# What current novels will high-school/college English students read in 50 years? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 10, 2006, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069 "2006-04-10T13:27:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/1 "2006-04-10T13:27:25Z")
Followup, more or less, on this thread about the distinction between “fiction” and “literature”: Of authors currently writing and publishing, and new books now coming out, which do you think will be esteemed enough that, 50 years from now, high-school English teachers will make them assigned reading? Or English profs at the college level? Who will be deemed worthy to take a place alongside Homer, Chaucer, Melville, Twain, Bronte, Joyce, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Hemingway, etc.? Who will become part of the **canon?** ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/2 "2006-04-10T13:28:27Z")
Sorry, forgot that link: [Anyone remember the separate "fiction" and "literature" sections in bookstores? - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=363921) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/3 "2006-04-10T13:56:11Z")
Oh, and I guess we should consider poetry, too. What contemporary poets will teachers 50 years from now be forcing their students to memorize? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/4 "2006-04-10T14:04:20Z")
Stephen King. Really. Critics are already beginning to realize his books may be literature (at the very least, they will still be in print in 50 years). Toni Morrison. Joseph Heller. William Kennedy ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/5 "2006-04-10T14:28:49Z")
John Irving. Particularly his early stuff. Jack Kerouac gets more popular with time. ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/6 "2006-04-10T14:45:49Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] Stephen King. Really. Critics are already beginning to realize his books may be literature (at the very least, they will still be in print in 50 years). [/QUOTE] I wouldn’t be surprised at all–I’ve had this feeling for years. Years ago, I was doing research on Tennyson and noticed the contemporary criticism on him read an awful lot of like the current criticism of King. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/7 "2006-04-10T14:52:05Z")
[QUOTE=slortar] I wouldn’t be surprised at all–I’ve had this feeling for years. Years ago, I was doing research on Tennyson and noticed the contemporary criticism on him read an awful lot of like the current criticism of King. [/QUOTE] 😕 I’ve read _Idylls of the King_ and, so far as I can see, Tennyson and King have practically nothing in common. The 19th-Century writer to whom King is most often compared is Dickens. (Probably because each of them takes a very long time to tell a story and fills it with lots of details.) ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/8 "2006-04-10T14:52:10Z")
Current right this minute? Richard Russo Louise Erdrich Michael Chabon I wavered on David Foster Wallace. At the end of the day, I think he’s going to have the most success as an essayist, not a novelist. His novels will show up in more specialized college courses, though, but not surveys. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/9 "2006-04-10T14:52:12Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Or English profs at the college level? [/QUOTE] If it helps us frame the question, here are the books assigned to me in a college literature class in the early 90s (estimated IIRC publication date in parentheses): Albert Camus’ _The Fall_ (late 50s). Walker Pearcey’s _The Last Gentleman_ (early 60s) Doris Lessing’s \*Briefing for a Descent into Hell \* (late 60s) John Cheever’s \*The Falconer \* (mid 70s) Graham Greene’s, \*The Human Factor \* (mid 70s) Italo Calvino’s \*If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler … \* (mid 70s) John Updike’s \*A Month of Sundays \* (early 80s) Saul Bellow’s \*The Dean’s December \* (early 80s) ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/10 "2006-04-10T14:55:59Z")
Oh, I meant to add that I agree with the selections of Stephen King and John Irving. Some of the authors mentioned I thought were _already in_ the canon! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/11 "2006-04-10T14:58:41Z")
I’m such a big fan of Douglas Coupland that I’d like to see him find his way into the canon . . . but I’m afraid future generations might regard his novels as so much aimed at one generation, GenX, that they are irrelevant to all later ones. > **[Douglas Coupland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Coupland)** > > Douglas Coupland\[a\] OC OBC RCA (born 30 December 1961) is a Canadian visual artist and writer. Trained originally as a sculptor, Coupland found unexpected success as a novelist with the publication of his 1991 international bestseller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, which popularized the terms Generation X and McJob. He has since gone on to publish dozens of books, including novels, short story collections, and essay collections. He has also worked as a columnist and contributor f... ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Clam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3bc359/32.png) [@Happy\_Clam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Clam)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/12 "2006-04-10T14:59:31Z")
Well, I like Julian Barnes a lot- but no-one outside UK seems to have heard of hin. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Jennyrosity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@Jennyrosity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennyrosity)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/13 "2006-04-10T15:19:33Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] Stephen King. Really. Critics are already beginning to realize his books may be literature (at the very least, they will still be in print in 50 years). Toni Morrison. Joseph Heller. William Kennedy [/QUOTE] I studied Toni Morrison’s _Beloved_ as part of my English A Level, and that was ten years ago. ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/14 "2006-04-10T15:27:22Z")
Read? [Take your pick](http://www.booksontape.com/). ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/15 "2006-04-10T16:16:36Z")
Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest” ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/16 "2006-04-10T17:58:01Z")
I couldn’t disagree more strongly than on Stephen King, whom I can’t read now, and whose writing I can’t imagine will survive another five years past his death. The man is a turgid, bombastic wretched prose stylist spinning ludicrous plots (that often fade as the story progresses) with weak, vapid characters. I’d bet the farm on this. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/17 "2006-04-10T18:02:03Z")
I’ll throww in a couple of names, while agreeing that Chabon and Coupland might be among them: Brett Easton Ellis. Tom Wolfe (for his capturing of the zeitgeist of the 80’s and 90’s) David Mamet (his dramas) Jane Smiley Rushdie (of course) ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/18 "2006-04-10T18:27:07Z")
[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber] I couldn’t disagree more strongly than on Stephen King, whom I can’t read now, and whose writing I can’t imagine will survive another five years past his death. The man is a turgid, bombastic wretched prose stylist spinning ludicrous plots (that often fade as the story progresses) with weak, vapid characters. I’d bet the farm on this. [/QUOTE] And that differs from Steinbeck how? But seriously, King represents an important popular niche. Even if arguably flawed, I’d see several of his better books (Carrie, Shining, Dead Zone, Stand) or novellas/shorts assigned in classes along with HG Wells, Poe, Kafka, Burroughs, and other “respected” fantastical authors. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/19 "2006-04-10T19:09:52Z")
King’s “On Writing” should be read in every writing class. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2006, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069/20 "2006-04-10T19:35:55Z")
Kazuo Ishiguro. I just read _Never Let Me Go_ and found it beautifully well-written, exceptionally crafted, funny, and poignant. Then I read _The Remains of the Day_ and that was just as good. I need to hunt down his other stuff; any recommendations? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-current-novels-will-high-school-college-english-students-read-in-50-years/352069.md?page=2)