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))

  • rjs001@lemmygrad.ml
    41·
    1 year ago

    and as for the political and messaging components, sure some do have some bias like that but others don’t. It depends upon who you read. And I think even with that bias, it could still be enjoyed. It’s like, just because Shakespeare wrote to make the royalty happy doesn’t mean Macbeth can’t be enjoyed. And for something like background bias (being American in this case) just because Geoffrey Chaucer came from the aristocracy also doesn’t make the Canterbury Tales any less enjoyable. It has to be looked past in some cases but in many others, it’s a false assumption that because they are western that they have a bad messaging politically.

    • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
      4·
      1 year ago

      Speaking of politics, have you read any William Gaddis? I’ve recently come across his work but have yet to grab anything. The Wikipedia synopsis:

      J R tells the story of the eponymous J R Vansant, an 11-year-old schoolboy who obscures his identity through payphone calls and postal money orders in order to parlay penny stock holdings into a fortune on paper. The novel broadly satirizes what Gaddis called “the American dream turned inside out”. One critic called it “the greatest satirical novel in American literature.”…

      Sounds good, although like the OP, I’m a bit cautious that it’ll be a very liberal, finger-wagging tale about the excesses of the stock market without a real criticism of capitalism. Could still be fun.