In starting to think about a more user-friendly lay-out for the book-reviews
page (check out the new version), I decided early on that I wanted to divide
the various reviews up in categories, something which I had already used on
the general film review page (click here for that page), and something which I
thought worked well and made things easier to overview, and have the
advantage of being able to show more reviews at once.
The film reviews were divided by types of production; mainstream US studio
fare (20th century Fox, Paramount, Disney, Warner Bros etc), independent
films (produced outside the studio system) and foreign (that is non-US) films.
This division might seem straightforward, but already creates it share of
problems, especially when films are co-produced by the US- and another
country, and it feels sort of odd if English language films end up in the
‘foreign section’, though all British, Australian, Canadian and other English
spoken films should there. I sort of decide on a case-by-case basis where a
film fits best.
Similar problems arose when I started thinking about the categories for the
book reviews. One thing that was clear from the start, is that I wanted a
division of fiction and non-fiction, even though there is are only two fiction
reviews available at the moment (more are in the making!).
Since there is such a big group of fiction reviews, however, I wanted a
subdivision in that group too, and what seemed most logical, after having
looked at all my fiction reviews, was a division between ‘classic fiction’ and
‘recent fiction’. I suppose everyone agrees that Dostoyevski’s ‘Crime and
punishment’ can be regarded as a classic, and Eugenides’ Middlesex,
published just two years ago, would have to go in the ‘recent fiction’ category.
But whereas two years since publication make a book surely recent, if
compared to a book published in 1866, what about a book published in 1945,
some sixty years ago? And is age really the only factor in determining
whether a classic is a classic?
In this case, the sixty year old book I am talking about is Salinger’s ‘The
catcher in the rye’, and I suppose many people would argue that if it is not a
full-blown ‘classic’, it is at least a ‘cult-classic’. Is sixty years of distance
enough to brand a book a ‘classic’, or is the status of a ‘classic’ something
that is not gained by withstanding time at all? Surely it is an impressive feat
being read after sixty years of publication, but does that mean it is a classic?
Can Salinger be compared to Dostoyevski or to Homer? Are all the ‘classic’
writers ‘classic’ in the same way? I suspect it is more than the issue of time
that is important, though I would find it hard to pinpoint exactly what makes a
classic piece of fiction just that.
Hemingway is regarded (and often revered) as a writer of classic fiction, and
he died in 1961... only 43 years ago now. Was he the last writer whom we
can regard as classic, or are there others, even more modern, that are in
some way classic too? I suppose I will have to decide for myself which book to
present in which category and some of you will likely disagree.
I suppose that being read years after publication means that it the book still
holds some value for reader today, which might be the 'factor X' in
determining what is a classic and what is not. Though here one would also
have to think about how many people need to read it because one person
that reads an obscure French realist novel does not make the book an
instant classic.
Also: are Hemingway and Homer classic in the same way? Both of their works
seem to have influenced their respective cultures and beyond, but will
Hemingway's oeuvre still be read 2800 years from now, as Homer's is? Does
that make Homer more classic than Hemingway? Is it valid to consider this as
an argument of making a classic? Who determines the 'canon' of classical
books? For my site, I will!
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