Oh dear. The Guardian, 80 years ago, predicted the novelists that would be read in 100 years. Although there are still 20 years to go to see if the predictions were close, the contemporary Guardian notes that the top five then aren't doing so hot now. After all, I'm prolly the only one around here who adores Galsworthy (voted number one). But I expect we have some H.G. Wells fans, and I know we have admirers of Bennett, Kipling and Barrie.
Still, we're not run of the mill by any means.
The article's author has it dead right when he says, "The feature all the winners have in common is that they were novels of the day. That genre is not to be despised; we have different needs from our future descendants. And we may be prone to the same shortsightedness. "
My guess is that Neil Stephenson, David Wallace and, hell, the last five Nobel Prize winners will be mostly forgotten 100 years from now. On the other hand, I think people will still be collecting Terry Pratchett.
Novels of the day can be entertaining at the time and, keeping in mind when they were written, years later. But the latter certainly isn't the same as meeting the needs of the day.
Only the last five Nobel winners? I know how you revere the committee's choices. <g>
Pratchett should always be read.
But ... but ...
John Galsworthy, H. G. Wells, Arnold Bennett (who?), Rudyard Kipling, and J. M. Barrie.
I gather the article is saying ... ' the top five are already looking shaky' in terms of being remembered.
Which ain't true in any degree at all for Kipling and Barrie and arguably HG Wells also.
Kim is read by maybe 30% of kids growing up. Everybody under 20 has seen Jungle Book as an animated feature. We'll have another remake of the movie, I imagine, in the next couple years.
Hook and Tinkerbell and the animated Peter Pan are hot. One of the most common names for girls -- Wendy -- is Barrie's invention.*
You walk out onto the streets and ask somebody to identify Tinkerbell or Captain Nemo or Kim and you will get a fair percentage of hits.
The vote that said they'd be remembered in a century ... it was right in three of five cases. That's pretty good predicting.
JoBwho also likes Galsworthy
* It is astounding the number of Wendys who do not know this. I met a Winona who didn't know where her name came from. Do these people live in a cave?
Sadly, the fact that Disney made a cartoon based on a Kipling book doesn't mean people will remember Kipling, or even the fact that the movie came from a Kipling book.
The only reason people may remember Barrie right now is because Johnny Depp played him in a movie a few years ago.
Now I know this thread is particularly talking about books that will still be read in 80 years.And Barrie is not terribly readable nowadays,though Kipling and HG Wells are. And Galsworthy.
But though Barrie is not read in the original, I'd call him an influential author still. And influential in ways that could not have been foreseen in 1929.
You got two ways to look at great literature, ISTM*.
You can take a particular set of words here on the paper or the screen or whatever . . . and say ... this is a Great Work.No translation into German or Chinese is the Great Work. No movie is the Great Work.
If the Great Work is not read in the original, the author is dead and forgot. Finito.
Or you can say that the essence of the great literature folks get all enthusiastic about is the story.
This is not wholly an unnatural view**, because literature that lasts tends to be heavily into telling a cracking good story.
When a story gets retold and rethunk and stays part of the culture and transforms into new media and interpretaton -- whether the interpretation is into Chinese or into modern English or into a play where everybody keeps breaking into song --I would argue that the author's work is alivebecause the story and characters are alive.
So Shakespeare is alive*** as an author, even though a vanishingly small percentage of the population actually reads the original plays for fun.
West Side Story and Stoppard's R&G Are Dead come to mind as new interpretations. The R&J story keeps being made into movies, and watched by millions who do not plan to read the original, thank you, having escaped the educational system.
No one can read Barrie, (or Charles Kingsley). No one knows his name.But his story remains immensely popular.
Has he been forgotten as a writer 80 years later?No. Because his story hasn't been forgotten.
JoB*being free to speak about this in broad terms since I have the fuel of nearly total ignorance providing the power for this.
** Well, I would say that, of course.
*** Eyes still seeing and men still breathing, y'know
Hi Jo,
I think you're right about the story going on, surviving, and the author surviving through it (at least to some extent). When people no longer read the story--whoever's story--that's it, unless you have an author whose life or personal story outlasts his or her work. Then that name might go on past the story.
Authors will come and go. Some have obviously lasted for centuries, and as long as they are taught, then people will be exposed to those names. (The net will provide another venue for longevity, a different one, and that may well affect whose name lives on among the young.) But most importantly, they must be exposed to authors in school or else--believe me--most will never read many of these writers and they will pass into oblivion (as many already have).
Mark
Hi Mark --
We have works that are esteemed, but not accessible. Some are inaccessible because they are of a different age*. Some have always been inaccessible**.
Then we have works that are excellent and accessible and, by some Happy Chance, remain so***.
And we got works that are such good stories they cross the barrier of language and time and become part of the culture****.
The original article back in message #1 is talking about 'books that will be read in a hundred years'. I guess I'm arguing that authors and books still live and still are important even if they're not being read in the original.
As to what should be taught in school ...
At one time I was instructed in how to find the height of a distant tree using a six-foot man and, I believe, a protractor^. This has not been Notably Useful in my life, but I am sure I am better for knowing this.^^
The point of literature in school is to widen the appreciation and broaden the mind and teach discipline. Hudibras and Caesar's Conquest of Gaul in the original and Pamela have all been considered excellent ways to do this at some time or other.
Whatever else may happen in this world, I rest secure in the knowlege that the educational system will continue to come up with a selection of improving and thought-provoking^^^ literature.
JoB
* Pilgrim's Progress. Hamlet. Barrie.** Joyce. And, y'know, Proust.*** Austen, Kipling, the King James Bible**** Hamlet, Austen, Kipling, the King James Bible, the Thousand and One Nights, Cinderella
^ The way one does this is asks the six-foot man how tall he thinks the tree is and then you write that in the little box. I don't know what you do with the protractor any more.
^^ Or possibly it was a ball of twine you used. And the protractor was for something else. Hmmmm.
^^^ As my teenager said, reading The Scarlet Letter, "None of this would have happened if he'd used a condom."
Ron WodaskiDark Matters
Jo,
I believe also and hope that thought-provoking literature will continue to be taught in schools. Having taught at different levels over many years, I can tell you that this varies greatly from school to school. At one school where I taught, a rather conservative joint, I had to go back to my own high school, a more progressive place, to borrow a few sets of Catcher in the Rye so that I could teach it. To me, it was important that my students read it and know it.
I see some signs of hope in the educational books I've written--on Othello, Amy Tan, Shakespeare's Sonnets, etc. If they're selling them, then a school is buying them, exposing students (at least in the library and more than likely in their classes) to these authors.
I forgot about the original message about books being read in 100 years. It doesn't surprise me at all that some of those predicted to have lasted have not. Reception. However, if no one is reading them and they just sit on shelves, they are dead to most people. To quote Cheever: "Reading is like a kiss--it takes two."
Joyce, by the way, is not that inaccessible when you talk about Dubliners, his collection of short stories that is frequently taught (often one or two stories).
Hi Ron,
Yes, much worse with this disposable culture. The music is a prime example--momentary popularity, little substance, plagiarized riffs, sound du jour. Some people say "that's pop culture"--but that has not always been the case. There is something deeper, it seems to me also, about that which is "great."
Have seen a few episodes of So You Think You Can dance, and it is better than most of the heinous reality programs currently retching all over our television screens. I think it's because a lot of these young people just have a certain amount of talent and you can't deny it. I like these shows in which the mechanics of a talent are imparted to the audience. People are woefully ignorant of things like pitch in singing.
Context definitely affects how people receive works--but great works, it seems to me, transcend context. Their horizon of reception is broader than their own time. Impressionism, film noir, jazz--were all considered low brow to begin with: their time disappeared but they didn't. Maybe greatness lies in what has that capacity to do just that--live on, transcending the time in which it was created.
Interesting thoughts. For me, I think there's a paradox.
I still believe greatness transcends context if we are talking about endurance. The examples you give of greatness that is constitute a greatness that has not passed: the context is simply gone. A person like me who understands Dada can still locate what is (not was) great about some of it. Is. In other words, it can't just "sit in its time and place" unless it passes into oblivion. Then it becomes nothing but something that is over, past, forgotten, until someone else finds it, hears it, sees it, discovers it, etc. And then its horizon of reception changes or re-emerges.
Some audiences could not "make something meaningful" out of works that have become or are great: that gives them too much credit. Blake's poetry is a good example: in his own time many simply thought he was a madman (which he well may have been) but his works were not mindless ramblings, as they also thought. Context of time = wrong response. So, I'm making a dichotomy. Anyone can react to an Impressionist painting, can like it, or love it, or want a reproduction to look at day after day. That's a visceral response and it's as valid as any other to that person. That's subjectivity--but it does not equal or define greatness. Art has its own language: those with an art background or some understanding of the movements leading to Impressionism, or better yet, some grasp of color and light, will understand the greatness of certain Impressionist works--whether they like them or not.
Look at the "context" of Fauvism: critics in 1905 thought it was dreadful, "savage," and that it would induce mental illness in women who saw the exhibition. They didn't understand it yet. They were wrong. See that flying out the window: that's the context of that time. So, the context I'm after is one of understanding and appreciation--not a historical reaction.
BTW - I'm not saying great art is "not lowbrow": I was saying some great art was considered lowbrow and is now considered art. I saw Johnny Winter perform live once. He looked like an albino roach--but he was flying--he sounded like two guitars at times. That's greatness beyond technical proficiency. I've seen Linda Ronstadt stand in a spot and sing "Adios" with nothing but piano, and I've seen Jessye Norman sing Strauss's "Four Last Songs." More greatness, either way. Lyrical beauty and power in two different vessels.
So, I think that there is a "consensus" among those who understand art, music, etc., about at least certain greatness. Only a Philistine (or an idiot) doesn't get the greatness of Sarah Vaughan singing "You Turned the Tables on Me" with Count Basie and his orchestra. It doesn't matter whether someone likes it or not. There's another transcendence: greatness transcends taste. And, music (or any art) that is "kicking you in the heart" is probably transcendent: it's lifting you out of your skin and conveying you emotionally into the music. Or, it's going to the very heart of you. Sounds pretty great to me.
Your example of the blind man telling his story in that moment truly sounds great--powerful, moving. The greatness of storytelling at its deepest, coming from actual experience, honest. I interviewed a Tohono O'Odham linguist a few months ago: her poetry was simple, not profound or complex, but it had a greatness about it--the greatness of imagery conveying genuine experience. Not the beautiful elegance of Keats but great in its own way.
Hi Lynne -
I don't know about other places, but I hear Peter Pan is enjoying quite a renaissance among the younger set in the Tri-Cities, thanks to Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's two "sequels". (They like the sequels better, though... <g>)
- Liz
I thought those sequels would really take off but they didn't in Spokane. At least, not right away.
Also, I discovered today while Christmas shopping for the littlest ones that Tinkerbell has been given princess status. But not Wendy. Hmmm...
Maybe it's just my grandsons' friends... ? They love those books.
I always liked Tiger Lily better than Wendy, myself. <g>
