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))

  • redtea
    10·
    1 year ago

    You’re throwing around awfully harsh language towards authors you’ve never read. Why?

    Probably because much of US culture reveals

    a certain political defeatism or instead a very liberal surface level criticism of “bad things” … And then these barren ideas get louded as incredible literature classics[,]

    amplified by empty marketing. It’s a valid question to ask whether this is a recent trend or older. And it is an older trend, as much of even the good stuff commits the flaw the OP highlights.

    Asimov, for instance, and this won’t spoil the story, imagines that humans will get to space and still have capitalist corporations. I know he didn’t benefit from the vantage that we have today but that’s a bizarre trope. It’s very liberal and possibly defeatist. Capitalism won’t survive the century. By the time we colonise Mars, liberalism will be an historical curiosity for people who wonder why it took humanity so long to secure it’s freedom.

    OP: don’t let this put you off Asimov. As Jonathan12345 suggested, the plots and characters are generally optimistic.