Thank you, Thudlow_Boink. This is why it’s important to for people to make their original posts easy to understand. It wasn’t easy to figure out what was meant by Ramona.
Being from California, I assumed Ramona was a well recognized American classic. But thinking about it for a couple minutes, it’s apparent that it was elevated to that status locally by 4th Grade teachers looking for resources relevant to mandated state History curricula.
I feel that classics have to contain universal truths, and be thought-provoking. I’m currently reading a novel that I suspect will be considered a classic in the future, even though it was just published 13 years ago, and that book is Dr. Abraham Verghese’s “Cutting For Stone.” His first nonfiction book, “My Own Country”, doesn’t get much attention these days, but people who want to know what the early days of AIDS were really like should read it.
This is quite a vague definition, I know.
I did mean the 1884 “Ramona”, and I apologize for not making that clearer. I’ve read “Ramona”, and I can’t see why it’s been forgotten over the years.
There isn’t a set definition. But I dislike the term “instant classic” which is moronic, and oxymoronic too…
In general, a classic is:
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an old book good or popular enough to be known or in print generations or centuries later
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a book foisted on students, probably boring, alleged to have noteworthy or educational value
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a book that several experts, or influential committees offering book awards simply claim is “a classic”
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a book that sells well, has had multiple publishers of increasing prestige, and has been translated into several languages
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a book memorable enough that older generations seek to procure it for younger generations
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a book which appears on lists of good books
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a book popular enough that decades later people can remember something about it
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a book so incredibly dull, disorganized or incomprehensible that someone influential is convinced it has deep meaning or purpose
Most of the replies have focused on the word “classic,” but I think the OP was also asking what makes a book “literature.”
In the broadest sense of the word, “literature” could mean anything that’s written. But I don’t think of something like the phone book or my car’s owners’ manual as “literature.”
At a bare minimum, I think literature has to involve some artistry or creativity in its making. It can’t be strictly utilitarian, nor strictly disposable (i.e. possibly entertaining to read, but nothing really sticks with you after you’ve finished it; you don’t get anything from it that you can’t get elsewhere).