engllsh teac allowing a few newcomers ito theircurricuums yet barely cognizant of the poetry revolution of the lasttwent years led by black, Latinoox, Asian America and Native American bringing a decade of someof therichest, most innvative and plain damexubeantAmerican poetry. This includes veteran and new African American poets led by the GREATS- Gwendolyn Brooks, Sterling A.Brown, LangstonHughes,MelvinTolson (he of the dynamic film The Great Debaters),Robert Hayden, Lucille Clifton, MarilynNelson, Elizabeth Alexander,Cornelius Eady,Patricia Smith, Douglas Kearney, Tyrhimba Jess, Cornelius Eady, Danez Smith, Joshua Bennet, Clint Smith, Evie Shockley, and, as they say on many places - much mulch mawaa. tbc bbs
Short-story writers, I would think, have a better chance of enduring for eons than War & Peace types. So, Hemingway is an example of one who will endure. He wrote plenty of long form stuff, but also those 5- to 10-minute reads that appeal to short attention span sensibilities.
I disagree with you regarding the lasting impact of Saul Bellow. I recently was given a copy, and then read, Humboldt's Gift. Wow! While there was a lot to plow through, the effort was well worth it. So, maybe the complexity and length of the book will discourage future readers, but his reflections within the story as it progressed were fascinating and relevant even today.
I purposefully avoided still living writers in my list, but I King will be an interesting case given the scope of his work, and his huge popularity. Though, there's many examples of similarly popular writers in their time who are not widely read (or read at all, today). What is it about King's work that makes you think it will endure?
I think his themes are complex and universal, but also easy to understand. He doesn't shy away from gray characters, making them a lot more "real" than many within the horror genre (at least during the time - as you point out with other classic authors (the eminent dead you discuss here), they tend to influence present and future authors, though, so their impact is often lost.
I don't think King's impact will be forgotten any time soon.
I also think we are evolving the way we tell stories. Shakespeare had the play, Dickens had the novel, and today we have TV and movies. King has transitioned quite well across these new media, more or less seamlessly (minus a few notoriously awful screen adaptations like Salem's Lot the TV show, or Lawnmower Man -- remember that tragedy?).
I'm not like a King superfan, but I once was, and if you're interested in exploring this idea a bit more in a collaborative piece of sorts, I'd be interested and intrigued. I fear there's too much to say in a comment like this.
I think Pessoa has already passed the test, having been forgotten for a while and then reintroduced to the world. Beyond the work itself, his playing around with identity/persona, I think, will be of serial interest to people who write and study literature.
I confess that I finally decided that Bellow is on the list of writers I'm going to read after I die. It's not that I doubt his greatness; it's just that I've read enough mid-20th century men authors for my 47 years on this planet. There are a lot of great writers out there (including some on your list) that I haven't gotten to yet, and that's where I think I'd like to spend the last half of my life.
I'd agree on Didion, though only for her essays, not her fiction (I might include James Baldwin in that category as well). I'd add Salinger (for Catcher in the Rye) and Thoreau (for Walden and a few essays). And yes, prizes are, I'd guess, more a representation of zeitgeist than of longevity or quality* (I'm looking at you, Gone With the Wind).
*I know, I know, I'm always arguing against the concept of "quality," but I truly cannot express my loathing of Gone With the Wind.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand your numerical notation. For Morrison you use "1:2", then you switch to dashes like "10-1". Is "1:2" 50%? Then what's "10-1"? Is that 10%.
Anyway, if you changed this to actual percentages (of being remembered and read in 50 years) I think that'd be much clearer.
I dunno. I guess I like betting parlance where 1:2 means betting $2 would result in a win of only one additional dollar, suggesting a high likelihood of occurrence. It just struck me as more arbitrarily fun than putting down percentages.
Works the other way around too. Ninety years ago serious literary tastemakers considered P. G. Wodehouse a commercially successful hack who turned out reams of silly, forgettable twaddle. Today he is judged as one of the greatest stylists who ever wrote in English. Who could have predicted that?
Nice to see Barbara Ehrenreich on this list! I've read almost all of her books and her intellectual range is vast. From poverty to violence to gender relations to joy to death to middle-class malaise to psychology - the issues she wrote about are neither going out of style nor likely to be resolved.
I'd add James Baldwin to the list. I am always struck by how little has changed, at least with regard to his essays, every time I read one. And he is so breathtakingly talented and astute.
I'd also suggest Jose Saramago, but maybe that is wishful thinking on my part. His writing is so out of place and out of time that it could often be any place at any time, which might help with longevity? I see Blindness being relevant and modern forever; but I also see the pool of readers willing to engage with his style probably shrinking, so!
Alice Munro maybe? Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
What a fun post and question, thank you for sharing!
Personally, I would judge Baldwin and also Marquez as likely already in the permanent pantheon. I mean, you never know, but Baldwin passed away quite a while ago now and in so many ways his reputation has only grown. Marquez is the leading figure of an entire literary movement. I can't imagine him disappearing.
Munro and Saramago are interesting cases. Both obvious giants in their day, but as you note, Saramago offers a challenge. And Munro being a short story writer cuts both ways in that she's widely read in anthologies, but there's no single book that stand above the fray as the one that must be read.
This is a little late to the comment thread, but germs shared by grandchildren slow you down. And it is the children's authors I came to comment on. Eric Carle will be forever on any bookshelf of any parent, grandparent, or anyone reading to a young child. Timeless. Yesterday I engaged in a conversation about the quality of children's books. There are many which are "instructional" in nature and do not engage either the child or the reader. While others, well-written, engaging, and subtle, get the same "instructional" point across with joy and simplicity in language. Think of Green Eggs and Ham in encouraging a child to try something new, maybe add Theodor Geisel to your list!
Bellow is one of the most overrated writers in American literature who wrote three above average novels- Augie March, The Victim, and Seize The Day. Henderson the Rain King was ridiculous, one more racist farce of a white writer using a third world country- as Updike did, as Robert Stone did, as Russell Banks did, as even a superior writer- Graham Greene did, all using their idea of countries about which they were clueless to form a colorful backdrop for their male protagonist's tepid agonies which in Bellow's case often seemed to migrate to various toilets where I guess,like many male in and if ciure thesedays wecan howhim twoto three.tellectuas, he found a place that was a good fit where hecould brood and laterm make his infamous remark during the student protest cultura and racial wars of the late sixties involving King's discovery of the unfulfilled promisory note, " SHOW ME THE AFRICAN PROUST" And I can with at least three African writers- Achebe, Ngugi Wa' Thiongo, Tutuola,, Ousmane Sembene of Senegal and if you include Egypt as an African company, Mahfouz.
There are at least three Jewish fiction writers who are far better than Bellow or his fatuous pal Phillip Roth- Edward Lewis Wallant, Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, and the author who, for pure writing- sentence by sentence by paragraph, is for my money one of the top four craftspeople in the USA, like Bach with a pen
I dont know if you know Wallant's work.He wrote four novels and died young. His most welknown book is The Pawnbroker, made into a rare movie that combines elegy and bareknuckles.
Grace Paley is one of the great chroniclers of NewYorkCity Jewish,Italian and Irish families. Great ear,inimicabledialogue magically paced and cadenced . Ozick has writtenat least two novels of an enduring literary legacies- hertechnically expeimental short novel about the Holocaust "TheShawl" and the brazen baffling exploration of education- The Cannibal Galaxy that remains on the higher gifted list ofAmerican novels never taught because the universities and mostctics dont read beyond what the major publishers tell them to read - most are so timidly slavish. To becontinued. Consider this too: the greatest Jewish-American writers are the poets and some of the best Jewih American poets dont get the respect and adulationthey deserve. I am talking about Muriel Rukeyser and her. legendary poem"To Be A Jew', also Denise Levetov, Alicia Ostriker, and Naomi Replansky who recently passed away at 102. I just got my latest copy of Poets and Writers. Did they include Replansk, leftist author of Ring Song, and Dangeroous World? No.
why is that? more in afewdays;I have some deadlines for putting out my first book ofpoetry.
You have interesting things to say, but just a thought, you might get more people to engage with what you say (if that's what you desire, and maybe it isn't) if your tone were a bit less openly hostile to the opinions of others.
that has been true my entire life. I dont know what your college experience was like but mine was an almost constant battle with professors who were far more hostile and instransigentE-Freudian,Jungian,and Existentialism, to be then followed by a sliver ofMarxism
With the exception of writing courses where we were required to offer our critique comments of other students' work, I don't think I said more than six words in class over the course of four years. Not attending lots of classes had a role in that, but mostly, I just didn't care about whatever it was they were talking about.
John, that is EXACTLY what am talkiing about. Where did you go to school? I am taking up a memory-collection of people. I want to expose how so many collleges prattle about 'critical thinkking, but in the reality of their classrooms expect shut mouths and lowered hands. I wonder what all thevaunted semiologists would say about THAT. Also what was your major? If it was English do you mean to tell me that you were not utterly enamoured of their lectures about Dryden and Pope and Byron and Meredith and every other second to third rate Brit that was thebane of thousands who mainly wanted to write our florid imations of Yeats and Joyce and Blake and, the more daring of us Ginsberg and have a sexy beautiful partner and adulation of our campus and beyond ie " Dear John Warner, on behalf of Johhny Carson we'd like to invite you to a Marathon Poetry convention where you will be able to read your entire work. This comes with a modest stipend of #300,OO) and all the smoked ham you can eat. Sincerely, Leslie Trilling from you know where, and it aint The National Pork Rind Society of London.
I should probably try Bellow again, but when I have tried, I have found his gaze to be too male for me. Hope that makes sense. I’ll take Morrison, Le Guin, Butler, and Hurston anytime over Bellow, Updike, and Roth. I realize that this is my taste, not everyone’s.
more than you think I' will bet. Let me recommend some writers. If you like or love poetry, check out these international poets- Mahmoud Darwish and Samir Al Qasim of palestine, Pablo Neruda of Chile, Vasko Popa of Serbia, Paul Eluard of France, Hyesoon Kim of South Korea who may be the finest ecological surrealist of our time,Eavan Boland's (Ireland) luminous wokin The Lost Island, okot 'Biitek's (Uganda) legendary arguing couple in Song of Lawino. For those seeking a very unique reading list, writemeat erbrill69@gmail.com
II have ben avidly reading for over half a century so why not benefit frm my work and share?
I generally agree with your sense of who will last. I was a huge Bellow fan in my 20s, but like you--and while I think he deserved his accolades--I don’t see him being a top read. Same with Updike. For me past of the reason is race and class. As a Black man, I eventually tired of the strata of people they focused on.
Several writers you don’t mention l think will continue to be read: Octavia Butler comes strongly to mind, and so does Vonnegut. In very different ways, they both get not only to a broader swath of humanity but also to human conundrums that run more deeply: our tendency toward self destruction but also our tenacious capacity for love, hope, care for one another. A third writer I would add is Ursula Le Guin, who deals in stunningly original ways with similar themes. These three are also have incredibly original writing styles. Their novels ask the big questions and none of them offer easy answers.
The welcome increased diversity of what is paid attention to as "great novels" and novelists definitely challenges some of those writers from the mid 20th century who were colossuses of an era where we just didn't have as many voices. Not to discount their work, but I feel similarly about Bellow. I tend to agree about all your choices. There's a distinctiveness to all of their work that is meaningful to why they were popular and acclaimed in their time, which I think could also lead to persistence. I think Butler's reputation has only increased since her passing. She looks like a soothsayer read in today's world.
Butler really is amazing in that regard. The other thing about Le Guin for me is the beauty of her prose. I’d heard a lot about her world building and cultural depth of her work before I read her. But I wasn’t at all prepared for the music of her writing. Her ability to render imagined times and places and people without it bogging down the fluidity of the writing amazes me. I didn’t expect it.
You said Ursula Le Guin.
In looking at my list, I also realized that the three writers I mentioned all write speculative fiction. I find something mythic in all of them, and strangely that makes them more real to me. Whether it’s Vonnegut dark humor, Butler’s brutal and unflinching reality (whether aimed at past, present, future, or all three), or Le Guin’s deep examination of individuals in a range of social systems, they don’t just tell stories. They build worlds that reveal fundamental things about who *we* are or were or might be.
You mentioned three of my very favorite authors! LeGuin especially to me is one of the greatest of all time. I would venture to add Philip K. Dick to this list.
Philip K. Dick is on my short list of writers I want to explore. I’ve come to speculation late, aside from Vonnegut, and I feel like I have of very good writing to catch up on.
My very favorite PKD novel is Ubik. In a weird way, I consider it a companion to LeGuin’s The Lathe of Heaven. Man in the High Castle is also a good entry point.
LeGuin and PKD were exact contemporaries, in the same high school graduating class, although they didn’t know each other personally, however they did correspond by mail late in PKD’s life.
Chances of David Foster Wallace being remembered by segment A of the future reading population: 3-1.
Chances of segment B proclaiming at length, at parties, at funerals, projecting it onto the moon, that they've never even heard of the man, never mind read his infinite warblings: bookies are no longer taking bets.
As the owner of two used bookstores in Seattle I look at sales for these writers every day as I decide what to buy for my customers. Updike has definitely downtrended the past couple of years. Didion we buy everything we see. Ehrenreich had her time but I haven't bought a copy of Nickel and Dimed in years, though I loved it way back when. Bellow is a solid buy, day in and out, though not a barn burner. McCarthy, we buy everything always. I would make a case for Philip K. Dick, Flannery O'Connor, Philip Roth, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Lethem, and Susan Sontag. I'll leave it there.
This is fantastic data. I think Philip K. Dick has probably already passed the test, O'Connor too. I avoided speculating about still living writers, but I have to say I'd be surprised if Eugenides lasts (no shade to the man, I like his works), but I don't see the hook that keeps him part of the culture. I have similar thoughts about Lethem. Sontag is an interesting case. My gut says she'll persist. With Ehrenreich, I think there will be cyclical phases where folks periodically return to her work. I'd love to hear more about your approach and philosophy to what you decide to acquire.
I am an avid reader but I have been a merchant for over thirty years. We look at data in our buying system and also use our guts. My database tells me how many titles I've sold by an author in the past month, six months, year etc. Another interesting aspect we look at is whether it is just one or two titles of an author that sell (i.e. My Antonia, Cather) or the whole oeuvre (Faulkner).We are adjacent to the University of Washington so get a lot of students' feedback as well. I find the topic really interesting.
I would love to pour through a database like that sometime. I find these patterns fascinating. I love that there's still a gut element to it, though. I think it's not only unavoidable, but desirable. We often choose the books to read for ourselves with our guts, why not do the same when choosing which books to sell?
If you're ever in Seattle, come by Magus Books. Yes, if buying was just using the technology, anyone could do it. But you'd miss current trends, understanding when lower sales are due to stock outs etc etc. We train our buyers for years before they are truly competent.
I will definitely take you up on that someday. I would love to go behind the scenes of a used bookstore operation.
I see NO African American writers here. This is plain and simple what I call the blotto biggotry of the upper echelons of the white middle to upper middle class reading public.
Can any of you find a more daring,boldy=plotted and superbly written novel than Toni Morrison's Beloved? Same goes for poetry- while all canonnaders prattle about the prissy pantheon of Eliot,Pound, Wallace Stevens, Robert Lowell and Elizabeth to the tiers of the highest tedium,STILL,with too many intraansigent college Engllsh teac allowing a few newcomers ito theircurricuums yet barely cognizant of the poetry revolution of the lasttwent years led by black, Latinoox, Asian America and Native American bringing a decade of someof therichest, most innvative and plain damexubeantAmerican poetry. This includes veteran and new African American poets led by the GREATS- Gwendolyn Brooks, Sterling A.Brown, LangstonHughes,MelvinTolson (he of the dynamic film The Great Debaters),Robert Hayden, Lucille Clifton, MarilynNelson, Elizabeth Alexander,Cornelius Eady,Patricia Smith, Douglas Kearney, Tyrhimba Jess, Cornelius Eady, Danez Smith, Joshua Bennet, Clint Smith, Evie Shockley, and, as they say on many places - much mulch mawaa. tbc bbs
You are absolutely right. I would add James Baldwin and Octavia Butler to your robust list. Thanks for making me think.
i have an eight page list led by fifteen works of a by Palestinian writers and Us working class lit along with
amado, pamuk, eluard, rozewicz leseur charles ohnson'st
the dreamer Judy
gran's
Work of Col69mmon Woman and alsoCa the brilliaance of the best of
Cave Canem erbrill69@gmail.com Im making a global list trying for 10-20 books from every 'maor" country
Short-story writers, I would think, have a better chance of enduring for eons than War & Peace types. So, Hemingway is an example of one who will endure. He wrote plenty of long form stuff, but also those 5- to 10-minute reads that appeal to short attention span sensibilities.
I disagree with you regarding the lasting impact of Saul Bellow. I recently was given a copy, and then read, Humboldt's Gift. Wow! While there was a lot to plow through, the effort was well worth it. So, maybe the complexity and length of the book will discourage future readers, but his reflections within the story as it progressed were fascinating and relevant even today.
I'm pretty sure Stephen King will be remembered hundreds of years from now. He deserves to be mentioned alongside some of these names, too.
I think Toni Morrison has a higher than 2:1 chance, but I also wonder about how much dumber we're going to get over the next century or so.
I purposefully avoided still living writers in my list, but I King will be an interesting case given the scope of his work, and his huge popularity. Though, there's many examples of similarly popular writers in their time who are not widely read (or read at all, today). What is it about King's work that makes you think it will endure?
I think his themes are complex and universal, but also easy to understand. He doesn't shy away from gray characters, making them a lot more "real" than many within the horror genre (at least during the time - as you point out with other classic authors (the eminent dead you discuss here), they tend to influence present and future authors, though, so their impact is often lost.
I don't think King's impact will be forgotten any time soon.
I also think we are evolving the way we tell stories. Shakespeare had the play, Dickens had the novel, and today we have TV and movies. King has transitioned quite well across these new media, more or less seamlessly (minus a few notoriously awful screen adaptations like Salem's Lot the TV show, or Lawnmower Man -- remember that tragedy?).
I'm not like a King superfan, but I once was, and if you're interested in exploring this idea a bit more in a collaborative piece of sorts, I'd be interested and intrigued. I fear there's too much to say in a comment like this.
Surely i think we must remember Fernando Pessoa, Portuguese Poet
"Between Sleep an Dream
Between sleep and dream,
Between me and what in me
is the I that I suppose
runs a river without end.
It passed by other banks,
diverse but distant,
on the wandering course
the whole river takes.
It arrived where I live
at the place I am today.
It passes, if I meditate on myself;
waking, it has passed by.
And the one I feel I am, and dies
in what binds me to myself,
sleeps where the river runs,
the river without end."
I think Pessoa has already passed the test, having been forgotten for a while and then reintroduced to the world. Beyond the work itself, his playing around with identity/persona, I think, will be of serial interest to people who write and study literature.
I confess that I finally decided that Bellow is on the list of writers I'm going to read after I die. It's not that I doubt his greatness; it's just that I've read enough mid-20th century men authors for my 47 years on this planet. There are a lot of great writers out there (including some on your list) that I haven't gotten to yet, and that's where I think I'd like to spend the last half of my life.
I'd agree on Didion, though only for her essays, not her fiction (I might include James Baldwin in that category as well). I'd add Salinger (for Catcher in the Rye) and Thoreau (for Walden and a few essays). And yes, prizes are, I'd guess, more a representation of zeitgeist than of longevity or quality* (I'm looking at you, Gone With the Wind).
*I know, I know, I'm always arguing against the concept of "quality," but I truly cannot express my loathing of Gone With the Wind.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand your numerical notation. For Morrison you use "1:2", then you switch to dashes like "10-1". Is "1:2" 50%? Then what's "10-1"? Is that 10%.
Anyway, if you changed this to actual percentages (of being remembered and read in 50 years) I think that'd be much clearer.
I dunno. I guess I like betting parlance where 1:2 means betting $2 would result in a win of only one additional dollar, suggesting a high likelihood of occurrence. It just struck me as more arbitrarily fun than putting down percentages.
Works the other way around too. Ninety years ago serious literary tastemakers considered P. G. Wodehouse a commercially successful hack who turned out reams of silly, forgettable twaddle. Today he is judged as one of the greatest stylists who ever wrote in English. Who could have predicted that?
Nice to see Barbara Ehrenreich on this list! I've read almost all of her books and her intellectual range is vast. From poverty to violence to gender relations to joy to death to middle-class malaise to psychology - the issues she wrote about are neither going out of style nor likely to be resolved.
I'd add James Baldwin to the list. I am always struck by how little has changed, at least with regard to his essays, every time I read one. And he is so breathtakingly talented and astute.
I'd also suggest Jose Saramago, but maybe that is wishful thinking on my part. His writing is so out of place and out of time that it could often be any place at any time, which might help with longevity? I see Blindness being relevant and modern forever; but I also see the pool of readers willing to engage with his style probably shrinking, so!
Alice Munro maybe? Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
What a fun post and question, thank you for sharing!
Personally, I would judge Baldwin and also Marquez as likely already in the permanent pantheon. I mean, you never know, but Baldwin passed away quite a while ago now and in so many ways his reputation has only grown. Marquez is the leading figure of an entire literary movement. I can't imagine him disappearing.
Munro and Saramago are interesting cases. Both obvious giants in their day, but as you note, Saramago offers a challenge. And Munro being a short story writer cuts both ways in that she's widely read in anthologies, but there's no single book that stand above the fray as the one that must be read.
Interesting to consider all these folks!
This is a little late to the comment thread, but germs shared by grandchildren slow you down. And it is the children's authors I came to comment on. Eric Carle will be forever on any bookshelf of any parent, grandparent, or anyone reading to a young child. Timeless. Yesterday I engaged in a conversation about the quality of children's books. There are many which are "instructional" in nature and do not engage either the child or the reader. While others, well-written, engaging, and subtle, get the same "instructional" point across with joy and simplicity in language. Think of Green Eggs and Ham in encouraging a child to try something new, maybe add Theodor Geisel to your list!
Bellow is one of the most overrated writers in American literature who wrote three above average novels- Augie March, The Victim, and Seize The Day. Henderson the Rain King was ridiculous, one more racist farce of a white writer using a third world country- as Updike did, as Robert Stone did, as Russell Banks did, as even a superior writer- Graham Greene did, all using their idea of countries about which they were clueless to form a colorful backdrop for their male protagonist's tepid agonies which in Bellow's case often seemed to migrate to various toilets where I guess,like many male in and if ciure thesedays wecan howhim twoto three.tellectuas, he found a place that was a good fit where hecould brood and laterm make his infamous remark during the student protest cultura and racial wars of the late sixties involving King's discovery of the unfulfilled promisory note, " SHOW ME THE AFRICAN PROUST" And I can with at least three African writers- Achebe, Ngugi Wa' Thiongo, Tutuola,, Ousmane Sembene of Senegal and if you include Egypt as an African company, Mahfouz.
There are at least three Jewish fiction writers who are far better than Bellow or his fatuous pal Phillip Roth- Edward Lewis Wallant, Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley, and the author who, for pure writing- sentence by sentence by paragraph, is for my money one of the top four craftspeople in the USA, like Bach with a pen
I dont know if you know Wallant's work.He wrote four novels and died young. His most welknown book is The Pawnbroker, made into a rare movie that combines elegy and bareknuckles.
Grace Paley is one of the great chroniclers of NewYorkCity Jewish,Italian and Irish families. Great ear,inimicabledialogue magically paced and cadenced . Ozick has writtenat least two novels of an enduring literary legacies- hertechnically expeimental short novel about the Holocaust "TheShawl" and the brazen baffling exploration of education- The Cannibal Galaxy that remains on the higher gifted list ofAmerican novels never taught because the universities and mostctics dont read beyond what the major publishers tell them to read - most are so timidly slavish. To becontinued. Consider this too: the greatest Jewish-American writers are the poets and some of the best Jewih American poets dont get the respect and adulationthey deserve. I am talking about Muriel Rukeyser and her. legendary poem"To Be A Jew', also Denise Levetov, Alicia Ostriker, and Naomi Replansky who recently passed away at 102. I just got my latest copy of Poets and Writers. Did they include Replansk, leftist author of Ring Song, and Dangeroous World? No.
why is that? more in afewdays;I have some deadlines for putting out my first book ofpoetry.
best,
Ernie Brilll. erbrill69@gmail,.com
413-320=1807.com
You have interesting things to say, but just a thought, you might get more people to engage with what you say (if that's what you desire, and maybe it isn't) if your tone were a bit less openly hostile to the opinions of others.
that has been true my entire life. I dont know what your college experience was like but mine was an almost constant battle with professors who were far more hostile and instransigentE-Freudian,Jungian,and Existentialism, to be then followed by a sliver ofMarxism
With the exception of writing courses where we were required to offer our critique comments of other students' work, I don't think I said more than six words in class over the course of four years. Not attending lots of classes had a role in that, but mostly, I just didn't care about whatever it was they were talking about.
John, that is EXACTLY what am talkiing about. Where did you go to school? I am taking up a memory-collection of people. I want to expose how so many collleges prattle about 'critical thinkking, but in the reality of their classrooms expect shut mouths and lowered hands. I wonder what all thevaunted semiologists would say about THAT. Also what was your major? If it was English do you mean to tell me that you were not utterly enamoured of their lectures about Dryden and Pope and Byron and Meredith and every other second to third rate Brit that was thebane of thousands who mainly wanted to write our florid imations of Yeats and Joyce and Blake and, the more daring of us Ginsberg and have a sexy beautiful partner and adulation of our campus and beyond ie " Dear John Warner, on behalf of Johhny Carson we'd like to invite you to a Marathon Poetry convention where you will be able to read your entire work. This comes with a modest stipend of #300,OO) and all the smoked ham you can eat. Sincerely, Leslie Trilling from you know where, and it aint The National Pork Rind Society of London.
I should probably try Bellow again, but when I have tried, I have found his gaze to be too male for me. Hope that makes sense. I’ll take Morrison, Le Guin, Butler, and Hurston anytime over Bellow, Updike, and Roth. I realize that this is my taste, not everyone’s.
more than you think I' will bet. Let me recommend some writers. If you like or love poetry, check out these international poets- Mahmoud Darwish and Samir Al Qasim of palestine, Pablo Neruda of Chile, Vasko Popa of Serbia, Paul Eluard of France, Hyesoon Kim of South Korea who may be the finest ecological surrealist of our time,Eavan Boland's (Ireland) luminous wokin The Lost Island, okot 'Biitek's (Uganda) legendary arguing couple in Song of Lawino. For those seeking a very unique reading list, writemeat erbrill69@gmail.com
II have ben avidly reading for over half a century so why not benefit frm my work and share?