I’m betting on Douglas Coupland.
Uh, I shudder the least to think of JK Rowling. I loved that series of books and think it’s the best children/young adult series since Narnia.
The other two, on the other hand, will hopefully be forgotten. I mean, what did they write that was more than a fad?
Lots of acknowledged “Classics” are raunchy. Catcher in the Rye is an acknowledged fixture in “Classics” collections and summer reading lists, or even assigned course-reading.
Frankly, there’s no telling. There’s absolutely no way to predict - one age’s compulsive reading bestseller is literally unknown in the next, and a complete literary nobody ends up being the poster child for an era.
Swear words and the intensity of their meanings change over time, so I think it’s conceivable that in several decades, “fucking” won’t be considered as severe as it is now. The fact is - as Tom Wolfe himself actually points out, in one of his novels - the words “fuck” and “shit” are actually evolving into highly flexible phrases that are, for better or worse, becoming a common part of the casual lexicon. It’s plausible that twenty years down the road, they’ll be the equivalent of “damn” or “hell” in their severity, and Wolfe’s novels will be assigned to students.
I’d go with Byatt, Atwood, Morrison, Chabon…add Rushdie to that list
If there were a way to verify it, I’d be willing to bet the rest of my years on this planet that Stephen King’s novels will not be considered classics, as defined in this thread. The thing that the exampled writers in this thread have in common–Dickens and Twain, not to mention Poe–is only this one thing: they were great writers: they created great writing. Stephen King has a genius for storytelling–specifically for manipulative storytelling–but he is a terrible, terrible writer. Add to that the basic human *truth *found in Dickens, and the biting societal and cultural truth found in Twain, and you have another distinction: there isn’t a letter of truth in anything King’s ever written.
The examples of Dickens and Twain prove only one thing: that popularity does not preclude greatness. Unfortunately, Stephen King fans tend to use them to suggest that greatness necessarily follows popularity.
King is an amoral, sociopathic hack, with a savant-like genius for getting you to turn the page. That is not the same as greatness, and it never will be.
As usual, lissener, I find myself in agreement with you. Stephen King is indeed a great storyteller - or, to put it more accurately, he’s a good story-conceiver. He’s great at coming up with ideas for stories. I like most of the movies that have been based on King stories. But I can’t stand his writing. He uses way too many words to get his ideas across, and that is the sign of a bad storyteller. I remember hearing a short summary of The Jaunt, and it scared me stiff. Then when I read the actual story, I was bored stiff.
That’s the thing about King. His ideas are often ingenious, but his execution horrible.
Bentley Little is a writer whose stories have the same kind of ideas as King’s, but are far better written, with a much greater economy of words. (They’re also usually more twisted, often bordering on transgressive.) King has actually claimed to be a fan of Little’s work.
Right. Early Clive Barker is worlds closer to “great writing” than the best of Stephen King’s stuff. And Barker’s best work is also very spare. Not that wordiness is necessarily bad; just for most writers, that’s the case. But Dickens, Undset, Proust–in the right hands, it’s just more of a good thing. In King’s hands, it’s more of a *bad *thing.
I’ll add Frederick Forsyth and Roald Dahl to the list.
WHAT? Oh come on…He hates adjectives! He is NO Dan Brown or Passion Perssiomon of Love writer
31 replies and no one mentions John Irving? For shame.
I have LOATHED everything I’ve ever read by John Irving. (I could say the same about a few “classics” authors, though. Never could even begin to get into the more inaccessible Chas. Dickens, or god forbid Joseph Conrad.)
JK Rowling, whose work I do NOT loathe, has already written classics currently on the shelf. She will never be removed from that shelf.
I’m not sure how long Catcher will remain on The Classics List (assuming there is such a thing)…which is something about classics lists. They aren’t really static. There are some things that have earned a place and will remain there for eternity (Shakespere) and other things that really haven’t been there long enough to see if they will hold. In my opinion, Catcher is an example of a waning Classic star. It will always be studied by those who read “20th century American lit” (along with Lolita, Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, etc), but I suspect it will become more obscure.
You’d be surprised. There are plenty of authors from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that sold metric asstons, were critically acclaimed, and were expected by everybody to be read forever. They aren’t. Read The Adventures of Roderick Random lately? East Lynne? That one was so popular that dramatic adaptations were guaranteed wins for actors (like how every year ballet companies put on the Nutcracker Suite) and there were buttloads of film adaptations, one nominated for Best Picture and one with Theda Bara. Have you even heard of it?
Authors not yet mentioned (that I’ve noticed):
Jonathan Lethem
Richard Russo
Kent Haruf
David Foster Wallace
John Barth
Barbara Kingsolver
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 agree with most of the replies to this thread - but if I might add one - how about John Irving? He always creates vivid word pictures and has an eloquent writing style.
Personally, I admire David Sedaris and wish his works were required reading in my high school.
I have to agree with those disparaging certain aspects of King’s writing. Now he does he conceive good tales (I, too, enjoy movies made from Kings works,) and I also agree with those who say that he is good at realistic characterization.
But I also agree with the bloviation. In the first 50 pages of the only King story I tried to read (Firestarter, I think,) there were about 2 fairly deep (or at least memorable) insights into human interaction, combined with 48 pages of completely forgettable prose with no action. You don’t need adjectives to say nothing 
And I hear he’s only gotten worse since then.
Furthermore, I was in middle school at the time and even I thought the sentence structure and word selection were below my reading ability and boring.
But he’s still better than JKRowling.