[ SECRET POST #2238 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2238 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 097 secrets from Secret Submission Post #320.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I would much rather read a two hundred-year-old work of Literature than a twenty-year-old work of Literature, because the two-hundred-year-old one has at least demonstrated some staying power and people must have enjoyed it sometime, while the twenty-year-old one is probably only Literary because the secret council of English professors decided it had sufficient quantities of Death, Despair, and Delusion.

[(Anonymous)]

... I'm not sure this is logically sound? In that yes, the Two Hundred Year work has demonstrated staying power, but possibly the only reason the Twenty Year one hasn't to the same degree is because, well, it's only been there twenty years, so it can't yet. And if people read it and enjoy reading it, then it's demonstrated that people enjoy it now, not that people 'must have enjoyed it sometime'.

If you read a work and enjoy it, what does it matter what era it was from?

[(Anonymous)]

It doesn't matter when it was written -- I just find it somewhat predictive, in that I have enjoyed things like The Iliad, The Decameron, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, even some Dickens, but I've hardly ever enjoyed anything recent we were forced to read in English class. The older classics are about sex and violence and romance and adventure and all the things you find in non-Literary genre fiction today, and they're considered classics because they're really old and we're still reading them. Modern classics... I don't know how they decided which modern books are classics, but sometimes it seems to have been by how much they depress me.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Ah. I tend to be a genre reader (sci-fi, crime, adventure and fantasy, mostly), so I can't really speak to this. I'm not sure I've read modern lit-fiction. Though I might have, and just not realised that was how it was classified - I tend to read anything put in front of me unless I get a few chapters in and it just isn't working for me (except war stories and zombie stories, I'm just not fond of them).

What sort of things count as modern classics?

[(Anonymous)]

...stuff they made me read in English class, which I have mostly blocked out? Uh. Lord of the Flies. Animal Farm. Salinger. Steinbeck. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hemingway.

SA

[(Anonymous)]

None of which are under twenty years old, oops. But Literary Fiction seems to tend to be very depressing.

[(Anonymous)]

Huh. Okay, I have read a few of those. Haven't read Salinger or Fitzgerald. I didn't read Lord of the Flies, though I have been meaning to. Of Steinbeck, I've read The Pearl and wasn't overly fond of it (from what I've read and heard of him, I think I just find him depressing). Animal Farm, though, is awesome (I like the dystopias), and Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea was one of the most beautiful things I've ever read.

But, ah, aren't most of those around fifty years old or older?

[(Anonymous)]

But you're not the OP

as the ones with staying power may not hold interest to them, so they're finding it just as predictive as you and prefering to avoid a waste of time?


I think with modern books decided to be classics, they just choose ones that are received really well and make an impact on the current culture. Like Harry Potter clearly made an impact on a generation so I wouldn't be surprised if it's considered a classic (and I'm wondering about the poor students 100+ years from now forced to slog through an analysis on the meanings of each book. Poor buggers)

[lauramcewan]

while the twenty-year-old one is probably only Literary because the secret council of English professors decided it had sufficient quantities of Death, Despair, and Delusion.

*Cracks up*