At the beginning of all of this, I managed to make it to my local public library and pick up one book. Now, I wish I would’ve grabbed some more, but I greatly enjoyed the book I chose: The Secret History, by Donna Tartt.
Aside from hearing recommendations for it from many strangers on the Internet, the thing that caught my eye was the review on the back, calling it a “modern classic.”
Since then, all I’ve had to read has been the childhood favorites I own, and I haven’t stopped thinking about the idea of a modern classic. It’s common to hear high schoolers annoyed at the required reading asking “why is this stuff classic, anyway?,” but really: what makes a novel classic?
As we leave RCL behind, I am wondering which of our favorite books will be remembered, and what they will say about us, hundreds of years from now.
The Secret History certainly feels like a classic, with its references to Greek philosophers and French literature, but it is not representative of our world. As aesthetically pleasing as it is, a story about a small liberal arts college with a dark secret says very little about the world today.
But if books that feel like classics aren’t destined to become classics, what is?
I can’t help but feel like the classics of the future will be the likes of Harry Potter: books that inspired a generation and more. It’s odd to think of beloved novels that way, but Dickens and Shakespeare wrote for the masses, not just the nobility.
Harry Potter is far from a perfect representation of our time, but no book can capture an entire world. The same could be said for any modern popular book series, or even any piece of classic literature.
In this historic time, I hope that the writing we leave behind reflects well on us. I hope that we learned all the lessons our favorite books taught us, and that we will be remembered as such. I hope that teens in the future will look forward to reading for English class, that the books that gave us so much hope do the same for them.
And, in the wake of this time of suffering, I hope we produce writing that helps us get through it, and does not let us forget it. The purpose of reading classic literature has always been to learn about times and experiences different from our own. I hope today’s world tells our story well.
