Authors Out of Favour

Many authors who were scorned in their lifetime are lionized by later generations, while other well-respected authors fall out of favour. From recent discussions in this group, it seems certain authors, such as Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemingway and Jack Kerouac are not so well-beloved anymore. (I'm still a big fan of Jack K., myself-- probably because I've always had a certain wanderlust.)

What 'classic' authors do you think have lost their shine in the 21st Century? Or deserve to?

The Herman Hesse craze of the 1960s is over. As an example of synchronicity, Sigmund Freud and Carl G. Jung are also less popular. I am OK with this, but I still like the more recent translation of The Glass Bead Game.

Kafka was the rage and still is, AFAIK.

The Herman Hesse craze of the 1960s was still going strong when I was a student in the 80s! But I think he's someone who appeals most to undergraduate-age readers: maybe we all get the idea that the craze is over as we get older?

Other crazes that have passed on: maybe writers like D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller who were adored because they wrote about sex when you weren't allowed to do that.

I get the impression that Realism is making a bit of a comeback. There seem to be two or three people here reading their way through Zola, and there's a lot of talk about Hardy, even if a lot of it is negative. Independent people seems to preserve its popularity, and I'm sure it won't be long until we see people reading Sinclair Lewis and Arnold Bennet again!

In re Kerouac. You've been turning-over the wrong pile. There is a veritable Kerouac industry in the US, though it is being perpetuated by (A) a generation which will be gone soon, and (B) by publishers who want to score before his texts devolve into the Public Domain.
Good topic you've started! And let me stick another oar in. Anatole France has utterly vanished from people's consciousness. There are many reasons for this, not least of which is his frequent topicality. Still, The Queen Pedauque, which doesn't labour under that burden, might enjoy a revival. Another French genius due for some re-visits is Stendhal, whose unique house-blend of cynicism and heart-on-sleeve passion is a constant challenge -- and reward. And-a one more. Kenneth Patchen was very hot in the days of my youth -- elas, temps jadis -- but is now a virtual unknown. I still love his work, and his Journal of Albion Moonlight might speak with particular persuasiveness to the dystopian crowd, and more broadly, to the embattled decent people who feel that even the "decent" societies are sliding into barbarism.
Meanwhile, I have been evangelizing elsewhere, with notable lack of success, for two of the greatest Russians, Gorki and Turgenyev.

In rebus Hesse and Kafka. At first blush I was thinking that they have been doomed by a general heaviness and lack of wit -- till I realized that those problems bedevil most of the so-called "literary fiction" of today. That is one reason why I have created the Wall of Shame category in my catalogue, for stuff which lacks (in Dr Johnson's immortal phrase) enough wit to preserve it from putrefaction. Incidentally, dontcha just love that term, "literay fiction"? Correct me if I'm wrong -- I can take it -- but when did publishers and librarians decide to confect that silly and presumptuos term? We read what we read, right? To Hell with categories!

Lord-Bird! Mark, you were a student in the Eighties?! Call me a cheap flatterer, but from your posts, I had taken you to be of my generation. You restore at-least some of my faith in younguns. Chronologically speaking (chronologically ONLY), I could be your Father (relax: I am not). But anyway, since you raise the matter of the hits of our various school-days, here's a suggestion: find an old(er) New Directions paperback, and look at the authors listed (always a feature on ND: James Laughlin understood promotion). They were the Hippest of the Hip back then, and now, with only a few exceptions, they seem more obscure than Pseudo-Dionysus the Areopagite. Cheers, -- Goddard

PS: on the way into the tub, my partner puts in a good word for Thornton Wilder. Check-out The Eighth day.

I know Hemingway is a polarizing figure, but is he really "out of favor"?

my partner puts in a good word for Thornton Wilder.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is one of my favorite books.

George Sand might be said to be out of favor. As much as I love the woman, she was no Flaubert as an artist. Also, Upton Sinclair, whose book seems to rise and fall on its sensationalism.

Mikhail Sholokhov is another name that seems to shine then dim depending on the political winds.

It's hard for me to think of any of these as "out of favor," though, since they are never out of favor with me.

But that's a matter of your good heart, and not aesthetics. While we're speaking of Sholokhov, who represents, in a general way, the manner of Tolstoy, let's remember Leonid Leonov, who has a Dostoyevskyan feel in many of his works, but even ventured into science-fiction. He never attracted much attention in North America, so there's no issue of a revival here. But I believe he had some following in translation, beyond the old USSR.

>6 HarryMacDonald:
Goddard - go on, admit it, when you were an undergraduate the craze was for Walter Pater and Ruskin...

Looking at advertisements in the backs of old books is always fun. I don't have any New Directions to hand, but I picked an Albatross paperback of Damon Runyon (1947) off the shelf. It advertises Bliss by Katherine Mansfield (395 copies on LT); The end of the house of Alard by Sheila Kaye-Smith (9); Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann (296); Mrs Dalloway (11,684); The constant nymph by Margaret Kennedy (224); and Kim (4,489). Presumably all books that were considered mainstream enough to be worth promoting to English-speaking readers on the Continent at the time, but only one of the six could be said to be still in fashion. (Kim is still popular, but people read it for pleasure, not because Kipling is hip.) The other four are all still read by people who are interested in women's writing, but Kaye-Smith seems to be slipping off the radar a bit these days.

I'd suggest that Mrs. Dalloway is a modernist classic not to be ghettoised as mere "women's writing". Mansfield's Bliss is another such, a (long) short story, one of the best in the language. It's probably less frequently found as a standalone edition, but there can't be many collections of Mansfield's stories without it.

Rosamond Lehmann was a bestselling author. So was--random choice--Wyndham Lewis. I'd say there are as many reasons to read Rosamond Lehmann as Lewis.

I'm not sure Kim offers a fair comparison. If Kim is popular, it may be because Kipling's children's books are still given to children by the adults who remember them fondly. This happens frequently with children's classics (perhaps this is how "children's classics" are made.) It's not like most people "discover" Kipling first in adulthood. Whereas, I'm not sure anyone gets introduced to Woolf and Mansfield at ten.

>10 LolaWalser:
Sorry, I thought it would be clear that Mrs Dalloway was the one I meant when I said that only one of the six is still in fashion.

I agree on Kim - the numbers are probably misleading.

I don't think it's a question of ghettoising - simply that there are a lot of extra readers out there who will buy whatever they see with a Virago imprint on it but might well be scared off by a Penguin Modern Classic with vorticist cover art. (Especially if they've read The intellectuals and the masses).

ETA : You picked Wyndham Lewis as a random example. In the context of my equally random example (a publisher in continental Europe in the aftermath of the war) he would have been extremely unfashionable, probably untouchable. Writers who had a track record of supporting Hitler weren't very likely to sell well in Holland or Sweden...

there are a lot of extra readers out there who will buy whatever they see with a Virago imprint on it but might well be scared off by a Penguin Modern Classic with vorticist cover art.

There seems to be a misapprehension here. Virago Press isn't Harlequin. Its list includes modernists of all kind, including vorticists (H.D.). In fact, its BIG thing was republishing and rediscovering female writers precisely of the era that a Penguin Modern Classic would cover. It may be that the readership of these books is predominantly female. I don't see how it follows that it's also "scared" of modernist art and literature. I think it's also safe to say that "the masses" aren't making a point of picking up Virago Press books.

Also, I'm not sure what it means that Mrs. Dalloway is "fashionable". Is Ulysses fashionable? Is it not? What does fashion have to do with a classic?

Oh dear. I always seem to manage to put my foot in my mouth when I discuss with you, LolaWalser. Virago is an excellent organisation that publishes a lot of writers I admire, so I'd better shut up about them before I say anything else regrettable...

Yes, the status of a work as a classic is supposed to be something that stands outside fashion. But fashion still affects the way a work is treated: how many course reading lists it appears on, how often it's adapted for TV or cinema, how many critics write articles about it, how aware the average reader is of it. On that scale, it’s reasonable enough to say that Mrs Dalloway is more fashionable at the moment than Sons and lovers, or that Pride and Prejudice is the new Wuthering Heights.

>12 LolaWalser:

Yes. But a lot of women would buy a book published by Virago when they won't touch it with a stick if it was from any other press. It's just the branding of books sometimes - and good for Virago that they are actually publishing a lot of good books.

Does not mean that men do not buy Virago - but the non-reading (or not reading too much) crowd will buy based on the name of a publisher and the reputation it has.

If you guys haven't heard of it, Google has a way to graph phrases in books over time.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/

I've been having fun graphing authors. Sure enough, the phrase Thomas Hardy hit peak popularity around 1930 and has been falling ever since. But Ernest Hemingway has actually been rising in popularity, as has Jack Kerouac. In the 1920s Anatole France was more popular than Charles Dickens.

The phrase Bram Stoker rapidly increases around 1990 (start of the vampire craze?), while George du Maurier never regains its 1897 usage. Sophocles and Aristophanes were discussed in the 1500s, while Aeschylus and Euripedes aren't used until the 1700s.

For some reason, in 1595, Shakespeare gets a 0.068%. That's 10 times more usage than "James," who was the current King of England. I decide that couldn't be right, especially since its usage drops to 0 until 1607, and spent way too much time researching it. "Shakespeare" roughly correlates with "Richard" and "Adonis," implying that "Shakespeare" is so popular in 1595 because works by him are all we have left?

>15 Settings:
The Ngram viewer is fun, but it's only as good as the Google data. For the 19th and 20th centuries there's lots of data, so the errors come out in the wash, but before that the samples are tiny and the publication dates are mostly wrong. For instance, you can demonstrate that the radio was ten times more important than the telephone in the early 16th century:

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=telex%2Ctelephone%2Ctelegram%2Cwire...

#14

But a lot of women would buy a book published by Virago when they won't touch it with a stick if it was from any other press.

What's the evidence for this? It seems to me an utterly bizarre assertion. I know quite a few readers, male and female, but nobody who sticks to one publisher. And it still doesn't follow that if such one existed, religiously dedicated to Virago Press exclusively, they would be representative of the dumb, cattle-like masses who cannot digest "real" literature, such as is that written by the manly men of yesteryear. Quite the contrary. You can bet that Virago's list is better quality than the dreck selling to millions at any point in time.

As for "branding"--whatever. Virago is a tiny imprint and hardly a household name. I've never seen its books advertised anywhere and I doubt any of its titles feature on any bestseller lists. More's the pity.

#13

But fashion still affects the way a work is treated: how many course reading lists it appears on, how often it's adapted for TV or cinema, how many critics write articles about it, how aware the average reader is of it. On that scale, it’s reasonable enough to say that Mrs Dalloway is more fashionable at the moment than Sons and lovers, or that Pride and Prejudice is the new Wuthering Heights.

I'm still not sure about the use of "fashion" here, especially if it's meant to denote some "same" thing in each different context you mention: school, formal study, business, entertainment. What's "fashionable" in academia may never appear in the wider world at all. And what appears in the wider world, the marketing-led crazes such as the one they are whipping up around the new Gatsby movie, have nothing whatever to do with literature.

If I absolutely had to apply this "fashion" category to the classics, I'd say that they are known by their ability to ALWAYS be in fashion (understood as the tawdry limelight of consumerist attention). The only question is whether there are any capitalists willing to exploit them.

As to Lawrence. Maybe he's less popular or less read today because his views and attitudes, which are such a vital element of his writing, are considered obsolete. It's happened to writers better and smarter than he. It certainly doesn't mean that he gets stripped of his historical significance or "demoted". Once a classic, always a classic, whether anyone reads you or not. He was a master stylist (as was Hardy), and for that reason alone will never want for readers or fans. But it does become more difficult to sail on style alone if what you're saying is a message to no one anymore.

In re #18. Lola, you spell-binder you, I will roast an ox and pour a libation to you for remarking "once a classic, always a classic". You may collect at-will -- with a few hour's notice (on top of what time will be wasted at the border). It's discouraging how rarely I see any evidence that even cultured people grasp that basic concept of permanent excellence. Gotta go now and make the salad (avec epinards du maitre Goddard).

>17 LolaWalser: Personal experience from the mostly unreading friends around me.
We are talking non-readers (or close ti) here, Lola. Readers are different.

Re: "Once a classic, always a classic" - this would mean that classics will never fade away. But who here has read that classic of French Enlightenment, Les aventures de Télémaque? Between 1699, when it was first published, and the early romantic era, it was one of the most read novels in Europe. Surely it was a classic for David and his contemporaries who admired 'Les adieux de Télémaque et Eucharis'. Classics are what we today consider classics, and our children's children could disagree.

>8 HarryMacDonald: But that's a matter of your good heart, and not aesthetics.

Classics go in and out of favor as much for what is in them as for how they are written. As a reader, I often find myself attempting to consider a book from the point of view of the audience who first read it -- and this struggle to understand the context of a work usually rescues the story for me. Consider Charles Dickens--now there's a writer who drives me batty on an aesthetic level. But I can see why people are so fond of him even though his prose style tends to set my teeth on edge. Whatever else you think, Dickens really does have something important and universal to say.

Or consider Moby-Dick, a novel that either drives you to violence or to extravagant praise. (I'm in the latter camp). Really there is just no in between. Nobody reads that book and goes "meh." So there is something there, entangled in all the fantastic(tedious) minutiae of a great quest(boring account of a defunct fishing industry) that just bursts the confines of even a 900+ page tome. We either embrace or reject it, but I can't really see discussing Moby-Dick as if it goes in and out of fashion like bell-bottom pants.

Now, now - what's wrong with Hardy? :)

Seriously though - what is considered classics in a country or generation is pre-determined from what and how is taught in the school system. Throw too much classic heavy works too early and you pretty much guaranteed that this author won't be read from the generation.

Plus... for the older works, one need to have the background of the history and the world at the time the book is written. Otherwise things make no sense and we have reviews about how stupid a woman is not to have left her family (for example). The problem is - the times are different.

I am not sure if that is taught anymore. And while there always will be a few people that read on their own, for the most part, school is where the classics change starts.

In re #21. As a matter of fact, I have. Next question?

#24

Harry for the win! (No need to burn oxen on my account, Goddard--send over a cow in calf, might be just what tides me over in these bad times!)

Forgotten classics, obscure classics, re-evaluated classics--still classic. Wildly popular and knocked-off works--not necessarily classics.

But this is turning into a "what's a classic" discussion, one of the very dullest imaginable. Everyone takes it to mean such different things.

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, the world's number one bestselling novel of the 19th century. You'd think that kind of achievement would keep you in favour and on everyone's reading list for eternity but, not so much these days.

It's true--no one reads HB Stowe much and almost no one reads her other novels.

Jack London is kind of selectively out of favor. I never hear of anyone reading anything but Call of the wild, White fang or The sea-wolf and he wrote lots of novels.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning makes it clear in her letters that she hugely admired HBS, but found her books rather unreadable. I imagine she wasn't the only contemporary intellectual who felt that way about her.

In rebus 26, 27, atque 28 (Mrs Stowe). Since when did contemporary popularity have any discernable correspondence to CLASSICS?

Uncle Tom's Cabin will remain an American classic, I think, for two reasons: it's historical importance (it changed the attitude of many in the north towards slavery. In fact, it was one of the most successful polemics of all time.) and secondly, because it contributed an idiom to the English language: "an Uncle Tom".

But great writing? It's still readable, and suspenseful in parts, but the characters are a bit cardboard, and her writing is generally not that great.

>30 madpoet:

It had always been required reading in the Bulgarian schools... last time I checked the list, it was still there.

#5> Incidentally, dontcha just love that term, "literay fiction"? Correct me if I'm wrong -- I can take it -- but when did publishers and librarians decide to confect that silly and presumptuos term? We read what we read, right? To Hell with categories!

In my used bookstore, among the fiction I have a romance section, a mysteries section, a science fiction section, and adventure/espionage section and a horror section. And then I have a section for all the novels that don't fall into any of those categories. Everything from classic novels to recent novels. Know what I call that section? "Literary fiction." Do you know why? Because my customers know exactly what it means, and because it has an attractive connotation. It is a case where the whole of the phrase's meaning is greater than the sum of the literal meaning of its parts.

There are some authors and books that are "classics" among certain age groups. Especially when we're young, we think the whole world revolves around our own demographic. So when I was 15-25, of course I was sure that "On the Road" was a classic. Now I have become more discerning in my literary tastes, and more cognizant of OTR's (and Kerouac's) many stylistic flaws. And yet that book remains one of the most influential of my life, and I will always have a warm spot for it in my heart, therefore. Tom Robbins comes to mind. Everybody I knew loved him during my college days (1970s). Now nobody reads him. Or, more precisely, nobody I know, because now I'm in my late 50s and I tend to look for authors who create real people in their novels rather than cardboard cutouts. However, I still have high school and college age kids coming into my used bookstore and asking for Robbins' books. His books rarely stay on my shelf for more than a week or two. But if I didn't own this store, I would still think that "nobody" reads Robbins anymore. Kurt Vonnegut, same story (although I still like Vonnegut and have come to loathe Robbins, but that's just me).

As to Lawrence. Maybe he's less popular or less read today because his views and attitudes, which are such a vital element of his writing, are considered obsolete. It's happened to writers better and smarter than he. It certainly doesn't mean that he gets stripped of his historical significance or "demoted". Once a classic, always a classic, whether anyone reads you or not. He was a master stylist (as was Hardy), and for that reason alone will never want for readers or fans. But it does become more difficult to sail on style alone if what you're saying is a message to no one anymore.

Lola, An interesting comment, and it's correspondingly interesting to consider whether "historical significance" equals "classic." I can't say that I agree with this: "Once a classic, always a classic, whether anyone reads you or not." I am not a scoffer at academics or academia; I have a masters degree in English Lit/Creative Writing, myself. But if a writer's only claim to fame 60 or 100 years on from his/her original popularity is being recognized by academics as having achieved an important milestone in, say, narrative perspective, I'm not sure if I consider that book a "classic."

Taking your Lawrence example, if he is enough of a master stylist that he will always have readers, then OK. But if his "classic" status rested solely on the fact that he wrote about things that were important at the time but are no longer considered vital, than I don't consider that an example of a classic writer, especially if nobody were reading him. To put it another way, just because a writer's popularity or relevance is long-lasting doesn't mean that either will ultimately endure. For me, a classic author is one who is able to write about the human condition with insight that endures despite changes in societal conditions and mores. Such writers may fall temporarily out of favor or fashion, but the reading/thinking world will always return to them. Joseph Conrad comes to mind here. Perhaps even Hemingway. It would be interesting to me to know whether anybody will still be reading Philip Roth 100 years from now.

The reason D.H. Lawrence's novels are less popular now, I think, is that their original popularity was owing in part to their shock value. They caused a scandal in the '20 or '30s, but now they seem almost prudish. Similarly, many novels achieved brief fame for being 'experimental'. But since then, other authors have done it better, or gone further.

>33 rocketjk:
Running a secondhand bookshop is probably an even better way to get to know what people don't read any more than looking at old advertisements. I'm sure that for every immobile copy of a once-popular work the customer sees on the shelves there must be many more that the bookseller doesn't even bother to put out...