yeah, fantasy, horror and science fiction readers are quite willing to read older, out-of-fashion writers
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Friday, 28 October 2022 16:41 (one year ago) link
he was always the go-to pop poet for midbrows to hate on (runner-up: leonard cohen)
― mark s, Friday, 28 October 2022 bookmarkflaglink
✔️✔️✔️
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 28 October 2022 18:24 (one year ago) link
Didn't get into first Elric trilogy (too soon after Urth of the New Sun, for one thing), didn't really focus on his Hawkwind lyrics, but in last five years or so have come across some good new stories. Well, the first part of one (I think in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) about most recent (American & allies involved) Afghanistan War seemed a bit stilted in the battlefield, maybe because he'd never been in war, but when the main character gets to Kabul, and re-encounters a woman x olde webs of complicity and duplicity re dealing with various factions of governments, as well as each other---it gets better. Also liked the brawny sandy savvy steampunker he contributed to Old Mars, a good RR Martin-Dozois-edited collection of all-new stories. Di
― dow, Friday, 28 October 2022 19:09 (one year ago) link
I had no idea Hawkwind was an actual band when I read Time of the Hawklords.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 28 October 2022 19:18 (one year ago) link
he was always the go-to pop poet for midbrows to hate on (runner-up: leonard cohen)― mark s, Friday, 28 October 2022 bookmarkflaglink
― poppin' debussy (the table is the table), Friday, 28 October 2022 19:22 (one year ago) link
Rod McKuen piece in Slate recently
https://slate.com/culture/2022/10/rod-mckuen-best-selling-poet-songs-what-happened.html
I’m in my 40s but only heard his name as a punchline in Giffen & DeMatteis Justice League comics
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 28 October 2022 21:04 (one year ago) link
That Slate link is the ICP of this thread
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Friday, 28 October 2022 21:15 (one year ago) link
Insane clown posse?
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 28 October 2022 22:18 (one year ago) link
Yes
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Friday, 28 October 2022 22:20 (one year ago) link
Just a reference to the “Bands with their own subculture “ thread where people continuously post ICP(The Slate link has been posted here 3 times btw)
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Friday, 28 October 2022 22:24 (one year ago) link
Ha oops
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 28 October 2022 23:15 (one year ago) link
In fairness one of those posts was within the quote part of a reply to the previous such post.
― Regex Dwight (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 28 October 2022 23:23 (one year ago) link
As Angus Wilson and Murdoch have both been mentioned I came across this review of a book by the former on the latter.
Wilson's value, if any, was as a gossip.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/sep/06/biography.highereducation?
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 30 October 2022 07:15 (one year ago) link
You're confusing AN Wilson with Angus Wilson there
― Ward Fowler, Sunday, 30 October 2022 07:34 (one year ago) link
Haha ah so that's a writer I do not know a lot about.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 30 October 2022 10:27 (one year ago) link
the old men at the zoo (angus w) was made into a TV drama in the early 80s!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldvbZmtm7_E
― mark s, Sunday, 30 October 2022 11:11 (one year ago) link
tho tbh i feel this was a last little throb on the slope of his forgetting
― mark s, Sunday, 30 October 2022 11:12 (one year ago) link
that title has stuck with me, and that appears to be the extent of my knowledge
― saigo no ice cream (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 30 October 2022 11:14 (one year ago) link
Two kids authors that were relatively omnipresent on the mid-80s WH Smith shelves of my childhood, but now never even turn up in charity shops: JH Brennan and John Antrobus
― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 31 October 2022 00:43 (one year ago) link
None of the novelists today will be read.
there’s so little contemporary literature that has the potential to be classic (i.e. to be appreciated outside its immediate context). nobody in a hundred years is going to read donna tartt or sally rooney as literature (even if they might read them as cultural history)— rose ❤️🔥🗡 (@roselyddon) November 1, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 1 November 2022 14:27 (one year ago) link
tweeters with a time machine
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 1 November 2022 14:29 (one year ago) link
Incidentally I am not sure if I ever read a piece of old literature as cultural history xp
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 1 November 2022 14:32 (one year ago) link
I read Madame Bovary once to find out what kinds of hats were considered unfashionable at the time.
― (We're Not) The Experimental Jet Set (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 14:33 (one year ago) link
Think cultural history is at least a component in my enjoyment of...everything, really.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 1 November 2022 14:35 (one year ago) link
Yes, what will last is silly. But there are many novels published in the last two decades that will have an interest as exciting things to read
xp = guess the Anatomy of Melancholy is interesting as an insight of how people thought about depression, but it's the expression of it that really holds for me.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 1 November 2022 14:38 (one year ago) link
I kind of feel like the default case for literature is to be forgotten. What percentage of old books are remembered decades or even centuries later? I would guess much less than 1%. So predicting that something will be forgotten is kind of easy.
― o. nate, Tuesday, 1 November 2022 14:43 (one year ago) link
OTM. See also all the languages gone missing over the millennia.
― (We're Not) The Experimental Jet Set (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 14:47 (one year ago) link
It is hard to think of recent authors who I actively hope will be read in the future. Whether as literature or as a time capsule.
It's a very abstract question and it is, of course, not ours to decide. There's a (possibly apocryphal) thing about how if Henry Ford had asked his customers what they wanted, they would have said "faster horses."
Elinor Glyn was pretty popular; so was I dunno Tom Clancy or whoev. If you time-traveled to 1850 and asked art critic which painters would still be talked about in 100 years, they would almost certainly answer wrongly.
I do not weep for the legacy of, say, Donna Tartt. But in my secret heart I kinda hold out hope that maybe George Saunders will still be read in future.
― blissfully unawarewolf (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:07 (one year ago) link
Think the concept of timelessness during the time of the author’s life is weird and it’s not as though it’s remotely objective.
― after several days on “the milk,” (gyac), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:12 (one year ago) link
Also, books not being read anymore is hardly indicative of this quality, like trends affect books too.
― after several days on “the milk,” (gyac), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:14 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2ujNVw8Shk
― (We're Not) The Experimental Jet Set (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:19 (one year ago) link
I know, we’re talking novelists, but George Crabbe is a perfect example of this— someone well-regarded in his time by Byron, Edmund Burke, Samuel Johnson, and others, he is virtually unheard of in English letters today. I think that part of it is his form— he wrote exclusively in heroic couplets lmfao— and part of it is that the narrative poem, with some exceptions, has dramatically fallen out of favor with the reading public. The whims of the reading public are unpredictable, and so any predictions re: timelessness are quite silly.
― poppin' debussy (the table is the table), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:38 (one year ago) link
I predict the Captain Underpants books will still be read in 2407
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:39 (one year ago) link
I met a traveller from an antique land iirc
― (We're Not) The Experimental Jet Set (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:40 (one year ago) link
Every other sentiment an antique.
― (We're Not) The Experimental Jet Set (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:41 (one year ago) link
Crabbe was on the syllabus when i did English Lit in the late 80s, tho only in a minor way. his biggest connection to the present is probably Britten's Peter Grimes i'd guess
― wearing wraparounds (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:48 (one year ago) link
anyway it's hard to write anything at length about the contingencies of what "lasts", never mind a quick Tweet with a lazy handwave at The Canon
my tweets will last, yours are already forgotten
― mark s, Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:52 (one year ago) link
― poppin' debussy (the table is the table), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 15:58 (one year ago) link
We read him alongside Pope in an 18th century lit class.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 16:02 (one year ago) link
Dryden obv has more name recognition but he's not much read/discussed, is he?
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 16:03 (one year ago) link
Nothing odd will do long. Sinkah's tweets will not last.
― (We're Not) The Experimental Jet Set (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 16:05 (one year ago) link
Thoroughly unpopular opinion, but I think Tom Wolfe's novels and the research within will have an audience a century from now.
― The self-titled drags (Eazy), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 16:07 (one year ago) link
I could see Bonfire being read as social portrait of the world Trump sprang from
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 16:19 (one year ago) link
Wouldn't it actually be rational to assume that most novelists are no longer read, and the ones who are extensively read are exceptional?― the pinefox, Wednesday, September 28, 2022
― the pinefox, Wednesday, September 28, 2022
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 1 November 2022 18:47 (one year ago) link
re: predicting legacy while the writer is alive
I was looking at some lit journals from the 1870s and a critic was giving a run down of recent Russian publications. Anna Karenina had been coming out as a serial but was as yet unfinished by Tolstoy. The critic said something like "Even if Tolstoy dies before finishing the novel the existing portions are already great enough to ensure its permanent place in great literature."
― “uhh”—like, this is an insane oatmeal raisin cookie “uhh” (President Keyes), Tuesday, 1 November 2022 19:10 (one year ago) link
"the only consolation which we have in reflecting upon [Wuthering Heights] is that it will never be generally read"
― abcfsk, Tuesday, 1 November 2022 19:45 (one year ago) link
Got a little further into something by Tom Robbins which had no especially low or any point, was just twaddle.
Isn't this every Tom Robbins book though? I made it through Another Roadside Attraction but punched out early from Even Cowgirls Get The Blues and Still Life With Woodpecker. Distrustful hippies and boomers seem to have been the only ones reading him (of course my brother was a fan)
― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 11 December 2022 16:40 (one year ago) link
The adaptation of Even Cowgirls Get The Blues is one of the most chilling things I've ever experienced.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 11 December 2022 16:46 (one year ago) link
Details please.
― dow, Sunday, 11 December 2022 21:39 (one year ago) link