A still from the 1974 movie 'The Great Gatsby' with Robert Redford as the enigmatic Gatsby
What do the critics know about picking the next classic novel? Out of the thousands of novels published in English each year, it is impossible to predict which ones will become classics. Naturally, the critics, book reviewers and editors will make their educated predictions and claim that the latest bestseller is "A classic in the making."
A classic is elevated to a classic only with the passage of time and the 20-20 vision of hindsight. Reviewers come and reviewers go but it is the reading public who determines which books will endure over the decades, becoming ever more recognised and venerated.
Even the authors we revere because they wrote a classic did not know as they sat at their writing desk, 'Today I'm going to write a classic." Not every book written by critically-acclaimed novelists will make it onto the classics shelf. For example, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote many fine novels but his most famous classic novel is 'The Great Gatsby.' From the silent era through to Baz Luhrmann's interpretation in 2013, the novel has spawned five big-budget movies. It has been studied in English classes the world over for decades. Capturing the imagination of successive generations of readers, 'The Great Gatsby' has passed the test of time, becoming ever more popular and appreciated.
Which movie adaptation of 'The Great Gatsby' is your personal favourite? Mine is the 1974 film starring Robert Redford as Gatsby and Mia Farrow as Daisy. In my mind, Redford is Gatsby. If you are also a fan, or if you don't know the film, here are some of the images of Gatsby/Redford from the film:
Yet when the novel, Fitzgerald's third, came out in 1925, critic and journalist H.L. Mencken wrote that "The Great Gatsby" was "no more than a glorified anecdote" and is "certainly not to be put on the same shelf with, say, "This Side of Paradise" (Fitzgerald's first published novel). Another reviewer, Ruth Snyder, writing for the New York Evening World, said, "We are quite convinced after reading "The Great Gatsby" that Mr Fitzgerald is not one of the great American writers of today." Try today, tomorrow and always. How wrong was she!
"To The Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf is another classic novel that did not please all the critics when it was published in 1927. For example, the New York Evening Post's review praised her and shot her down all in the same sentence: "Her work is poetry, it must be judged as poetry, and all the weaknesses of poetry are inherent in it."
Another classic novel of the 20th Century is Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World." Who does not know the phrase "brave new world"? It has entered the lexicon of the English language and culture. Did Aldous Huxley originate it? No, he borrowed from The Bard and found it in William Shakespeare's last play, "The Tempest," in which the low-born character, Caliban, asserts, "Brave new world that has such people in it"?
When "Brave New World" published in 1931, it received a mixed reception from the literary establishment. The New York Herald Tribune may have missed the point of the book altogether when they reviewed it as "A lugubrious and heavy-handed piece of propaganda."
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The above three classic 20th Century novels have one characteristic in common, apart from the fact they were published within a few years of each other. In different ways, they all broke the mould, i.e. they went outside the established literary norms. Virginia Woolf experimented with structure and form. Aldous Huxley depicted a repugnant dystopian world that felt strangely familiar to people of the 1920s and 1930s. F. Scott Fitzgerald blew the lid off a world he knew intimately: the New York society people, fabulously rich, and behaving in the belief there were no limits to their entitlement.
A conclusion to be drawn. not always but often, is that a classic novel is a radical leap from the old to something entirely new and startling. The implications for today's authors who want to write a 21st Century classic novel are:
Do not follow what every other author has written just because they are deemed "successful."
Learn the rules of writing fiction, then break them whenever it suits you.
Do what scares you and leap out of your writing safety zone.
What are your favourite classics? Let me know your choices, and why, in the comments below.
As ever, if you are seeking assistance with any of the following author services:
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Please be in touch - we would love to help you create a classic.
Lynne J. Lloyd
editor and publisher
LLOYD MOSS PUBLISHING
0421 998 749
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