This is my first time participating in the Lit. Blog Hop, courtesy of the Blue Bookcase (clicky on photo above). I love the idea of this hop, as it focuses sharply on blogs that I'll be more interested in. I'm glad there are a lot of YA/Paranormal blogs out there for readers of this genre, but the literary blog often seems like an ant in the woods for all of these blogs out there.
The question this week is What piece of 21st Century literature do you think will still be read in the 22nd century?
Tough question. I haven't read all that many books first published this century that seem to carry the "timeless" cross. I'll go with The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I think a century from now McCarthy will be our era's Melville, and The Road seems to be more of a keeper than No Country for Old Men. I realize that the verdict is split on the novel. I know many people who HATE it. The people who love it, really LOVE it though. I fall into the love category. I think in The Road, McCarthy has produced a beautiful, if dark, story of fatherly love. The images of the Father resting his hand on the Boy's chest to feel his failing breath will not soon leave me. It is the fatherly love theme, and not the post-Apocalyptic setting that will keep this book in readers' hands a century from now.
What about you? What books written in the last ten years do you think will still be around 100 years from now?
Fatherly love is indeed timeless...and so is McCarthy's approach to...well anything. He'd change the way people look at burgers if he wrote on them. The man is that good.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to have you join the hop, and also glad to hear praises sung of The Road...I've chosen it for my "Should be a 21st Century Classic" for the Back to the Classics Challenge. Considering that it won the Pulitzer and also was made into a movie, I'd say the staying potential is there.
ReplyDeleteI've seen lots of votes for The Road on this blog hop, although I know it's not a book I could read - too painful. Recently I tried to get through JMG Le Clezio's Wandering Star, about the persecution of the jews, and had to give up on that because it was so upsetting. Quite brilliant but terrible. I wonder whether it's books that exist on the cutting edge, that say things we can only just bear to hear that will last into the future. A question, then, of some writers being ahead of their time.
ReplyDeleteHere are my thoughts: http://readerbuzz.blogspot.com/2010/11/literary-blog-hop-contemporary-and.html
ReplyDeleteI loved The Road!
ReplyDeleteHere is my Literary Blog Hop post!
I agree, The Road could easily become a classic. There are old classics that are divisive to readers--Wuthering Heights comes to mind.
ReplyDeletewww.newcenturyreading.com
Ben - I agree McCarthy could write about paint drying and make it interesting
ReplyDeletelitlove - my wife says I read nothing buy depressing s**t, so I guess I don't have the same problem. I will point out that, for whatever reason, I was more struck by the beauty of The Road than the darkness.
Everyone else - Thanks so much for stopping by! I'm going to do my blog reading after football, and I'll visit y'all's.
Not read The road (It's on my TBR) but have read The Sunset Limited, which I thought was awe - inspiringly brilliant, so have high hopes for McCarthy.
ReplyDeleteenjoyed your suggestion thanks,
Parrish.
It's funny how many people pick The Road as a modern classic. Personally, I didn't like it that much, but I don't think a classic needs to be loved by all to be classic material.
ReplyDeletePut me down for Yes on The Road. Not only for the father/son themes you mentioned but also the questions it poses about the human will to live. In a world that promises no salvation whatsoever, what compels someone to keep going? Not only that, but to try and be "the good guys?" It's even being taught in high schools now, so there's more support for your pick.
ReplyDeleteNot that I've seen this one mentioned yet, but I want to cast a vote for Dave Eggers' What is the What.