I gave a friend of mine a copy of my book the other day, thinking she might like it because she’d expressed interest in my latest title. She took it, but then said she’d probably never read it.
Her reason?
She only reads the classics. She’s trying to read “good” fiction, she told me. Of course, she added, she meant no offense, and I pretended none was taken. I also bit my tongue and didn’t tell her that Dickens was paid by the word, and considered a hack in his day, and that his own friends wouldn’t read his books. That Shakespeare’s friends laughed at him. That a good chunk of the “classics” authors were destitute because most people in their era turned their noses up at their work. It wasn’t until they died that they got interesting to mainstream readers.
So, maybe I’ll be interesting to her when I’m dead. Maybe not. I’m not pretending that I’m writing the next great American novel here, but I also know that I’m not writing bird cage liners, too. I’m working as hard as the next author, and I’m proud of every word I produce.
As for my friend, we’re still friends–her reading tastes aren’t something that I’m going to try to change one way or the other–but I won’t be foisting a book on her again 
.
Still, I wonder about that, about the classics and people who pass up really good contemporary books in favor of the older books. I’m not saying that there should be no reading of the classics at all (I do indeed pick them up myself from time to time) but that it’s good to balance reading between what’s available now and what was out back then. I have read some contemporary books that literally blow me away and trump books I read in college hands-down. There are contemporary authors who can write amazing words, with deep thinking and layered themes, who will hopefully someday be considered “classics.”
Who will be the classics authors in fifty years? A hundred? How will our list of literary greats change over the years? I’m not expecting my books to be on that list, but do hope that some of the authors I’ve found over the past years will make those lists, to be added to the ones I’ve read in high school and college (and please, please replace Great Expectations at some point. Pip annoyed me to no end. If asked, I could have given my Freshman English teacher a list of at least three other Dickens novels that would have been a better choice than a kid who couldn’t make up his mind to save his life).
What do you think? Would you expand the list of “classics” to include a few contemporary authors, too? And do you think that just because an author is dead that they should automatically be considered a classic, i.e., “good” enough to be read?
No related posts.
“Me thinks your acquaintance doth have a sliver of the green eyed beast within her eye!” Well, that’s how I’m guessing Mr. Shakespeare might have put it, Shirley!
Personally, I think it’s wise for readers to read right across the board and not just read books that are considered classics. Don’t get me wrong, I love Dickens, Austin, etc., but I love to read contemporary works as well.
Your friend, in my opinion, sounds a bit of a literary snob. It’s a shame the way people diss romance novels, and yet, some of the great romance novels of their time are now the classics we read today.
Ah, I felt the same about “Great Expectorations” as we called it.
Sounds like your “friend” doesn’t trust her own taste and prefers to have her thought processes dictated by “authority.”
Since she expressed interest, I think that her response was entirely ungracious. Rude, in fact, as well as narrow and illogical.
Literature is a living thing.
Eric Selinger’s been teaching romance novels at university level, including texts by Jennifer Crusie, Georgette Heyer, Julia Quinn, Mary Stewart and many others.
I think Crusie’s definitely got the makings of a ‘classic’ author, and I’m not just saying that because Eric and I are co-editing a volume of academic essays about her work. As we said when we put out the call for papers, ‘we have chosen Crusie because of the demonstrable literary merits of her texts, which open to, and will reward, the most intensive critical investigation. Meticulously crafted, her novels are richly intertextual in their engagement with popular culture, fairy tales, and the Bible’.
Eric and Sarah (Frantz) have currently got a call for papers out for a more general volume about romance. Hopefully this new wave of romance scholarship will help increase recognition of the genre’s literary merit and demonstrate its variety and complexity.
Frankly, if someone expresses interest in your work then tells you they’ll probably never read it when you hand it to them–that’s HARSH. And beyond rude besides.
Well, that sounds pretentious. If she really wants to improve herself through what she reads, then she should read widely. In addition to the classics, read books by Mickey Spillane and Janet Dailey, Erle Stanley Gardner and Nora Roberts, Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour and Victoria Holt. And when she’s finished, try a little AA Milne, because there’s nothing quite like Winnie the Pooh. =o)
I can think of so many contemporary women’s fiction/romance authors whose books are every bit as compelling, well written and layered as classic and/or literary novels. Every time I read Pam Morsi, I think about how good she is, how she can take any plot and make it sing. And Shirley, you’ve got the same kind of talent. I don’t read a whole lot of romance anymore, but I know when I pick up one of your novels, I’m going to get swept into the story. I am so sorry about your friend. Gotta say I admire you for holding on to the friendship–not sure I could.
I figure most of us read fiction for the fun of it.
If reading classics is her idea of fun,
then who are we to argue with that?
As for classics,
often the novels are those
that define the time period.
Do today’s romance novels represent what is happening in society?
With about a 50% divorce rate?
Not really.
Are they enjoyable reading?
Hell yes.
Are they well written?
Of course.
Classics within the genre?
Sure.
Classics within the scope of everything written today?
Me thinks that a book (yet to be written) on 9/11 would beat out a romance novel for that top spot.
Hate the ‘classics’ And Kimber’s right a classic is a book defining the era it was written in. Classics we love today, weren’t classics way back when. Some books written now will be considered classics in 50 years…
I just like to read a good book. I don’t give a rat’s butt whether anyone considers it a classic or not.
Interestingly enough several contemporary novels have found their way onto academic reading lists.
A few years ago Harry Potter was a choice for literary criticism in the Texas state academic competition.
I incorporated reading days into my beginning journalism classes this year and made my students find contemporary work to read. The classics are fine, but they’re not going to teach much about the language we use today. Your poor friend sure is missing out on some great stories.
I do think that it was a little rude of your friend to tell you that she’d probably never read it, specially after she’d expressed an interest – although “expressed an interest” I feel, perhaps, didn’t mean “I’d like to read your book”! I have people around me who are interested in my progress but who have never asked to read me.
As to the classics, I see her point completely – I spent about 30 years reading nothing but dead writers and it has stood me in great stread for writing – I have a great deal to live up to and I know I never will. It’s only in the last few years that I have tried anything particularly contemporary and in the main I’ve been horribly dissapointed, even things that have been greatly critically acclaimed like Birdsong and Sagasso Sea. Just Meh. What’s the fuss about, and I retire into Austen or Tolstoy to lick my wounds.
I don’t think it’s pretentious at all – everyone has different tastes – I find it much more worrying that some people read NOTHING but romance, for example.
Hmm… everyone reads fora different reason. Some read to further their understanding, some read to be provoked, some read for the good story. I read to escape. Its like a good movie, you walk out not realizing you were in the movie for two hours. While there, you were in that world, no other existed.
So I read all kinds of different books, “classic” or not. Escapeism into a good story, told well is at heart.
I also think that the definition of classic is at nature transcient. What one person calls a classic, another will call “old”. Thinking in romance streams… I think Jilly Cooper novels are classics, rather like the precursor to Chick Lit… and Candace Bushnell.. would her stories not be considered classics in the genre simply for their defining nature (again, chick lit)? What about Danielle Steele’s “Palomino”, or Nora Roberts “Montana Sky” (orany of her other, earlier novels)? What about Janet Dailey and her ream of fantastic shorter novels I devoured as a teenager?
Being dead does not a classic make. A good story from any author, living or dead, has that potential.
You are admirable for being so forgiving to your friend. I would tend to think that was a tad rude. But, not knowing this person, it may be in their personality to say such!
Most classics bore me to tears. I’m a contemporary kind of girl. I think it’s mainly because they talk or have introspection for pages on end just to say this guy annoyed me. I tried reading Jane Erye and Pride and Prejudice and couldn’t for the life of me love these books. The classic novels I can’t get with.
Plays, yes. I have no problems with Shakespere’s Macbeth or Hamlet.More current plays for me is The Rasin in the Sun and Death of a Salesman. In high school I finished these books way before the class finished them.
Another reason I probably don’t care for the classics is that most of them I can’t care for the character and the subject matter doesn’t interest me. Yet, strangely I love Chopin’s THE AWAKENING.
Classic’s to me are more interesting to deconstruck and see the meaning behind the words because then you can see into the time period and most times into the author’s mindset. Reading classics just for the fun of it, hmm, not really.
As to the question who will be a classic 50 years from now, I have to agree on Jennifer Crusie and add Robert B. Parker, Jude Deveraux, John Sandford, Nora Roberts. Just for the fun of it look at chick lit novels and try to figure out why they were so successful overnight, i.e Sex in the City, Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Shopaholic(sp) and all of Marian Keyes’s novels.
Leaving aside that a “friend” would say something like that to your face, I’m perplexed by a reader saying this anyway. It’s not the classic bit, but that a true reader would turn down the chance at any story. Especially one by a “friend”.
We readers need quantity, you know.
I’d completely forgotten I’d read Great Expectations till I read the post lol Guess that shows how much it meant to me.
I think there’s a few authors who’ll probably be considered ‘classics’ in the next 50 years. JK Rowling. Stephen King. Nicholas Sparks. Nora.
I love Chopin, too. One of my favorite authors all around. And I have to say that I found a lot of favorites through the reading lists in college (and not all of them are dead
. But I do hope you all are right and that some of the great authors that are on those lists are considered classics in 50 years because some of them have had some really fabulous books that I’ve read, too.
Cindy — thank you
Shirley
Hmm not sure how I feel about that only reading classics thing. Well, wait, yes I know how I feel. It’s ridiculous. I mean, why read just classics? Does she think it makes her smarter? Or look smarter?
I can remember trying to work my way through the classics. I thought they would lead me to deeper thinking and perhaps make me smarter. I did pretty well until I read Babbit. . . snore. . . I still have nightmares about my life being as boring as his was!
I try to read all different kinds of books, but keep going back to romance because, unlike with some classics I’ve attempted, I never get bored or have to force myself to concentrate. In our breakroom at the library we have a quote posted that says something along the lines that what is more important than how many books you get through is how certain books get through to you. Now I do like authors such as Virginia Woolf because I think her prose is beautiful, but mostly I just want to good story that makes me wiggle my toes happily and snuggle further into my chair or pillows at the end of the day.
I would be honored to read a book a friend wrote. The fact that she was published would impress me and I would want to support her…by reading her book. Sorry to say, but she is not a good friend. I would read it, without question.
How could I forget J.K. Rowling? She will be the first author I will wait in line to buy her book the day it comes out. And at one point in time I thought the people waiting to see The Lord of the Rings strange. Tells you how much I think her books will make the classic list.
Anyway, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. If the friend truly only reads classics then any book that is considered contemporary wouldn’t be her speed.
A good example of my point is I don’t read books about shapeshifters, it’s not my thing. If my friend wrote a book about shapeshifters I’m going to dread the day she will ask me to read it. I may love the book but the flip side is I might hate it. How do you tell your friend you hate their book? So what does any panic striken person do in this situation say? I only read classics. Or worst lie through my teeth saying I read it?
Moral of the story is could she have been more diplomatic? Yes.
Could she really just be a classic-only snob? Sure.
Can I not wait for the 7th and final installment of Harry Potter? No! Is it July yet?
I’m not sure which books or authors will be considered classics fifty years from now, but I can tell you that Louis de Bernieres’ “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” was put on my sixth-form college’s English syllabus within a couple of years of its publication.
Jess x
Hard to say who will or won’t be a classic. But who should be – are the authors who have made an impact. Nora, Stephen King, maybe Grisham? These authors are iconic which means they were important to us as a generation and so they should be studied in the future.
Without a doubt Harry Potter – will go down as a classic. It’s a series I believe that will be read for hundreds and hundreds of years – never aging. There is something really cool knowing that as I read it. It’s a story that will surive and in a way connects me to that person far off into the future who will say… “I wonder what it was like to have to wait to read the last book?”
Answer: Torturous!
Wow, I think your friend must know a former friend of mine, who condemned me for reading and expressing an interest in writing romance. She actually asked if I wouldn’t rather write something more “lasting” and of a greater “quality.” To me, that isn’t something a friend would do. A friend supports your dreams whether they agree with them or not. I felt better about letting go of that relationship after hearing she’d done much the same to a mutual friend.
I feel sorry for anyone who imprisons herself inside such a narrow box. Sure, reading the classics is a good thing, but so is reading modern fiction, and even non-fiction. Being open to new experiences is what makes one a more rounded individual.
As for modern writers who should be considered as classics…I would agree with many of the names already mentioned and include a number of others: Elizabeth Berg, Alexs D. Pate (WEST OF REHOBOTH was amazing) and Christina Schwarz (DROWNING RUTH). Diana Gabaldon would surely be among them as well.
I sympathize with the idea of not wanting to waste one’s time on ephemeral books. But this person was wrong to say it in conjunction with refusing to read your book. Because these are two different issues. A fiction book written by a friend is a classic, albeit in a different way from what she referenced. Why? Because it tells her a lot about you. Want to know the inside of a person? Read what she writes.
The next question is, does she want to know that much about your inner self? Maybe your friendship isn’t that deep. Or maybe she’s just squeamish.
I love some official classics and hate some others, but then there are genre classics and classics that are influential at a particular moment in history. I mean, if you wanted to know a lot about Hitler, wouldn’t you read Mein Kampf regardless of its literary merit? Of course! And never having read any Kurt Vonnegut means you don’t know when people are quoting him or making up cute sayings all on their own.
If you want to bedevil this person, just keep referring to details of your story and characters constantly. And never offer to give her a copy of your books again.
My brother is an English professor. (That is, he’s a professor who teaches English, not a professor from England.)
My published works are in games (MechWarrior, BattleTech), Doctor Who, and Star Trek. He has asked me, in a thoughtful sort of way, if I ever intend to get serious about my writing. I told him I wanted to perfect my craft first. He seemed to think that was a sensible answer.
There’s no changing folks’ minds. Just wish them well and roll on by.
Sam — I totally agree with you. I don’t care who wrote the book, when it was written or whether it’s a “classic.” As long as I enjoy the story and get lost in it, I’m happy.
Katie, you’re probably right. I don’t bother talking about my job with her anymore. I have much better friends for that who actually do read my books
[and my friends who are authors, too -- I do the same for them and read theirs as well].
I agree with you Jessica (and would believe her argument if that were it…but I have indeed seen a few “non” classics and Danielle Steels in her house, and in her hands, so I know that’s not it at all. She’s just now on this “erudite” streak and sees what I do as not serious, kind of the thing Kevin talks about.). I don’t care. I love my job. I’m happy with my work. And hey,. I’m happy when I read my books, LOL.
Shirley