A member of Yahoo! Answers recently posed the question: 'When is a book literary?' The top answer: 'When Sparknotes writes a study guide.' Though facetious, this reply taps into many qualities associated with classic books: qualities such as high difficulty, necessitating study guides. Other qualities include prestige, since not every book published warrants a Sparknotes feature.
Yet defining why one book is thought a literary book while another isn't is a question of some debate. For years critics have proposed their own versions of the literary canon, each with new criteria. Some such as The Great Tradition by F.R. Leavis are more influential than others, but rarely are they definitive. For some, a classic book is something you know on sight; it's a gut feeling.
There are further troubles to be had from working out the relation between classic novels and literary books. Are literary books future classics? Is the measure of a literary book whether it becomes a classic? This question is not purely academic. A release featuring the praise 'Future classic' from an established author has greater odds of success. A writer's career lies with their repute.
Classic Books and the Nobel Prize
On the other hand, even accolades such as The Nobel Prize are no guarantee that a book will become classic. Hermann Hesse won the prize in 1946, yet many of his novels are no longer printed. Implicit here are questions about the purpose of the Nobel: does the award predict an author's classic status or attempt to establish it? If a winner goes out of print, is the award still valuable?
Part of the difficulty lies in the use of phrases like 'Future classic.' When a critic claims that a literary book has classic status, they represent their opinion as definitive. They claim cultural authority. Of course the reader can disregard that authority. For example, Will Young recently judged the BBC Short Story competition. Yet his music celebrity gives him no obvious literary insight.
You might argue that Will Young's authority is supplemented by the BBC's clout, as a cultural mainstay. This works both ways though: in employing obviously unqualified people to judge literary entries, the BBC is undermined too. Either way, the trouble is that Young is given a platform through which his opinions have a cultural impact. Judging, he no longer speaks as himself.
One reason the Nobel Committee has retained its high repute may be that it recognises this responsibility. In considering prizes its members are aware of their impact. They judge not as themselves but as representatives – of the heritage of earlier Nobel decisions, and of cultural development. Last year's award to Seamus Heaney then confirmed his reputation as a 'classic author.'
Literature and the Judgement of History
Yet not even the Nobel Committee can claim to be infallible, as has been noted with Hermann Hesse. In saying whether a release is a classic book, no group can anticipate the judgement of history. They can only use their authority to predict or influence. Nor is there a correlate with accessibility: both Charles Dickens and T.S. Eliot are canonical authors, but Eliot is incredibly esoteric.
The judgement of history neither pays heed to democracy then, nor the decision of reputable institutions. It seems an amalgam of standards, all of which amount to a sense that one book is canonical where another isn't. Perhaps it is possible to see this happen. There are people living today who saw the publication of Catcher in the Rye. Could they name the date it became a classic?
Probably not. Certainly on release as many people condemned the book as praised its literary qualities. Some may even concede the canonical status of Salinger's book without admitting its literary qualities, owing to its disregard of conventional English. In this and other novels that 'challenge' standards of grammar like Beckett's Watt, another means of looking for classics is disproved.
Classic Books and the Humanist Tradition
Esther Lombardi writes on about.com that classic books present 'some artistic quality – an expression of life, truth and beauty.' She says that 'great works of literature touch us at our core being.' This adheres to the humanist view of the classic, and is traditional. Yet such views are problematic because they ignore our power to function as individuals and as representatives of culture.
For example, someone may read Great Expectations and identify in their response what they consider the qualities of a classic book. They may then read Katie Price's autobiography and respond the same way. In being similarly touched, why should the latter be disqualified from literary status? The reader has every right to think their response is a sufficient condition to canonical status.
The answer may lie in the latter's lack of wide appeal. Few readers have either the resources or courage to declare their opinions to a wide audience. If they did, they would find immediate opposition from other readers equally sure of the correlation between their feeling and literary value. In other words, Lombardi describes necessary but not sufficient conditions for literary fiction.
--
This article has not outlined alternate conditions. Instead it has drawn attention to the ongoing difficulty of identifying classic novels, and the implications for people who take on this responsibility. The critic must be brave or egotistical to claim a book as a 'future classic,' or challenge the existing canon. In doing so they claim to speak for history, for culture, and for everyone else.
 |
