# What authors writing today will someday be shelved in the "Classics" section? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 29, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393 "2009-11-29T23:14:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/41 "2009-11-30T21:39:37Z")
I came in to post \*\*Haruki Murakami \*\*- a personal fave whose style is timeless, engrossing and technically well-executed - well, read in translation, that is… I would add **J.M. Coetzee** , if only for Disgrace, one of the finest novels I have ever read. Technically brilliant and moving on a number of levels. I would add the recently-deceased \*\*David Foster Wallace \*\*- his suicide has led to a review of his work and many authors - including Eggers, Chabon, and other McSweeney’s insiders - to state what an influence he was on them. I have no problem with King being on the list - or Rowling - simply due to the cultural impact that their books have had over long periods of time. I find a number of enduring writers are necessarily brilliant technical writers, like, say, Coetzee is. I am a huge Steinbeck fan, but would argue that his writing doesn’t keep pace with his story-telling and insight into human behavior… Has Gabriel Garcia Marquez beeing mentioned yet? I also wonder if Philip Roth’s work - or his WASP equivalent, John Updike - will endure… ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/42 "2009-11-30T21:51:01Z")
Many of the names mentioned (e.g. **García Márquez** ) are already considered classics. I’d like to second M **argaret Atwood, Alexander McCall Smith, JM Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Alice Munro** and **Junot Díaz**. I’d definitely add **Rohinton Mistry**. Possibly also **Armistead Maupin**. And I need to check out **Haruki Murakami**. But **Dan Brown**?? ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/43 "2009-11-30T22:03:41Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Rad, I get to be the first to mention Neal Stephenson. The Baroque Cycle really is the pinnacle of his achievement, but the Diamond Age is a pretty amazing work. > > Gene Wolfe will likely make it on that list as well. He’s not as famous but his work is very deep and intense. > > Gene Wolfe might remain a little more obscure than Stephenson, but Stephenson is there for sure. His books just capture the essence of the millenial gestalt better than anyone else writing today, and that is regardless of whether or not it even takes place in modern times. The Baroque Cycle really tells the story of the enlightenment really well while capturing a sense of action like an Alexandre Dumas book. I hope that students down the ages will be spared the Baroque Cycle. What a tedious set of books. The Diamond Age (which I love) will not age well. Sci Fi does not age well. When the future comes it is not like that predicted in the books. So the books seem old and quaint. The don’t have the insight into society of the day that the classics that we read now have to the time in which they were written. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/44 "2009-11-30T22:48:41Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > The neglected works of Jacqueline Susan. The novels of Harold Robbins. [spock]Ah. The giants.[/spock] 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/45 "2009-11-30T22:54:20Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > I hope that students down the ages will be spared the Baroque Cycle. What a tedious set of books. The Diamond Age (which I love) will not age well. Sci Fi does not age well. When the future comes it is not like that predicted in the books. So the books seem old and quaint. The don’t have the insight into society of the day that the classics that we read now have to the time in which they were written. Nevertheless, you will probably find H.G. Wells’ _War of the Worlds_ and _The Time Machine_ shelved in “Classics.” (Edgar Rice Burroughs, not so much.) ---
**Author:** ![Lethal\_Babydoll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3be4f8/32.png) [@Lethal\_Babydoll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lethal_Babydoll)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2009, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/46 "2009-11-30T23:16:24Z")
The writer of the second half of the 20th century whose works will remain classics the longest is … **Dr. Seuss** The ideas. The language. The plots. The zapegoozols. He had it all. (My sister teaches in elementary school and has hundreds of books in her class. Years ago, someone broke into her class and stole several things. Didn’t steal any books, except for ALL her Dr. Seuss books) ---
**Author:** ![Night\_so\_be\_it](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b2d939/32.png) [@Night\_so\_be\_it](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Night_so_be_it)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/47 "2009-12-01T02:09:18Z")
Some crazy suggestions in this thread, yo. There won’t be many, but among them the strongest contenders are: Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy and Don DeLillo. Maybe Alice Munro. Maybe David Foster Wallace, but probably not. Maybe William T. Vollmann. Maybe Cynthia Ozick. I’d like to say Steven Millhauser, but I doubt it. Same with Alasdair Gray. Same with Louise Gluck. Maybe John Ashbery. Maybe Elizabeth Bishop. People like King, Rowling, etc., will not last. Not as ‘classic literature’, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/48 "2009-12-01T02:38:06Z")
Another vote for King; I doubt all of his books will stay in print (though copies will always be easily obtained) but at his best he’s brilliant. Supernatural stuff aside, he is to mid/late 20th century Maine what O’Connor was to 20th century Georgia or- at risk of blasphemy- what Twain was to mid 19th century Missouri. I also think Harry Potter will remain big in the way that Mary Poppins and Peter Pan have done. If Rowling never writes another word other than essays on “Why I support terrorists and hate kittens” there’s too much nostalgia for Potter to go away, and for Y.A. reading he’s top notch. Anne Tyler is another ‘regional’ author whose better works will remain big. _Searching for Caleb_ and _Accidental Tourist_ are probably both my top 25"favorite books" list and among the few novels I re-read periodically. I think Neal Stephenson might be well remembered for quite a while, and I also think his greatest book is still in him. I’m trying to think of any writers of historical fiction who I believe will be read when they’re dead and none come to mind. I suppose it’s the “Write what you know” rules applying. Likewise I seriously doubt that anything currently in print by living authors and focused on vampires will be so in a few years and that the glut of vampire authors might be the “Flock of Seagulls” haircut or leisure suit or lava lamp/hippie beads when future sitcoms do comedic flashbacks to this era. Most will go the way of Irving Wallace, Harold Robbins, Frank Yerby, Sidney Sheldon and Jacqueline Susann [i.e. immensely popular gazillion copy selling authors who are mostly out of print very soon after their deaths {Susann’s books were recently reissued after a long period of being o.o.p.}). ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/49 "2009-12-01T03:01:54Z")
> [@Lethal\_Babydoll](#): > > The writer of the second half of the 20th century whose works will remain classics the longest is … > > **Dr. Seuss** > > The ideas. The language. The plots. The zapegoozols. He had it all. > > (My sister teaches in elementary school and has hundreds of books in her class. Years ago, someone broke into her class and stole several things. Didn’t steal any books, except for ALL her Dr. Seuss books) Not writing today, but I agree if we change the terms to “written recently.” Dr. Seuss will be classic for generations. ---
**Author:** ![rolandgunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@rolandgunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rolandgunslinger)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/50 "2009-12-01T03:11:30Z")
Hunter S Thompson. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/51 "2009-12-01T03:37:00Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > he is to mid/late 20th century Maine what O’Connor was to 20th century Georgia Wow. Your O’Connor reading software is bustit. O’Connor is one of a very short list of authors who should’ve gotten a Nobel prize, if it weren’t for that pesky rule against posthumous recipients; King is the bottom of the bottom of the nastiest trash barrel. They’re not in the same universe. King’s horrors are misanthropic, sadistic wallowings in the worst aspects of stunted humanity; O’Connors horrors are about how big the universe is and how we fit in it. I get that a lot of people don’t get a lot out of O’Connor, but to compare Stephen King to Flannery O’Connor is just about the most outrageous travesty I’ve ever come across in this forum. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/52 "2009-12-01T03:41:45Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Wow. Your O’Connor reading software is bustit. O’Connor is one of a very short list of authors who should’ve gotten a Nobel prize, if it weren’t for that pesky rule against posthumous recipients; King is the bottom of the bottom of the nastiest trash barrel. They’re not in the same universe. King’s horrors are misanthropic, sadistic wallowings in the worst aspects of stunted humanity; O’Connors horrors are about how big the universe is and how we fit in it. Oh that’s utter bullshit. I would never compare O’Connor to King, but that’s because O’Connor’s horrors often require a lot of work to ‘explain’ them, and the redemption in her stories is only vaguely clear. King on the other hand has lots of cookie-cutter, but non-misanthropic, redemption, via man’s faith in himself and god. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/53 "2009-12-01T03:42:49Z")
Nuh uh. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/54 "2009-12-01T04:05:32Z")
Actually, to elaborate, King’s “redemptions” are tacked on and incongruous; beyond being cliche, they don’t ring true. What his stories are actually about is his soul-deep self-loathing, projected onto the rest of humanity. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/55 "2009-12-01T04:17:28Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > The neglected works of Jacqueline Susan. The novels of Harold Robbins. Ahhhhh, the Masters. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/56 "2009-12-01T04:23:09Z")
Too late for ETA: Dammit, **Kenobi**! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/57 "2009-12-01T04:24:40Z")
I’ve always thought that Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk had way more aphorisms and symbolism than a lot of the “classics”, and is actually a fun read for adolescent males. Secretly, I hope this book someday makes the classics list. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/58 "2009-12-01T04:24:49Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Actually, to elaborate, King’s “redemptions” are tacked on and incongruous; beyond being cliche, they don’t ring true. What his stories are actually about is his soul-deep self-loathing, projected onto the rest of humanity. **lissener** , this is the same thing you say about Stephen Spielberg. Why do you think people named “Stephen” are filled with self-loathing? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/59 "2009-12-01T04:53:11Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Wow. Your O’Connor reading software is bustit. O’Connor is one of a very short list of authors who should’ve gotten a Nobel prize, if it weren’t for that pesky rule against posthumous recipients; King is the bottom of the bottom of the nastiest trash barrel. They’re not in the same universe. King’s horrors are misanthropic, sadistic wallowings in the worst aspects of stunted humanity; O’Connors horrors are about how big the universe is and how we fit in it. > > I get that a lot of people don’t get a lot out of O’Connor, but to compare Stephen King to Flannery O’Connor is just about the most outrageous travesty I’ve ever come across in this forum. ## De gustibus non est disputandum. I’m not a huge fan of most of King’s supernatural horror novels (when it comes to supernatural horror he can’t end a story to save his life), but _The Body_, _Dolores Claiborne_ (brilliant use of dialect and the only thing supernatural being the “meanwhile in Gerald’s Game” moment [it was to be released in a single volume with GG]), and even _Carrie_ and _Salem’s Lot_ when read allegorically would make a dent in O’Connor. The characters are no more grotesque, far more likable (does O’Connor _have_ any likable protagonists?) and a lot less ideological than so much of Peacock Woman, and when he does use the supernatural at least it’s not Irish Catholic mysticism (not that there’s anything wrong with that). While I don’t like anything Coupland has written _since_ _Generation X_ save for a few essays, I think his first and flagship book will survive for another generation. Umberto Eco will most certainly be around for a long long time. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2009, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393/60 "2009-12-01T05:09:06Z")
Didn’t Coupland write Ecstacy Club? Or am I thinking of someone else? It was a good book, but not particularly noteworthy. Oops, that was Douglas Rushkoff. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-authors-writing-today-will-someday-be-shelved-in-the-classics-section/519393.md?page=4)