SciFi and Fantasy eBook Club discussion

I've been thinking about this for a while and I decided to see what other people think. The classics like Lord of the Rings tend to be rated incredibly high on sites like this. That idea got me thinking. Of course they're good books. I'm not arguing that. They wouldn't have become classics if they weren't good books. My question is are they really THAT good? Is there maybe some sense of nostalgia towards the books that might slightly inflate the rating that they would get on a site like this. I'm not saying whether or not they should get all 5 star ratings. I just want to see what other people think. How amazingly good would a book have to be these days for pretty much everybody to give it 5 stars?

A definite yes for nostalgia in my case. I'm actually a bit nervous to reread LOTR because it made such a huge impression on my life when I read it at 12. I think those are the type of books that deserve five stars though, something that lives inside of you long after you close the book.

Good questions and I think there are two distinct questions in there with lots of secondary issues: Are the classics that good to merit universal 5-star coverage and can a book today reach that pinnacle?

I think the classics rarely get universal 5-star ratings - there's always someone to hate anything - but they have the distinction of being well-written, much loved and have stood up to test of time as tastes and viewpoints change. HG Wells' writing has had 120 years for us to read it, enjoy it and still find merit in his stories even if the science may be out of date or the social attitudes may seem quaint. Much the same could be said about Baum's Oz series.

For more modern works, we can see some books from the 60s and beyond rising to the classic levels that can lead us to believe that they will also withstand the test of time. Now, some won't. But, Some I think are well written enough - for example The Handmaid's Tale, The Foundation Trilogy or The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever - that have gained some age and may prove to be some of the 20th Century classics that live on into the late 21st and beyond.

There are others, many well-written and even excellent books that will just not rise to the same level even though they will will be around 100 years from now. One of the changing issues with our digital culture is that much of the literature from the past 200 - 300 years will be digitized and exist forever as will everything published today. So there will be little that will be remembered simply because it's one of the few remaining examples we have of a period or a culture's literature (barring an apocalypse, that is)

I have a simple system for my GR ratings:

3-stars: I'm glad I read it, but have no inclination to read it again.

4-stars: Good enough that I'd consider reading it again some day.

5-stars: I'd definitely read it again whenever I'm in the mood for reading something I know for sure I'd like.

That's just a rule of thumb, and many other factors can influence it, but I find it's at least a good tie-breaker for me when I'm waffling in the 3.5-star or 4.5-star range.

More to the point of the "classics", however, there is the problem that styles have changed along with my tastes over the years. I have rated some books here as 4 or 5 stars based on my recollections of reading them 30 or more years ago. Sometimes when I pull one of them out now, they don't hold up as well. The pacing may seem sluggish, the science bad, attitudes/themes inspired by a different time, etc., making them not resonate as well with me now. Usually in those cases I do not downgrade them, letting them ride on their merits in accordance with when they were written and when I first read them.

It gets tougher with the occasional "classic" that I've never read until now. If it doesn't blow me away as an obvious 5-star, I still may give it the benefit of the doubt and round the half-stars up, again trying to keep it in the context of when it was written; but I'm not going to give what felt like a definite 3-star rating a 4-star rating just because it's a "classic".

Did any of that rambling make sense and/or help?

I think few people rate purely objectively. I think few people could, even if they tried.

Nostalgia, the impact a book had on you when you read it, what was happening in your life at the time, where and when you read it and the associations just thinking of it bring up, I think they are in many ways as much an important part of how one feels about (and rates) a book as any objective criteria one could apply on the quality of writing or it's literary merit.

There are books that immediately take me back to idyllic summers lying under the orange trees in my grandparents back yard, or at the beach as a teenager, and will always gain an extra half or whole star because of that. There are books that are far better objectively, and I might have enjoyed more, if I hadn't been in entirely the wrong place and time in my life to really be reading them.

I don't think "ratings" really mean anything to anyone, ever, other than the person who made them, and that's ok. And a review that tells me how the book made a reader feel, or tells me about the impact it had on their life or their opinions or their future choice of reading material, this tells me more than a thousand uninformed star ratings ever could.

Everything you guys have said makes a lot of sense. Thanks! I was honestly just wondering what other people thought. I could see a lot of the rating being about how the book made you feel.

Wells hits on Earthly microbes killing aliens, Crichton hits on alien microbes killing us. First competent creator there hits "classic". Variations on the theme seldom do, unless they bring some twist a contemporary mass audience finds "novel".

Fifty Billionaire Bikers In Shades sold a boatload, but it ain't destined to be a "classic". Nothing new to see there, folks. Move along. :}

E.D. wrote: "First competent creator there hits "classic"..."

Yes, that's how I see it. When reading a classic, I try to push out of my mind everything similar that's been written since and try to imagine how the original audience may have reacted. It's lovely when I come across something that still feels engaging and fresh despite being written a century or more ago.

I actually don't hold much stock in what people call the classics. Some of them I have rated high, some of them not. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever? Absolutely hated it. I don't think I even finished it. I know I didn't finish Rendezvous with Rama. And Neuromancer was just kind of OK.

So taking that into consideration, a "classic" in my mind is just a book that the majority of readers rates higher than average, over a long period of time.

As for nostalgia? That can play into it. As Charles says, our opinion of a work is going to change over time. For example, each time I've read Dune, I've found the work a little less satisfying. Last time I read it I was amazed at how bad the pacing of a lot of its scenes were. Added to that, Herbert's neurotic leaping from one internal dialog to another while in the same scene was downright annoying. Philip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle I recently downgraded from 5 to 4 stars because on second read it wasn't really what I remember it being.

However, there's another aspect to this: reading what one day becomes a classic when it first comes out can really boost a book's impact, and therefore it's appreciation. I mentioned Neuromancer, when it came out it was really unique. However, I never read it until just a few years ago. My perspective of it was colored by what has come after it, and that's something I have no control over. Had I read it back when it first came out, I might have appreciated its burst of imagination as something greater than what I actually read in the book. I.e., historical perspective (not nostalgia) can really boost a book's rep.

But LoTR? Magical. Awesome. Better than anything (almost). And the more you find out about its creation and all the world/myth/language creation that infuses it, the better the work becomes.

I read 'The (First) Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever' when it first came out, and thought it was excellent. I now have it sitting on my shelves again, and I'm afraid to open it, in case I find that I no longer think much of it. I'm a very different reader now from what I was then: much harder to engage, much more impatient with what I now see as poor or padded-out writing.

There are some writers, though, whose quality I'm sure of. C.S. Lewis (fabulous writer - never wrote a dull word in his life, even when he was talking through his hat), Ursula LeGuin (a bit hit and miss, but unbeatable when she's on song) - I think these authors have written genuine classics. As for H.G.Wells, he was such a good writer, and wrote so much original stuff, that I think he simply has to be seen as a classic writer.

Whether any of the authors I've discovered more recently will turn out to be true classics, I don't know. I was completely knocked out by 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell', but I've no idea how I'll feel about it if I reread it in a few years from now.

As for LOTR, it has weaknesses, but I do think it's a genuine 5-star book. So is 'The Hobbit'. But please, not the posthumous Tolkien stuff - with the possible exception of 'The Silmarillion', I think most of it should have been buried with its author (though perhaps Micah, given his final sentence, will disagree).

I do not review objectively but rather my reviews largely reflect how I experienced the book. If I am suffering particularly from brain fog there may be places where I give a book the benefit of the doubt but mainly with my reviews I go by my own experience with the book and part of that is about what is going on in my life, what books i read before etc.

I do not think we have really established much by way of what is a SF classic. It is quite a young genre whose boundaries are only loosely defined and it is unclear what a SF classic is.

Some works like HG Wells' Time Machine have clearly stood the test of time thus far and are still widely read and talked about but it is difficult to really judge work from the 50s and 60s aside from anything more recent.

Many so called classics are solid ripping yarns but are written in a very pulpy way - is this a classic if people still read it and enjoy it? Do we require something more worthy or literate?

It is fairly easy to identify some books that have really shaped the genre such as LoTR, (fantasy), Sword of Shannara (fantasy), Neoromancer (started cyberpunk), Asimov's Robot stories etc. But this is quite different from what is "classic" or not.

This is a very important discussion, especially since every generation starts this conversation anew. I think the important thing to remember about the classics, or literature in general, is that it's not magic: you don't read a 'great' book and immediately recognize its greatness. In fact, many of the great works of the past, the works that have survived and will continue to inspire other, take a certain amount of maturity and sophistication on the reader's part. In short, you need to work at them. These novels needed to be unlocked, pondered over, and at least initially, appreciated from their original cultural context (as someone above mentioned).

In my classes, I regularly get 18 year-olds who tell me that Shakespeare sucks or that he is overrated; he's no longer relevant, he writes boring scenes, and we can't understand his language, etc. I've heard the exact sentiments expressed by more recent classic authors such as Asimov, Clarke, Dick, Herbert, Gibson, Le Guin, etc. In our consumer culture, everything old is taken out back and shot, or worse yet, updated and 'revised' for modern readers--as in the recent Jane Austen project, which hired contemporary writers to 'modernize' her works.

Thanks to Amazon and other forums, everyone is also ready to weigh in on the merits of a work, dishing out 2 and 3 stars great works as if deciding the matter eternally. I think reading is something that should be approached with incredible humility and respect; becoming a good reader takes decades, though of course appreciation can happen all at once. But when a reader doesn't appreciate a work, particularly a hallowed work of the past, he/she should consider why, and make sure the reason isn't rooted in our aesthetic of the moment, or expectations that the work couldn't possibly meet. I've taught Asimov to students who found him hopelessly stale and boring; the reason is always the same: his language seems dated and there's not enough action. To me, this shows that many modern readers prefer escapism over abstraction; Le Guin always said that science fiction was metaphor--it always pointed inward and at our own world. If readers don't want or expect this, is that the fault of the classic, which survives for the exact reason that it didn't cater to the moment, but tried to look beyond fickle tastes and conventions?

As I reach my fourth decade of reading, I've never found a classic to be overrated, boring, or balderdash. While some are not to my personal taste, I still push myself to understand why others see it as such, and why historically or culturally it might be of significance. I think we're too apt--particularly in a relatively 'new' field like science fiction--to look to the future and disregard the past. Yet works like The Time Machine, The Planet of the Apes, or 2001 (or 2010, which I like even more) astonish me with their clear-eyed view of the present (their future), and how much we still have to learn from them. What sells today might not be what sold in 1899; nevertheless, good writing remains good writing, and important ideas never grow old. The fault often lies in our unwillingness to meet these works halfway, especially since there are hundreds of thousands of ready-made novels clamoring to take their place. As the above post mentions, the genre of SF is still quite new, and 'canon' of classics is still being formed. In the same way, our tastes are still being formed as readers, and we should approach the classics with humility and respect before reaching for the hammer of anachronism (read through Amazon reviews of some of the classics--the arrogance of some of these 'critics' is astounding, and in the end, quite sad).

Sadly, the popularity of a literary work is destroyed in the end by two things: the evolution of language, and the cultural parochialism of most readers. It takes effort to understand Shakespeare, not just because the English language has changed in 400 years, but also because his concerns are not today's concerns - or at bottom they are, but you have to dig to find the relevance.

Go back further in time, and it gets harder. Anyone can read Chaucer if they concentrate and have a glossary handy for some of the obsolete words, but how many people think it's worth it?

And in the end, even effort and a glossary won't do it: the language itself dies, and makes the work inaccessible without formal study. We can't read Anglo-Saxon poetry without formally studying Anglo-Saxon.

Ironically, a book only becomes a true classic once its language and its social concerns become outdated. As long as the language and the book's outlook remain current, we don't have the necessary distance to judge whether the book is going to be a true classic or not. By the time we know for sure, the work has inevitably lost its popular appeal. It's almost a law of nature.

Nemo wrote: "Ironically, a book only becomes a true classic once its language and its social concerns become outdated. As long as the language and the book's outlook remain current, we don't have the necessary distance to judge whether the book is going to be a true classic or not. By the time we know for sure, the work has inevitably lost its popular appeal. It's almost a law of nature. "

I disagree with that sentiment. By that measure, a book has to exist for 200 - 300 years to truly become a classic after language has aged sufficiently. Now, I'll agree that books written in the 80s and 90s that are revered are only on a list heading towards classic status. But books 50, 60 or more years old that are not out dated linguistically or topically but have withstood the test of time can be considered classics.

A Canticle for Leibowitz is 53 years old. It's been taught in schools at least since I was a teen in the 80s and is considered a classic. Earth Abides is 64 years old and is also a classic. Now, both are Apocalyptic science fiction and have the benefit of being part of a relatively new genre of fiction. However, To Kill a Mockingbird and 1984 are the same age as these two and are also considered classics.

Nemo wrote: "As for LOTR, it has weaknesses, but I do think it's a genuine 5-star book. So is 'The Hobbit'. But please, not the posthumous Tolkien stuff - with the possible exception of 'The Silmarillion', I think most of it should have been buried with its author (though perhaps Micah, given his final sentence, will disagree). "

He, he. I'm not a fan of the posthumously published works of Tolkien, and have never managed to make it all the way through The Silmarillion. It's too much like reading real mythology. I can't connect to it.

But all those works, I think, are important to literary history...and that's the angle Christopher Tolkien was taking in publishing them. I don't think he was trying to earn a fast buck off his father's legacy, as much as paying respect to his father's intense and obsessive work. Contrast these to Brian Herbert's abomonable exploitation of the Dune series and you'll clearly see the difference.

The Unfinished Tales and all the other Tolkien works that C. Tolkien published show the depths Tolkien went to in developing Middle Earth, its races, their histories, their languages, etc. It shows his innovation and ingenuity--world creation beyond anything anyone else has ever done. But I don't find them particularly good for casual reading.

Unfortunately it's all too often that a great writer dies and the gets his notes. The notes are the back story to keep things like history straight while writing. If two characters refer to something they should be consistent.

The family wants the continued cash flow but has little or no talent and try to mash the notes into more stories. You see this with Tolkien and Herbert on a large scale. I expect others do this also. I know I have about 100 pages of notes for my book; descriptions, history, family trees. It's needed unless you're Sheldon Cooper

Micah wrote: ... and have never managed to make it all the way through The Silmarillion. It's too much like reading real mythology.

Well, at least we now know that Micah isn't keen on real mythology! But I agree, really: I looked forward to the original publication of The Silmarillion, expecting it to be another LOTR, and I was bitterly disappointed when it turned out not to be. I've never really got over that disappointment. Think of the novels Tolkien could have written in the style of LOTR, using all that background material, if he'd wanted to!

Geoffrey wrote: By that measure, a book has to exist for 200 - 300 years to truly become a classic after language has aged sufficiently.

I deliberately didn't mention numbers of years because I was making a general point about tendencies. The longer a book has survived (i.e. not been forgotten), the more likely it is to be considered a classic, and also the less likely it is to appeal to young readers, or readers who are only interested in books written in the argot they themselves speak. Of course there are some books that appear to buck the trend, by being acclaimed as classics even though they're relatively recent; but even so, I think it may take another hundred years before it becomes clear whether the acclaim was really justified. And I'm not impressed by a book's being taught; that may just show that the people who put it on a syllabus aren't put off by its being outdated - which, given the whole raison d'etre of teaching literature, is hardly surprising.

In one of my wife's reading groups on GR, they're currently debating how old a book must be for it to be eligible for their 'classic' read. One group member has suggested that it must be at least 10 years old! She's in her twenties, I believe. No doubt to someone of that age, 10 years seems an age ago, easily long enough for a book to be considered a classic. To me (I'm 61) it seems risible.

Classic is a fungible term. If I had to peg a definition, I'd say a classic is a book written before the reader was born or fifty years. This can get awkward because some young kid might think books from the 70s and 80s are classics whereas I see them as just books.

For me a classic is a book that transcends the time in which it was written to be loved by future generations. It must also be well-written and shatter genre norms, tackle some big questions, and be fresh.

With this kind of definition, it's possible to name some new classics, but only tentatively as we have yet to see how they fare as the years pass.

Of classics of old, many I believe are worthy of the praise. Others, less so. It is the general consensus however that names them classics so while I may loathe a number of them, there are others I could not praise highly enough.

One this is certain: no book which does not spark debate can become a classic.

Micah wrote: "Nemo wrote: "He, he. I'm not a fan of the posthumously published works of Tolkien, and have never managed to make it all the way through The Silmarillion. It's too much like reading real mythology. I can't connect to it."
Silmarillion is virtually unreadable (I've done it....once.....and once only!), but I find parts of LOTR (the third book in particular) get a bit like that at times, too. For me the achievement and rating of Tolkien is justified more because of what he did in creating that whole world and the 'heroic' story, rather than some bits of the structure of the writing itself. For me he loses perspective a little sometimes when it comes to what people actually need/want to know, and especially what they need/want to know at that particular point in the book. There are lots of places where I find the flow of the story is just stopped dead by almost completely unnecessary notes about ancestry and history - some of it is useful information, but he didn't always weave it into the narrative in an effective way. I just find the pacing of it gets a little 'clunky' at points for that reason, and I find myself thinking 'get on with it'. Some of the language is fantastic, of course, which is another thing.

In general, I love to read 'classics' that use somewhat different, older kinds of language, even if it makes me have to concentrate a bit harder as I read. To be honest, I tend to think that it's a shame that some of that language had fallen out of use (and I do sometimes use some of it myself in daily conversation, which can raise a few eyebrows!). The beauty of the written language is the scope it allows for expression - far beyond what any movie could ever achieve, and the more language there is to use the more scope there can be.

I've no idea how to define 'classic' in this context really, but if it applies to mostly older books that use different (and often more interesting, IMO) language, then I do find myself likely to rate them more highly (on the basis of an equal story, so to speak) than those 'modern' works that don't stretch far beyond the language and linguistic constructions of everyday life. I guess you could argue that they wrote that way because they spoke that way, but even if that is entirely the case maybe it just means that I'm old fashioned. Writing to me is more about crafting the actual language than just telling a great story (although a great story is obviously needed too!), and it's often 'classic' works that do that the best.

I guess some might argue that books need to be easily understandable to get the story across effectively to the average reader, but I'm not sure I agree - I think they should sometimes be 'challenging' to people, or at least something 'out of the ordinary' linguistically. Apart from anything else, that's how people can expand their own knowledge and use of language, and that, I think, is a good thing (especially in these days of 'text-speak'!).

In my opinion, a classic is a book that is well written and has stood the test of time. Books, like 20,000 leagues under the see. Jules Verne wrote other books, some remain relevent, while others were never relevent. The same goes for Tolkien, Heinlein, Bradbury, and Herbert (and many others in each genre). Some of their works shine far beyond the rest of their offerings. As such, they are still on book shelves in stores, schools, libraries, and of course homes.

Now some will say that everything written by these is incredibly good: my opinion - not quite. However these stellar works remain, and today invite and incite new audiences into the worlds they created.

How do you rate them -- it's impossible, because of the impact they have had on readers for decades. Do you remember the first time you read Dune, LOTR, or Starship Troopers? How many times have you read them? Did (or will you) read them with your children? Yes the classics leave a lasting mark on the reader, long after they've read the book. Often during the subsequent readings, you find something completely new.

Asimov's laws of robotics, show up time and time again in new products. Buck Rogers in the 23 Century (TV), these are the first words said by any new robot. Data on TRNG lived by very similar programming. Does this equate to a lasting effect on culture?

I used the list above, because each of these authors have books that continue to be read, reread, turned in to movies and graphic novels. New authors, refer back to these works, in their own stories. Authors draw inspiration and techniques from these books. Below is a simple example from LOTR.

The description of the balrog is minimalistic, relying on the reader to fillout the beast from their own imagined fears. While elsewhere, when Aragorn, Legolas, and the dwarf meet Gandalf the white in the forest, there is a long description of light through the leaves pooling in his lap. I didn't notice these until the third reading.

I'm positive that each one of us can reference a number of books (across genres) that have influenced how we see the world, interact with others, and for those who write -- how we express ourselves on paper.

Again -- just my opinion.

Happy reading (and/or writing)

The other reason it is important to read the 'classics' of any genre is if you plan to write in it. There is no point in running around with this great SF novel that you wrote, which happens to be exactly the plot of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. It will be unpublishable. Or if you write a mystery novel about a fat armchair detective in New York City. If you have read the Nero Wolfe books, you can refer to them, descant off of them, and in general participate in a conversation about them. If you haven't, you look like a dolt.
There are giants in the field. Climb onto their shoulders.

Brenda,

Absolutely. You can't be a great writer (or even good) if at first you're not a great reader.

While my preference is scifi and fantasy, and that's the genre I write, I do read across genres. Anne Rice's detailed descriptions show what can be done to set the scene. When I read Interview with the Vampire, it brought back memories of a visit to the french quarter (down to the smells).

There is a difference between borrowing the storyline and reinventing the storyline. Compare 2001 and C.U.S.P. Both have humans being created/adjusted by an alien race, but for quite different purposes. Both are good, but I doubt, C.U.S.P. will ever be considered a classic. It just didn't bring that something special to the table.

Unfortunately, withe the ease of self-published ebooks, it quite possible to publish a reinvention of the wheel.

Actually Brenda's comment made me think of the success of knockoffs. There are probably dozens of vampire hunter series. Even the Hunger Games is very (coincidentally?) close to the Japanese novel Battle Royal.

Knockoffs are big business. If novel x is a success, have other writers redo it again and again.

But can unoriginal authors find grist for the mill in the classics?

Greg,

Oh so true. How often have you read the back of a book and said to yourself "Oh no, not another ____________" because it's a trend follower. I'm so tired of the conflicted heroine caught between her love for 2 men (vampire and werewolf). It's the same plot with a different set of characters. Am I watching General Hospital, again, nope, it's house, nope, scrubs: I'm not sure.

Sometimes, the copy is a much better book. Sometimes, not. I think of all the books that have tried to capture what the LOTR had, and failed miserably due to poor planning and writing.

We used to joke about the direct to video market for the below-C average movies. Now we see the same in the ebook market. You can easily find a poorly thought out and poorly written ebook that resembles a book of quality. I've got a few of those on my shelves. Is it a shelf if it's only on a screen?

Sadly, I've actually picked up the same book from the library and started reading it again, before realizing, I've read it before. Sad, sad, sad.

There are clearly two philosophies about that. Romance novels are 50 percent of the fiction market -- every other book of fiction sold, think about it. But their formulaic quality is sometimes exactly what the reader wants. Yet another Regency! Variations are actually frowned upon; if you write a novel that does not have a HEA or HFN (Happily Ever After or Happy For Now) then it cannot be a romance novel. Period. Innovations not welcome.
However, I submit that vampire vs. werewolf is not to that level. I don't think I could read more than one of those.

I can see what your saying. I've read some of the Anita Vampire hunter series, and Jane Yellowrock series. Both tend to have that Happy for now ending. I also, enjoy Nora Roberts In Death series, which has the same type endings. All fun, and the formula works. I'm almost done with Dan Brown's Inferno, which is structurred very similar to his previous books.

The vampire vs werewolf that I'm talking about are ones like Twilight and it's clones -- not the traditional horror like Salem's Lot or Wolfen.

Many books have some semblance of romance in them, even classics like Dune or LOTR; while not being a primarily romance novel. Romance novels have a place, and there is a place for them. It you look at SciFi and Fantasy novels you will find they often have a common structure, not quite as formulized as romance novels, but the structure is there.

I suppose there are 2 ways of looking at reading and writing. You really ought to know the 'classics' of your genre to some extent, so that you don't end up thinking that a vampire in a mysterious old castle with a dodgy East-european accent is somehow original. On the other hand, you don't want to end up so immersed in the genre, or so obsessed with reading generally, that you don't come up with something that is something from your own imagination rather than just a couple of things from other book mixed together. If vampires are what interest you and vampires are all you read about and you've read all there is to read about vampires, when you write about vampires it's going to be hard to escape from all those books you've read to come up with a new and interesting angle, and what will come out is likely to be just yet another vampire book.

As has already been said, reading across genres is probably very important. There's not much point, in my opinion, in trying to write just a slightly different version of the same old story (although there are plenty of such books about, and some of them do very well). Originality is what makes a 'classic', and if you're not trying to challenge yourself to write a brand new 'classic' of some kind (even if it's within an established genre), what's the point?

A valid point TC, I tend not to read a lot of Fantasy, because when I write fantasy, I don't want to subconsciously find myself borrowing elements

Now if you are writer, you should clearly write what you really want to write. If you write what you do NOT want to write, then there are easier ways to make money than writing novels. You could write legal briefs, advertising copy, legislative summaries for state senators, and so on, and get paid not only salary but benefits.

So, if you only want to write vampire novels, have at it. If you love the genre and know it minutely then you can delight the world with a new twist on it. It is a mistake to look at the trends and say to yourself, "Bondage porn is fashionable right now, so I will write 51 SHADES OF OFF WHITE." Because there are people out there who adore bondage porn, who have read everything ever written about it, and who can do it better and with more heart than you.

"Bondage porn"..."better and with more heart"...in the same sentence. Why did I giggle? Because....

Valid point, however. :}

Brenda wrote: "So, if you only want to write vampire novels, have at it. If you love the genre and know it minutely then you can delight the world with a new twist on it."
Absolutely. You have to write what you like. That new twist on it is the important thing, though - you should be striving to bring something new, even if it is a new way of expressing it rather than a brand new story, if you see what I mean. In order to bring in something new, though, I think you really need to have reference points outside what has already been written on the subject.

Personally, I don't see much point in writing a vampire story that is just the same vampire story as lots of other vampire stories, and written in the customary style of a vampire story. I guess if you were just writing purely for your own enjoyment then fair enough, but it's not actually adding things to the genre, and I think someone who is trying to sell themselves as an 'author' (and sell their books to the public) should really be at least trying to bring some originality of some kind (at least within their chosen genre) to their work.

I'm not suggesting nobody should write a book that isn't a 'classic', or release a book that isn't a 'classic', of course, but just that if they are writing a vampire book they should be trying their best to write the best and most original (in some way) vampire book they can, with the intention of creating a vampire book that is up there with the best vampire books around.

I don't see any point in thinking 'I'll just write an ordinary vampire book - nothing special, just an ordinary vampire book'. You have to push yourself as far as you can - you probably won't succeed in creating a 'classic', obviously, but if you aren't at least trying hard you probably won't produce something that people are going to want to buy and read, and you certainly won't be making the most of your own abilities and potential.

As an aside, I haven't written a vampire book (I've read many of them), but I do have a vague idea for one that I may explore at some point. I don't pretend that I'll make a 'classic' (I don't have an ego that size at all!) in that or any other genre (and the day I think I have will be the day I know I'm missing something important about my writing!), but I'll certainly be trying to do the best job I can of it to produce something that is at least a bit different in some way. Writers should always be challenging themselves to do do their very, very best with every book, and then to do better with the next one (and that isn't something necessarily particularly related to sales figures!).

It's strange. But I can detach myself just enough when reading the classics to avoid seeing them through the prism of my eyes. Maybe that's why I'm less critical of the prevailing attitudes of yesteryear of the classics than many readers. I really don't care what the author's personal feelings are on some social issues. What matters is that they entertain me. That's why I can enjoy the classics and see them for what they are rather than what they would be if they were written today.

I imagine a 21st Century The Lord of the Rings would have Arwen wading through a sea of Orcs with a sword in hand or there might be the usual token black or gender bender character just to make it more appealing to modern audiences. There's a certain kind of earnestness that I loved with the classics that I don't always get from modern fiction, regardless of how supposedly "misogynistic" or "racist" some of these books are accused of being.

As long as I take the 21st Century filter off of my eyes when I read the classics and just enjoy their stories, I tend to rate them quite favorably, warts and all.

I must confess I've always tended to write the characters of women based on real people I know, and they're far too smart to live their lives to a stereotype forced on them by someone else, be that someone male or female :-)
So I would let Arwen keep up her embroidery :-)

Well said, as usual, Jim. Couldn't have put it better myself.

Joe, you either like the book or you don't. Sure, it could be nostalgia, but that doesn't negate that it had a positive effect on you in the past. It is sometimes a mistake to re-evaluate it later. The times have changed, you have changed. Perhaps as an adult, you are more sensitive to the sexism, bigotry, or political views expressed in books you read 20 years go. Some can set that aside, others cannot. Certainly, if you read LOTR now and would only give it a 3, you can choose to change it.

Classics do not necessarily merit a 5 star. They earn it.

As several of you have noted, "classic" can have several different definitions. Societal mores (as Stephanie notes) can also have an affect on a rereading of a book from many years ago. Personally, I've always allowed that to kind of bounce off by remembering WHEN the book was written.

Some consider Thomas Covenant classic stuff where I just flat hated it (and I read the 1st 3 books entirely). "Methuselah's Children" was used in an English class in high school and I consider Lester Del Rey's "Nerves" as a fantastic and prophetic book.

I've never read LOTR (seemed too much like fantasy when I was younger), but it is on my list for a future read (I actually have the books).

In the end, I think that "classic" comes down - mostly - to the reader's generation and will change based on which generation the reader comes from with a few exceptions that will cross all those divides.

Dale wrote: "I've never read LOTR (seemed too much like fantasy when I was younger), but it is on my list for a future read (I actually have the books)."
Maybe the true definition of a 'classic' is a book that you own because you know you should, but have never actually got around to reading! :-)

T

Your point on a classic being owned because you should read it, was oh so true. I think of a classic as the books you'd recommend, if someone asked "I've never read a blank book, what would you suggest?" The classics are the ones that we all go back to, and new readers, read because they should. ;)

Joshua wrote: "This is a very important discussion, especially since every generation starts this conversation anew. I think the important thing to remember about the classics, or literature in general, is that ..."

Well, Joshua. I might be one of the critics whose arrogance astounds you.

The one classic I can't stand is "The Grapes of Wrath".

I hate that book with a passion. I thought it was trash when it was crammed down my throat at 12, and I think its trash today.

I understand it's social significance, but I can't stand the writing. Because Steinbeck decides to go off and "be literary" for pages at a time. I think it's clumsy art.

Back in school, English was like falling out of bed. I could get "A's" sleepwalking through classes. I could certainly write papers on Steinbeck that would nail all of his themes and symbolism.

I still hate GOW.

There are many 'classics' I personally dislike, too, even refuse to read anymore, but I don't begrudge the fact that others love and admire them. Indeed, no work can survive its cultural moment without being, in some way, a work of art--something that becomes a metaphor for ideas, values, situations, and states of being that continue to obsess us. Bad works of art can become very successful, even critically acclaimed, but they don't last long (sorry NY Times Best Selling writers out there). Grapes of Wrath keeps on trucking, and I know many people (I live in Oklahoma, so perhaps it's not surprising) that adore the book and value it as one of their all-time favorite books. They don't respond to it the way you do at all; indeed, I wonder if part of the reason you despise it is based in your high school experience, as a 'required' classic. Many students who come to the work without any previous knowledge of it really love the book. I had trouble reading Hawthorne because of high school...it took me years to re-read it in a fresh, authentic way. Still not my favorite writer, but I learned to read past my bias and past experiences.

Obviously you have artistic reasons for not liking the book, but you're not arrogant because you can appreciate why others do value it. But we can't base the value on a classic on an individual's like or dislike of the language--it has to be a larger, cultural response to a work. And as far as I can tell, it's not going anywhere. We'll check back in a 100 years...

Joshua wrote: "There are many 'classics' I personally dislike, too, even refuse to read anymore, but I don't begrudge the fact that others love and admire them. Indeed, no work can survive its cultural moment wi..."

LOL. You haven't seen the GOW review I posted on Amazon. I have the most commented upon 1-star review for Wrath. It's intentionally inflationary and designed to push the buttons of Steinbeck lovers---with intentional weaknesses embedded into it as bait.

I'm not doing it to troll. I have a very specific purpose for doing it. I'm treating a small group of adults like I think we treat our kids all too often when it comes to literature.

You teach literature, and I don't mean to offend you. But, the early reading lists too many kids get when they transition from "reading" to "literature" destroy any love for literature before it has a chance to develop. I mean good God, must we load up a freshman reading list with GOW, The Scarlett Letter, Huck Finn (very difficult dialect), Shakespeare, and "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man"? right out of the gate?

Why can't we start with something with more recent, accessible prose that might not be a recognized "classic" but has enough meat that you can talk about Theme, symbol, metaphor, allegory ect. ? Heck, why not start with BASIC STORY STRUCTURE? That's an analytical tool you can use on ANY fiction---even trash TV like "Keeping up with the Kardashians".

I know that's only usually taught in creative writing, but that's crazy. Basic story structure has far more real world applications for what most of your students will be doing ten years later than recognizing a simile. Knowing story structure helps you construct sales pitches, business presentations, plot trial strategy, negotiation strategy and many more.

That also means the first lessons in "looking deeper" into written work is likely to be enjoyable because you can send them home and have them analyze the story structure of their favorite TV show or movie. Then you can start in on theme, symbols, ect.

After you do THAT, THEN maybe you start showing them works that will be culturally alien to them. Then you can point out how those writers used all of those tools you've been talking about to CHANGE THEIR SOCIETIES!

Too often, what we do today is the equivalent of putting a 98lb weakling under a 600lb barbell on their first day in the gym. Is it any wonder that about half of them drop the plates on their head and never willingly come back?

There are exceptions on the reading list; but, too often, they are a singular oasis in a desert of misery. Many years ago, the ONLY book I liked on my Freshman reading list was "The Last Unicorn". One frigg'n book. Of course, I was already in love with LOTR, so it didn't much matter (which I read when I was 12).

At this point, I don't know if I could ever go back and figure out if it was how GOW was presented to me that made me hate it so much. I read it, and LOTR at around the same time. I'm an indie author (who hasn't really succeeded) who writes as a hobby. The "ideal" work which I aspire to produce is something I call an "intellectual cybex machine" (a cybex machine is a orthopedic rehab device that is equally useful for a 98lb female gymnast and a 350lb defensive tackle. It basically provides as much resistance as the pressure you can generate against it).

Basically, if all the reader wants is a fun story, the book can be read at that level. If the reader wants insight into how the world works and the defects of our society it can be read that way too---and all kinds of intermediate gradiations between those extremes.

Sometimes, I think I developed that idealized standard because I hated Steinbeck and loved Tolkien.

I completely agree with you--we go about teaching literature in a totally ass-backward way. We should start with very recent literature, graphic novels, fantasy/sci-fi, even manga, and establish storytelling basics, genre (which is easy to teach when teaching modern genre works!), character, voice, etc. Then work our way up gradually to the 'greats,' and I would argue, no Shakespeare at all until college. We expect young people to grasp literature that requires a lot of maturity and growth at a time when they are in thrall to their hormones; I don't think it's pandering to students when I suggest that Shakespeare is simply too much for them at this time. But if they could read works inspired by his legacy (indeed, I might teach a Manga Shakespeare or two), they can appreciate him when they work up him in college, and be excited by the discovery rather than groaning, "not him again!" I think great literature should be kept in a Pandora's Box, and made to be someone mysterious and alluring, so that they ultimately go after it themselves in their spare time, the way they now sneak into their dad's dresser to look at his old Playboys.

Like you, LOTR spoke to me deeply when I was in high school, as did much science fiction and fantasy. It was only after immersing myself in that world that I gradually saw the connections between it and Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, and other works. But initially, I had no interest in any of them. As a professor, I spend a lot of time undoing the damage done in high school by this curriculum that force-feeds literature and makes great ideas into benchmarks for this and that exam. It's tragic.

So I sympathize with your ideas above, and while you might never become a convert to The Grapes of Wrath, we can only be lucky that Tolkein wasn't a mandatory part of the curriculum!

I love your metaphor about literature as a cybex machine; I, too, strive to do something similar in my works, and I think I learned this ideal from the classics. After all, you can read Tolkein as a ripping adventure yarn, or a powerful metaphor for 20th century society. Either way, it works.

It's interesting to watch this debate which seems to have a very 'American' Perspective.
In the UK a lot of the 'classics' have become very popular because of good TV adaptations.

Jim wrote: "It's interesting to watch this debate which seems to have a very 'American' Perspective.
In the UK a lot of the 'classics' have become very popular because of good TV adaptations."

In Germany its quite similar, though the names are not Shakespeare or Huck Finn but German literature like Der Schimmelreiter which wrecked me and now my daughter again :)

On the other hand, she likes Pride and Prejudice (besides of hunger games and manga)...

Shakespeare should be watched, not read. He was a playwright not a novelist :-)
Perhaps we just do better TV adaptations of our classics?

I somewhat disagree with you, Jim; Shakespeare should be both read and watched. In a performance, you miss about 80% of what is said, especially when the language is as intricate and full of metaphors, puns, and other verbal tricks as Shakespeare's is. He meant his work both for people to watch and get the 'plot' and the fart jokes, and for the true art lovers who would listen first and then go and find a cheap quarto to read. Shakespeare began as a poet (his Sonnets, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece), and adapted this poetic sensibility--not always entirely effectively--to the stage. Indeed, Shakespeare simply adapted old stories and often seems very uninterested in the matters of plot; language interests him first and foremost, and only through reading (and then seeing, or seeing and then reading) can we truly appreciate his art and unique voice.

That said, we need some combination of both so that students can appreciate why we read him--not just for a standardized test, but because his works have tremendous power, scope, and resonance to our lives, even today. The older you get, the more you find in them if you read attentively.

Austen has become popular again (since the 90's, anyway) through all the adaptations that led people back to the books, especially the younger generation. The same with LOTR, which made those works 'cool' when previously they were reserved for the D&D crowd. We need to 'own' these works as a culture and not push them into the ghetto of education--as if they are a medicine that must be taken at a certain age to reach a certain result (college).

The problem with reading is that you loose the accents and the cadences. We 'read' Shakespeare at school which was OK, but it was on the stage that he blew our minds away.
The problem with teaching literature is the dumbing down of education in so many places. I remember one teacher whose attitude was 'if you don't understand a word, this is how you use a dictionary'. She just assumed that all the children were intelligent and wanted to learn. Because she was lucky and worked at a school where other staff made the same assumption and didn't write them off because they were just 'white working class boys' the children rose to the challenge.

Jim wrote: "Shakespeare should be watched, not read. He was a playwright not a novelist :-)
Perhaps we just do better TV adaptations of our classics?"

Actually I disagree (kind of). In Shakespeare's day people did not speak of going to see a play. They in fact always said they went to hear a play! So Shakespeare should be heard, not watched or read. ;)

All pedantry aside, though, it amounts to the same thing. You have to learn to hear Shakespeare before you can learn to read it. And I do suggest it be read.

We read Romeo and Juliet in High School and I absolutely hated it. I think we might also have read Hamelet, same thing. But in college we watched a recording of James Earl Jones staring in King Lear in Central Park, NYC. It suddenly came alive because the cadence and delivery made it all understandable. The story shown through, even if a lot of the words, puns and innuendo went right over our heads.

Read a good annotated copy, though (after you've learned to hear it), and dig into the language of the day and a whole new level of understanding springs up.

I mean "get thee to a nunnery" sounds plain enough...but in Shakespeare's day "nunnery" was also a euphemism for brothel. You can't get that level of understanding just listening to a performance.

Yeah, Joshua, I like your idea of literature as a "Pandora's Box".

And yeah, Shakespeare needs to be read as well as performed.

I think the English do have a different cultural attitude, because they think "It's ours, and it's one of the reason's we're great".

Anything that makes you feel like you've got "one up on the rest of the world" is going to create a favorable bias when students approach the work.