Are there any new classic novels since 1960?

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James Mitchener’s books were very popular.
The Godfather by Mario Puzo.
 
I would say that, far and away, the greatest novel to appear since 1960 is 100 Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is without question a “classic,” and it’s reputation and stature is only going to grow as time passes. Eventually people will speak of it in the same way they do Don Quixote, The Brothers Karamazov and Huckleberry Finn. It’s in that league.

Another person who has written some classics since 1960 is Vladimir Nabokov.
 
These are definitely two books that like them or not changed the paradigm for what was considered literature. (“The English Patient” by Michael Ondaatje - another one to consider.) They spawned an enormous number of imitators. That could be one indication of a future classic.
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I saw the “English Patient” movie and wondered what the point was. So I tried to read the book but gave up halfway through. It was so boring. The writing style was terrible.
There were countless flashbacks which I guess were supposed to reveal something ( that’s what a flashback is for ), but they never told me anything interesting.
To this day I can’t remember a single situation. Not a good prospect for a “classic” people will seek out a hundred years from now.

I you have a story to tell, begin at the beginning and work you way through to the end. Don’t forget to have universal meanings about the human conditions associated with the situations that are applicable to all.
 
empther said:
I you have a story to tell, begin at the beginning and work you way through to the end. Don’t forget to have universal meanings about the human conditions associated with the situations that are applicable to all.
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The writers of the classic Greek and Roman epics would disagree with you. They begin in media res, then cover the beginning of the story later on. 🙂

Honestly, it depends on the story. With some it’s better to begin at the beginning, and with others it makes more sense to start later. Even what constitutes “the beginning” can be difficult to determine sometimes, especially in stories with a lot of background information.
 
Interesting topic. I read a lot in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. In thinking back to the huge pile of books I owned, not that many are still remembered (was a big scifi and fantasy reader back then, not so much the classics.) Some of my favorites from that time have not stood up upon re-reading. (Netlegend Gharlane of Endor once said that my favorite author of the time, A.E. Van Vogt was especially good for 12 year olds. But even so, a few of his books, like the two Weapon Shop novels, I still find exciting reads). Asimov was very prolific, and his Foundation trilogy was considered a classic, but I guess it didn’t have enough staying power to stay in print. Can’t say I’ve seen a copy in the bookstores in years. Arthur Clarke also wrote a lot, which I enjoyed, but even his “Childhood’s End” seem to be lost in time.

I wonder about that – the loss of books. There are novels that I read and enjoyed from the library that are no longer there (Stan Lee’s The GOD Project comes to mind, and there was a funny novel called Nukee that I can’t even find in Google). Would anyone read “101 Dalmatians” if Disney hadn’t turned it into a movie? I wouldn’t have, nor the Darby O’Gill stories (which would be a shame, as there are some great stories there). Maybe with the 'Net and electronic books the disappearance of books will be a thing of the past. I know there are a lot of good books out there that I haven’t (and probably won’t) read. But there are books I enjoyed that I’m not sure anyone will read in a hundred years. Do they deserve to be lost forever?

Oh, well, can’t answer the original question about Classics, but we are 50 years from the beginning of the 60’s. Not sure what is being promoted as a classic from that time right now.

Tom A.
How many people have read any of the 270+ Shadow novels by Walter Gibson from the 30’s and 40’s? They’re classics by age and fun reads, but I wouldn’t put them as Classics.
 
Hey meteoric, that’s interesting about Walter Gibson. I’ve never actually read any of his novels but I know a little bit about who he was, plus I’ve read a few short stories of his that I’ve come across in old flea market pulps. That’s crazy, I had no idea he was so prolific! Some of those old pulp writers had the most incredible output; they must have typed out five or ten pages per day. Enough to put Stephen King to shame! One pulpster I’m fond of is Talbot Mundy. His Tros books were my refuge and escape when I was in Junior High School. I still think about those stories from time to time. I’m glad you mentioned A.E. Van Vogt, too. His Null-A series blew my mind in High School, and when I turned forty I reread the first one in that series and it hadn’t lost any of its charm or power. I learned more from Van Vogt than just about any novelist I can think of, actually. I just can’t understand anybody putting him down, except perhaps people who are philosophically opposed to having fun and enjoying themselves or something… One of my favorite sf writers has always been Eric Frank Russell. I don’t know if you’ve come across his work, considering there’s far too many great writers for any one individual to ever discover in a single lifetime, but if you haven’t read him I HIGHLY recommend you pick up one of his novels. Everything that guy wrote was just out of this world fantastic!:coffee:
 
Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) is near universally considered one of the greatest novels of post-World War II American literature. Besides just being a great book, it is also the apotheosis of a certain kind of postmodern literature, which means that it will continue to be read and studied regardless of how opinions change.

It is one of those books that a person has to read if he wants to consider himself well-read. Joyce’s Ulysses is the only 20th Century novel that is clearly more important, but that is the most important novel since Moby-Dick.

The novel mentioned in the first post, To Kill a Mockingbird, is certainly a very good novel, but it is insignificant and minor next to Pynchon’s achievement. Lee wrote a fine novel; Pynchon changed the way we see the novel.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity’s_Rainbow
 
I like Michael D. O’Brien’s books: Father Elijah, The Father’s Tale, Strangers and Sojourners. Especially the first, they will not be classics as they are Catholic, but they seem great to me.
Also I just read Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book, an amazing work about a historian transported back to the time of the Black Plague.
 
Viki63 said:
they will not be classics as they are Catholic
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That is unfair. There are many classic works that are by Catholic writers and that have a Catholic outlook and themes. Even looking at just writers in the post-1960 period, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, and Shusaku Endo are a few of that periods’s most respected authors.
 
they will not be classics as they are Catholic
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A book about a Catholic can become a classic,
if it has universal themes about the essence of human nature which every person regardless of walk of life can relate to.

Hopefully somebody somewhere is working on it? :hmmm:
 
The_Hankster said:
That is unfair. There are many classic works that are by Catholic writers and that have a Catholic outlook and themes. Even looking at just writers in the post-1960 period, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, and Shusaku Endo are a few of that periods’s most respected authors.
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Francois Rabelais is my favorite Catholic novelist. I know he’s not usually thought of as a Catholic writer, but he was a Franciscan monk, and then later a Benedictine. The (collected) Adventures of Gargantua and Pantagruel is a classic by anyone’s measure!:coffee:
 
Exiled_Child said:
Francois Rabelais is my favorite Catholic novelist. I know he’s not usually thought of as a Catholic writer, but he was a Franciscan monk, and then later a Benedictine. The (collected) Adventures of Gargantua and Pantagruel is a classic by anyone’s measure!:coffee:
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A fine writer, but dead over 500 years too earlier to have written a post-1960 work.
 
The_Hankster said:
A fine writer, but dead over 500 years too earlier to have written a post-1960 work.
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Well, yeah, Francois isn’t exactly a contemporary author, but he won’t ever get “old,” if you take my meaning. There’s so much life and joy in his work; he’s easily the funniest writer I’ve ever read. What about Graham Greene? His novels are enjoyable, fast paced and highly readable. Most of them are pre-1960, but I believe he was still writing into the nineteen eighties. I’ll have to check that because I’m really not sure. And just as an aside, I gotta say that the movie they made of The Third Man was also top notch!:coffee:
 
Viki63 said:
I like Michael D. O’Brien’s books: Father Elijah, The Father’s Tale, Strangers and Sojourners. Especially the first, they will not be classics as they are Catholic, but they seem great to me.
Also I just read Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book, an amazing work about a historian transported back to the time of the Black Plague.
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Hey Viki, I just thought I’d let you know I purchased that Connie Williams Doomsday book on Amazon a coupla minutes ago. I scored a brand new copy for 74 cents! (plus shipping)

It looks cool, so I wanted to say thanks for the tip! It kinda sounds like it might be sort of similar to this sci fi potboiler I read called Them Bones, by Michael Swannick, which was a pretty solid narrative, in my opinion. Anyway, after I finish Connie’s book I’ll post some kinda mini-review on this thread. I have high hopes; judging by her Wikipedia entry she sounds like my kind of person…
 
The novel mentioned in the first post, To Kill a Mockingbird, is certainly a very good novel, but it is insignificant and minor next to :bigyikes: Pynchon’s achievement. Lee wrote a fine novel; Pynchon changed the way we see the novel.
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I never even heard of Pynchon or his book until it was mentioned on this thread.

Amazon Bestselling Rankings:
To Kill A Mockingbird…#52
Gravity’s Rainbow…#332,000
 
empther said:
I never even heard of Pynchon or his book until it was mentioned on this thread.

Amazon Bestselling Rankings:
To Kill A Mockingbird…#52
Gravity’s Rainbow…#332,000
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You have to argue the worth of a book by its literary merits, not its sales figures. Take a look at the New York Times bestsellers lists and you will quickly see that most of those books listed have little or no literary value.
 
You have to argue the worth of a book by its literary merits, not its sales figures. Take a look at the New York Times bestsellers lists and you will quickly see that most of those books listed have little or no literary value.
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You neglected to mention time of first publication.
The New York Times bestsellers lists are of books published yesterday morning and pushed by the printing houses who practically tell the bookstores what to put on their shelves…
Gravity’s Rainbow was published in 1973, some forty-one years ago.
It’s not starting out well if it wants to become a classic. 😦

From wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity%27s_Rainbow
The narrative contains numerous descriptions of illicit sexual encounters and drug use by the main characters and supporting cast, sandwiched between dense dialogues or reveries on historic, artistic, scientific, or philosophical subjects, interspersed with whimsical nonsense-poems and allusions to obscure facets of 1940s pop culture. Many of the recurring themes will be familiar to experienced Pynchon readers, including the singing of silly songs, recurring appearances of kazoos, and extensive discussion of paranoia.
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Sounds like a mess.
I’ve read enough. I pass.
 
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