Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
Are these older books that are considered as classics or newer books with a "This book is a modern classic of whatever genre" in the description?
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It was partly tongue in cheek, as there are some who won’t read anything labeled “classic” even though, as was pointed out above, classic isn’t a genre.
However, I did essentially mean older books. In part, because that’s what people usually mean or infer by the word and in part because classic by definition is something that’s stood the test of time. But also because “modern classic” is a term that’s used much too loosely, to apply to almost anything. It’s akin to those blurbs that say, “in the style of Courtney Milan and Cormac McCarthy” which were anathematized in the other thread.
I also think that as I get older, I keep increasing the number of years necessary for something to be a classic, even a modern one. I think fifty years, but then I think 1970 seems pretty contemporary. So I push it back to 1960 but then I realize that’s more an acknowledgment of a line when society started a cosmic shift and that’s why it appeals to me. Sixty years is roughly two generations, so maybe it works at that. Ask me in ten years if I’ve moved the marker to 1970.
TL;DR: Classic is mostly a “I know it when I see it” judgment. The Victorians, of course. Hemingway, ditto. Rowling, nope.