I’m talking works by Kurt Vonnegut, Isaac Asimov, Joseph Heller, Stephen King, Art Spiegelman, Elie Wiesel, Daniel Keyes, etc. I haven’t read any from these I’ve mentioned, I just have a bias that tells me they’re overrated trash. I think it’s quite common on american “classics” (not just books but also films) a certain political defeatism or instead a very liberal surface level criticism of “bad things” (Steinbeck stays winning). And then these barren ideas get louded as incredible literature classics (which makes sense as far as the rulling class’s efforts for maintaining the status quo are concerned).
But as I’ve said this is my analysis a priori of having read such novels, but are there actually redeeming qualities on those novels that make them worthy of pursuing? I’m not that interested in style but I can see that some of the authors mentioned have that idiosyncrasy going for them. Also I’m sure some do get the problems they’re writing about and maybe that analysis, even if it doesn’t go all the way, is a good enough quality.
(I write this about american novels in particular but it clearly expands to other ‘classics’. Unfortunately I have read stuff by that Orwell fella which is a clear perpetrator of the crimes I’ve mentioned. I focused on the american side because most of the ‘classics’ lists are filled with them (they’re anglocentric in general but more american-sided))
Vonnegut is great, especially for early HS, good anti-war themes and kafka-esque post-modernist elements that really add to the odd scenes of his books, especially Slaughter house 5. Stephen King famously wrote A LOT(he did more than his fair share of blow) so some is pretty good like The Shining(tho I will say some of the book is just disgusting sexually) or others that became decent horror movies, others are just absolutely awful shitstains of movies like Lawnmower Man. Speigelman’s Maus was a story I loved reading in Elementary school and it was depressing but I needed to read it, I highly suggest it. My grandma (a Catholic) was not exposed to the full horrors of the Nazi occupation as she fled to the USSR, but reading about the struggles of the characters and seeing the artwork they use in the comic made me cry at times. Some of Steinbeck’s works were heavily influenced by the struggles of ordinary working Americans during the Great Depression. I actually didn’t know Asimov lived in the US, but his sci-fi was EXTREMELY influential to most modern media that includes robots, space travel or high-tech shit beyond the comprehension of humans. Hemingway is interesting, he does have quite a few thoughts on what makes a man a man and how to pull yourself up by your bootstraps but his books are decent. Mark Twain is one I’d like to check again because I don’t know how to feel about him, I read his works when I was a 2nd grader so I only remember plots not writing style and even then idk how the plots are portrayed. I’d suggest reading some of these classics when you have enough time.