Classic Novels and the Road to Immortality (or, Why Twilight is a Passing Fad) - Comments

That was a really fantastic article.

Have you ever read any Faulkner, or Proulx? I get the impression that you would enjoy their work.

TYPO! It's Tolkien, not Tolkein. Last paragraph :] Rest is really good, though.

Nope, my Raskolnikov is Dostoevsky's too.

Oh, and to anyone who mentioned it, I could have sworn I mentioned timelessness in there somewhere (but not in so few words).

It's lovely to see the big response here! (Oh, and I bet a fair few people wouldn't have read this if Twilight wasn't in the title, although I wouldn't pin any of you lovely commentators in that group.)

I don't think I've made myself understood. I don't mean that novels should be a sort of span-shot of the society that produced them or that they use as setting in the novel. I'm not exactly sure I understand by "hidden meaning". I don't like books being tied down to eras, it's more fun to assume that they were the product of different times and see how that affects your outlook on them. I think, Pierre Menard? Going back to my point the idea that a good book is a book a lot/most people can understand annoys me.

Well, you're not the only one who likes to steal the identity (and name) of a book character. But I'm assuming that Raskolnikov is the Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov, and maybe my assumption is going too far.

But you are quoting those who wrote for a reason beyond it being a day job.

I'm not saying that Twilight will or will not be fondly remembered, if at all, but considering with Charles Dickens they were paying him by the word and he was as prolific as say, Jackie Collins.

The Master.: Not exactly. Twilight doesn't exactly have the dry wit of Oscar Wilde, or the underlying meanings (well, maybe not so underlying) of George Orwell. Basically, the books we consider classic today are classic because they have ground-breaking views. The Catcher in the Rye, as much as I dislike it, is a cult classic and revolutionized the way young people thought in the nineteen-fifties.

I doubt Twilight will be fondly remembered in the future. It does not have any introspective qualities or topics never covered before. It really is just a fad.

Oh, quick thing I thought of...

Books like Charles Dickens and other such ones were the Twilight of their days. they were pulp fiction fo rthe masses.

Just an interesting note.

Well done. Great writting there.

I never thought of that (the third one) but i do agree with them all. Except i have heard that alot of poems and books (this is refering to the second one) the author didn't intend it to stand for anything, or have a hidden plot, it was just what people assumed.

Probably could have skipped on the Twilight in the title. Oops, other people have said that. Oh well, still true.

I like your reasoning - I personally agree with a lot of what you said.

But I think, like weekend warriors, that you have to have an element of timelessness to a novel, otherwise it gets stuck in one time period of readers. Novels like The Great Gatsby are fine, because they do have universal issues of love and class prejudice, whereas a lot of the books we have lost along the way are ones which defined the era and only the era - inevitably these would have made for good study, but if they aren't appreciated by their time period, or revived within a certain time they fade away.

Actually I think the keys to a classic is that it applies to all generations and audiences and its issues can apply to any time period.

All great classics like Gone With the Wind, Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, Call of the Wild, The Scarlett Letter, and Huckleberry Finn are books that teenagers [i]and[/i] adults or the elderly can enjoy. Books like Twilight? Not so much.

Pride and Prejudice and Gone With the Wind are both romance novels. Though Gone With the Wind is set heavily during the times of the Civil War, and very very historical, it still appeals to many people, mainly women, because of the romance. It doesn't matter if it is from a different time period, with different morals and practices. Its theme is timeless, and applies to all time periods. People can relate to it.

I think that is the key to a classic.

tolkien is my homeboi

This was written quite well! Enjoyable, and interesting! I like it. :) Though I do agree unless you had written more about Twilight it probably could have donw without it being mentioned in the title. (though I do agree with it. :P )

Well done!

Very good article. =)

For anyone that knows me, I think Harry Potter should be a classic. =P So don't go dissing it. Lol.

Anyways, this was an awesome article. It had great support and evidence, plus it kept me interested. Keep writing. =)

Loved it. You kept it interesting and entertaining.
The only thing I think would make it better would be to cut the bit about Twilight in the title. Not cause I think they're good books (in fact I find them disgusting) but because it didn't really crop up much in the article except for the one reference.
:) Fantastic job.

Great article! I actually wasn't bored to tears reading it! :D It was very interesting.

Very well-written and you make some great points :]

(I shall watch that Narnia theory show when I get chance by the way, thanks for the recc.)

Thanks guys!

The Master: I agree that the third tier is not always a reflection on the life of a person. Rather, it is a part of their essence, the very nature of them. Thus, it is NOT correct to substitute Kafka for Samsa. One is a fictional character, the other is a human being.

Helen: I was taught to double space after each full stop. I have always done it, and shall continue to do so. :P

Kafka (a brilliantly coincidental name): What you describe as a flaw in tier one I have said eventually collapses into tier two.

Oh, and Twilight was added to get more readers, for whoever asked.

Ichabod crane: We shall discuss this more over a cool brew :D

I don't agree with the first point. We can enjoy reading a book although it portrays a kind of society that no longer exists or a society different from ours. When you read a book you don't have to be an idiot and remain blind at the historical context in which it was written. In general the whole "classics" matter makes me nauseous, precisely because the category of so called superior books is limited to a handful or novels most people in the English-speaking world can relate to. Literature is so much more than that.

It is a very basic theory but I can find some difficulties in this.

Considering your third tier, would it not be difficult to extrapolate what is part of the writer's intention or merely a coincidence. Let us review Kafka's Metamorphosis.

It was true that the starvation and throat irriation was a significant part of Kafka's life. However, is it correct to substitute Kafka for Samsa? Is that fair or can it be used as an excuse to pan a writer's work bcause it was based more in reality than the writer's imagination. After all, the starvation of George Samsa can be used as an allusion to the Jesus metaphor and the "metamorphosis" of religious conversion.

And you didn't really have a satisfying conclusion. And for all that Twilight was mentioned, was it required in the title?

Aside from this, very good work.

Doublespacing after full stops is not technically a mistake, helen. :cute:

Good article. I would agree with most of it. You have to write of what you know. It's like acting--you have to put a bit of yourself into every character.

Well done.