Comment by Garp74 on 23/02/2025 at 14:08 UTC*

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)

View submission: Weekly FAQ Thread February 23, 2025: Which contemporary novels do you think deserve to become classics?

1960 on is hard for me, and I'm 51. I just don't have the kind of memory, or the fluency with some older books, to make an informed judgement. But I imagine it includes writers like:

• Paul Scott for The Raj Quartet
• Maya Angelou for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• Alice Walker for The Color Purple
• Larry McMurtry for Lonesome Dove
• Ralph Ellison for Invisible Man
• Flora Rheta Schreiber for Sybil
• James Herriott for All Creatures Great and Small
• Alex Haley for Roots

More doable for me is thinking about writers of the last quarter century:

• Donna Tartt for The Goldfinch
• Alastair Reynolds for Revelation Space
• Lauren Groff for Matrix
• Hilary Mantel for Wolf Hall
• Olga Tokarczuk for The Books of Jacob

I imagine that English literature teachers will assign Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex a lot in the future. But I DNF'd it halfway, so ...

Replies

Comment by ksarlathotep at 23/02/2025 at 17:20 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

I like that you're reading eclectically, but can you explain to me why you think Revelation Space will be a classic? I mean I've read it and I liked it just fine, but it strikes me as pretty easy, entertainment literature next to things like Invisible Man / The Color Purple / I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I did not find the quality of the writing particularly noteworthy or unique, and as far as subject matter goes it's simply a (very well executed) space opera, no? What pushes this novel so high in your esteem?