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Which books published in your lifetime will be thought of as classic fiction in a 100 years time?

BMS1 [Edit] [Delete] 92 replies 08:20 March 17th, 2013

I'm a 36 year old and tend not to read that many "new" books. Despite starting this thread I'm not sure that there have been that many new great works of fiction. Please enlightened me into which books I should read.

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phillip pullmans - his dark materials

Matt_was_taken | 17 Mar '13, 08:26 | X | ^ This | Reply

hip_young_gunslinger, twentynine, pichaelmarker, henshinagogo, and monoshono this'd this
American Psycho :')

guntrip | 17 Mar '13, 08:34 | X | ^ This | Reply
- Is this tongue in cheek?
  
  jopzorz @guntrip | 17 Mar '13, 08:49 | X | ^ This | Reply
  - nah
    
    something something post-Reagan moral vacuum
    
    guntrip @jopzorz | 17 Mar '13, 11:57 | X | ^ This | Reply
    - American Psycho is one of the greatest books ever written
      
      and will be remembered long after we are all dead
      
      ryanwilson @guntrip | 18 Mar '13, 02:36 | X | ^ This | Reply
      - This. Get's a bad rap because it's author is enormous tit.
        
        But genuinely one of the greatest books ever written.
        
        wilykit @ryanwilson | 18 Mar '13, 09:57 | X | ^ This | Reply
- I've read American Psycho. Maybe those "sarcastic" chapters that
  
  endlessly referenced stuff like Huey Lewis and all things 80s might be oddly of interest to some people in the future. Would people read any Douglas Coupland a century from now?
  
  BMS1 @guntrip | 17 Mar '13, 08:51 | X | ^ This | Reply
  - I'm not even sure Douglas Coupland books would make sense to anyone post-Generation X today, let alone 100 years in the future.
    
    theguywithnousername @BMS1 | 17 Mar '13, 08:53 | X | ^ This | Reply
    - Shame. I've been "occupational slumming" as Coupland
      
      put it since I graduated in 1997.
      
      BMS1 @theguywithnousername | 17 Mar '13, 08:55 | X | ^ This | Reply
    - I read it a couple of years ago, it feels very much like a period piece.
      
      hip_young_gunslinger @theguywithnousername | 17 Mar '13, 10:50 | X | ^ This | Reply
harry potter 1-7

furio | 17 Mar '13, 08:37 | X | ^ This | Reply

theguywithnousername, pichaelmarker, Body_In_The_Thames, Antelope, and Ichor this'd this
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

possibly House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski but in the same way that The Big Sleep is a classic now. Like intellectualised pulp fiction.

brainfeedr | 17 Mar '13, 08:43 | X | ^ This | Reply

Oissin_ and dorftrottel this'd this
- Came here to post Infinite Jest.
  
  The Pale King also.
  
  Oissin_ @brainfeedr | 17 Mar '13, 09:15 | X | ^ This | Reply
  
  Infinite_Jest this'd this
  - not The Pale King
    
    but The Broom of the System is brilliant.
    
    incandenza_ @Oissin_ | 17 Mar '13, 11:57 | X | ^ This | Reply
    
    anal_schwarzenegger this'd this
    - Why not The Pale King?
      
      It's incredible.
      
      Oissin_ @incandenza_ | 17 Mar '13, 18:05 | X | ^ This | Reply
      - but... he never finished it himself
        
        just feels wrong.
        
        incandenza_ @Oissin_ | 17 Mar '13, 19:43 | X | ^ This | Reply
        
        Someone called incandenza likes DFW?
        
        I am surprised ;)
        
        I honestly think Pale King could have been better than Infinite Jest, if he'd finished it.
        
        Infinite_Jest @incandenza_ | 17 Mar '13, 20:07 | X | ^ This | Reply
        
        well, yes :)
        
        hmm...nah, not possible to better IJ. it would have come close, of that I'm sure. just hard to imagine that he would ever have been in the right state of mind to wrangle his thoughts and finish the thing.
        
        incandenza_ @Infinite_Jest | 17 Mar '13, 20:24 | X | ^ This | Reply
        
        I think I prefer it to Infinite Jest in some ways.
        
        Damned if I can tell you which ways though...it just seems so odd and atmospheric and sad.
        
        Oissin_ @Infinite_Jest | 17 Mar '13, 23:24 | X | ^ This | Reply
All the Pretty Horses

in fact most of Cormac McCarthy's stuff

Wasted_Opportunity | 17 Mar '13, 09:40 | X | ^ This | Reply

brainfeedr, incandenza_, El_Goodo, Infinite_Jest, rich-t, Cementimental, and GrandMoffTarkin this'd this
- *Blood Meridian
  
  Cementimental @Wasted_Opportunity | 18 Mar '13, 12:16 | X | ^ This | Reply
Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things

although i wasn't a massive fan

politelydeclined | 17 Mar '13, 10:05 | X | ^ This | Reply

wewerewerewolvesonce and Infinite_Jest this'd this
- I quite liked it but it took awhile to get going
  
  wewerewerewolvesonce @politelydeclined | 17 Mar '13, 18:52 | X | ^ This | Reply
2666- Roberto Bolano

Kavalier and Clay- Michael Chabon
His Dark Materials- Philip Pullman

citizenmeh | 17 Mar '13, 10:09 | X | ^ This | Reply
- yeah def 2666
  
  anal_schwarzenegger @citizenmeh | 17 Mar '13, 12:07 | X | ^ This | Reply
- Kavalier and Clay vote from me
  
  plasticniki @citizenmeh | 17 Mar '13, 23:12 | X | ^ This | Reply
  
  Gringo this'd this
The Unbearable Lightness of Being?

maybe Watchmen as a classic of the genre (are comics a genre?)
maybe The Secret History - that's pretty timeless, I reckon

ohgood | 17 Mar '13, 10:12 | X | ^ This | Reply
- I'd say so (re: The Unbearable Lightness...)
  
  although my friend regards it as sophistry.
  
  he's missing the point, though: it isn't an important work of philosophy as much as it's a bleak cold war romance that uses the model of the philosophical novel as a vehicle for something less concerned with its own iron grip on the truth, more concerned with a heady, deconstructive yet transcendental take on relationships and the flaws in human nature.
  
  incandenza_ @ohgood | 17 Mar '13, 12:14 | X | ^ This | Reply
- comics are a medium
  
  guntrip @ohgood | 17 Mar '13, 18:00 | X | ^ This | Reply
  - that's the word I was looking for
    
    ohgood @guntrip | 17 Mar '13, 18:44 | X | ^ This | Reply
- watchmen's already regarded as a classic
  
  e.g. it's on the TIME 100 greates books since 1923 list
  
  anal_schwarzenegger @ohgood | 19 Mar '13, 01:06 | X | ^ This | Reply
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenedies

hip_young_gunslinger | 17 Mar '13, 10:49 | X | ^ This | Reply

coolerthantv this'd this
If Hilary Mantel completes that trilogy

then that.

johnwiddop | 17 Mar '13, 11:00 | X | ^ This | Reply
The Gruffalo

theguywithnousername | 17 Mar '13, 11:46 | X | ^ This | Reply

NoahVale this'd this
I second 2666

Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

mekong | 17 Mar '13, 11:50 | X | ^ This | Reply
- i third 2666
  
  didyousayhand @mekong | 17 Mar '13, 12:13 | X | ^ This | Reply
  - am I the only person who think The Savage Detectives is better than 2666
    
    ???
    
    johnwiddop @didyousayhand | 17 Mar '13, 23:53 | X | ^ This | Reply
    
    marckee this'd this
    - haha
      
      don't worry, I've seen The Savage Detectives rated higher in polls and stuff before, so its not just you!
      
      I really enjoyed The Savage Detectives, but much preferred 2666 and would go as far as to say it's my favourite ever book. So far that is..
      
      didyousayhand @johnwiddop | 18 Mar '13, 01:05 | X | ^ This | Reply
      - Tbh Savage Detectives and 2666 can almost be treated as one body of work.
        
        They clearly take place in the same literary universe, sharing characters and themes and atmosphere.
        
        But yeah I'll also back up the 2666 nomination, it's basically already been inducted into the canon by critics but of course we'll see in 50, 75, 100 years' time. Some of the writers who won the Nobel back in the first half of the 20th century were similarly received back then but are hardly remembered now.
        
        proslo @didyousayhand | 18 Mar '13, 13:28 | X | ^ This | Reply
    - not read savage detetives yet
      
      I can't imagine it'll be as good though
      few things are
      
      anal_schwarzenegger @johnwiddop | 19 Mar '13, 01:07 | X | ^ This | Reply
Slaughter 5 by Vonnegutt

NoahVale | 17 Mar '13, 12:55 | X | ^ This | Reply
- already a classic
  
  incandenza_ @NoahVale | 17 Mar '13, 19:44 | X | ^ This | Reply
  
  mute-branches, heartworms, harman_kardon, Antelope, and badmanreturns this'd this
  - I cheated
    
    NoahVale @incandenza_ | 18 Mar '13, 10:42 | X | ^ This | Reply
Ian McEwan is the greatest living writer

But you can't but love anything by Peter Carey, Alan Hollinghurst, Cormac McCarthy and JM Coetze.
Patchy but essential reading of writers who rule the roost right now include Martin Amis, Will Self, AS Byatt, Margaret Atwood and Julian Barnes. The titans.
(Try London Fields, My Idea of Fun, Posession, The Blind Assasin, Flaubert's Parrot respectively)

Read a book recommendation: Steve Toltz - A Fraction of a Whole.
Classic in 100 years time: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett.

El_Goodo | 17 Mar '13, 17:14 | X | ^ This | Reply

Infinite_Jest this'd this
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez is still alive.
  
  fullerov @El_Goodo | 17 Mar '13, 17:58 | X | ^ This | Reply
  - *Thomas Pynchon
    
    speaking of which, Against The Day is surely a minor classic, and Mason & Dixon, which I'm sadly yet to read, possibly a major one
    
    Loui_Tacceh @fullerov | 17 Mar '13, 18:00 | X | ^ This | Reply
    - Yeah Pynchon is clearly the greatest living novelist
      
      anal_schwarzenegger @Loui_Tacceh | 17 Mar '13, 23:58 | X | ^ This | Reply
  - As is Philip Roth.
    
    wilykit @fullerov | 18 Mar '13, 10:02 | X | ^ This | Reply
    - Philip Roth isn't going to sleep with you, you know?
      
      deadonthestairs @wilykit | 18 Mar '13, 10:08 | X | ^ This | Reply
      - He might.
        
        wilykit @deadonthestairs | 18 Mar '13, 10:25 | X | ^ This | Reply
- I would put good money on Carey, Hollinghurst, Amis , Atwood and Barnes Not being in this category ...
  
  Coetzee and McCarthy, and possibly Byatt, but the others are middle brow booker long list stuff ... Not knocking it, like a lot of those authors, but they are not TITANS (as you call them)
  
  MrBones @El_Goodo | 17 Mar '13, 21:09 | X | ^ This | Reply
  
  suedehead this'd this
Money by Martin Amis

lurchy2 | 17 Mar '13, 21:16 | X | ^ This | Reply
The Corrections

I'd like to think that What A Carve Up! would be, but probably not.

Perfume?

chanticleer | 17 Mar '13, 21:46 | X | ^ This | Reply
- The Corrections / Franzen's work in general is / are on my to-read list
  
  mute-branches @chanticleer | 17 Mar '13, 21:58 | X | ^ This | Reply
  - * scratch the are
    
    mute-branches @mute-branches | 17 Mar '13, 21:58 | X | ^ This | Reply
Paul Auster - The New York Trilogy

jack_on_fire | 17 Mar '13, 21:54 | X | ^ This | Reply

plasticniki and Bethany_E this'd this
Bellow, Marquez, Miloszc,Borges, Hill (geoffrey), Heaney, Hughes, Gordimer, Paz,

Saramago, Grass, Auster, Coetzee, Carver, Foster Wallace, Pinter, Vargos LLosa, perhaps McCarthy, Bolano and Franzen ... those sorts ... Not your Amis, Self, Barnes', good as they are.

Plus, lots of stuff that isn't on our radar as important but will be seen to be so in time.

MrBones | 17 Mar '13, 22:04 | X | ^ This | Reply
- *perhaps* McCarthy?
  
  incandenza_ @MrBones | 18 Mar '13, 00:20 | X | ^ This | Reply
  - I think it will depend on him writing one more defining novel ...
    
    The Road is amazing but slight, the border trilogy is seen by many i think as being too derivative of Faulkner.
    
    Still, He would be my choice for the Nobel Prize.
    
    MrBones @incandenza_ | 18 Mar '13, 10:31 | X | ^ This | Reply
    - Suttree? The Orchard Keeper? Blood Meridian?
      
      take your pick. already classic. one of the all-time greats.
      
      incandenza_ @MrBones | 18 Mar '13, 15:22 | X | ^ This | Reply
      
      anal_schwarzenegger this'd this
Don DeLillo - Underworld

couldbebrianmay | 17 Mar '13, 22:28 | X | ^ This | Reply

ohgood this'd this
- White Noise
  
  nyodeneD @couldbebrianmay | 18 Mar '13, 00:04 | X | ^ This | Reply
  
  incandenza_, chanticleer, and whatisthewhat this'd this
WG Sebald - The Rings of Saturn

anal_schwarzenegger | 17 Mar '13, 23:55 | X | ^ This | Reply
bit of an obvious choice but

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

wewerewerewolvesonce | 18 Mar '13, 00:03 | X | ^ This | Reply
- Nah, people will have forgotten all the Scandi crime novels
  
  I'd put money on Murakami being remembered very well - maybe Norwegian Wood, or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle?
  
  orangejuice @wewerewerewolvesonce | 18 Mar '13, 00:37 | X | ^ This | Reply
  - Oh, and Philip Roth, obvs
    
    orangejuice @orangejuice | 18 Mar '13, 00:38 | X | ^ This | Reply
    
    wilykit this'd this
  - see for people outside of Scandinavia I suspect they just come across as great crime novels
    
    but they also touch on elements of Swedish politics and culture which might see people revisiting them again in the future. Pure speculation of course.
    
    Good call on Murakami though.
    
    wewerewerewolvesonce @orangejuice | 18 Mar '13, 01:17 | X | ^ This | Reply
    - In fairness I've only read the first 'Dragon Tattoo' book
      
      It just didn't grab me any more than your usual WH Smith airport lounge thriller, but it does seem to have become quite a phenomenon. Anyone care to recommend either of the films?
      
      orangejuice @wewerewerewolvesonce | 18 Mar '13, 13:04 | X | ^ This | Reply
      - I've only seen the original swedish of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
        
        highly recommended though
        
        wewerewerewolvesonce @orangejuice | 18 Mar '13, 14:26 | X | ^ This | Reply
Richard Yates

Who is so fucking underrated it hurts.

PenguinPants | 18 Mar '13, 00:53 | X | ^ This | Reply
Willy Vlautin - Lean on Pete / The Motel Life

Shalom Auslander - Beware of God
Chuck Palahniuk - Choke
Bret Easton Ellis - American Psycho
Irvine Welsh - Crime / Filth / The bedroom secrets of the master chefs
Tom Perrotta - Election
James Palumbo - Tomas
Ronan O'Brien - Confessions of a fallen angel
Billy Childish - My fault
James Frey - A million little pieces
Daniel Wallace - Mr Sebastian and the negro magician
Lydia Millett - How the dead dream
Charlie Higson - Happy Now
Lars Husum - My friend Jesus Christ
Philip Roth - The Humbling / Indignation
Veronique Ovalde - And my see-through heart
Alex Garland - The coma

ryanwilson | 18 Mar '13, 02:35 | X | ^ This | Reply

ryanwilson this'd this
1984

cat_race | 18 Mar '13, 09:54 | X | ^ This | Reply
- C'mon creaky - you ain't that old
  
  NoahVale @cat_race | 18 Mar '13, 10:43 | X | ^ This | Reply
American Pastoral - Philip Roth

wilykit | 18 Mar '13, 10:01 | X | ^ This | Reply
None that I can think of

Royter-Hatfood | 18 Mar '13, 10:47 | X | ^ This | Reply

deadonthestairs, zxcvbnm-, and eimaj1779 this'd this
- oh wait what about...
  
  nah not that.
  
  zxcvbnm- @Royter-Hatfood | 18 Mar '13, 13:30 | X | ^ This | Reply
http://www.cementimental.com/noisebook/index.html

Cementimental | 18 Mar '13, 12:16 | X | ^ This | Reply
I always assumed Cormac McCarthy was a woman

no idea why. ACTUALLY - I KNOW. It is because I got them confused with Carson McCullers.

I have no idea, it can be quite random who and which books become classics 40 years down the line, it can be ones which didn't get much praise at the time, but then it was probably quite obvious that Steinbeck and Hemingway would be seen as classics from the moment they were printed I guess.

steinbolt | 18 Mar '13, 12:47 | X | ^ This | Reply
- Cormac McCarthy WISHES he was Carson McCullers
  
  drakepress @steinbolt | 18 Mar '13, 13:13 | X | ^ This | Reply
I'd say Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is my favourite 21st century book

So that, hopefully

wonton | 18 Mar '13, 13:07 | X | ^ This | Reply
Not nearly enough cyber fiction in this thread

in 100 years time this will be seen as the age of the digital pioneers - a shift into virtual existence as relevant as modernism's shift from agrarian to urban existence

a lot of what people have suggested in this thread is simply an extension of archetypal modernism

Body_In_The_Thames | 18 Mar '13, 13:49 | X | ^ This | Reply
- Interested in your comment about modernism, strikes me as almost totally untrue.
  
  MrBones @Body_In_The_Thames | 18 Mar '13, 13:55 | X | ^ This | Reply
  - If by that you mean the last little half-formed sentence
    
    DiS posted it while I was trying to delete it. I'm on a bus on my phone
    
    Body_In_The_Thames @MrBones | 18 Mar '13, 14:19 | X | ^ This | Reply
    - ah!
      
      MrBones @Body_In_The_Thames | 18 Mar '13, 14:46 | X | ^ This | Reply
      - home now
        
        but I can't remember what my point was going to be
        
        meh
        
        Body_In_The_Thames @MrBones | 18 Mar '13, 17:15 | X | ^ This | Reply
The Wasp Factory

midnightpunk | 18 Mar '13, 14:22 | X | ^ This | Reply
Berserk

Cementimental | 18 Mar '13, 14:45 | X | ^ This | Reply
people are just saying books they like

shrewbie | 18 Mar '13, 15:32 | X | ^ This | Reply

fullerov, Cementimental, and Lucien this'd this
- it's almost as if whether or not a book is good or not is just down to an individual's opinion
  
  ryanwilson @shrewbie | 18 Mar '13, 23:45 | X | ^ This | Reply
Riders by jilly cooper

PickledOeuf | 18 Mar '13, 17:18 | X | ^ This | Reply

eimaj1779 this'd this
when did margaret atwood release that book?

Jordan_229_2 | 19 Mar '13, 09:37 | X | ^ This | Reply
- which one?
  
  ryanwilson @Jordan_229_2 | 19 Mar '13, 23:47 | X | ^ This | Reply

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