As an English major, I am all too familiar with the classic ‘Penguin’ cover that seems to protect most of the books I read for my classes. From Moby Dick to Frankenstein, Penguin seems to cover nearly any ‘school book.’ Well, what about plain old fiction? Here are a few books that will never be Penguin classics…
I laugh every time I pass this in the fiction section. The fact it was published is almost as amusing as the $25 price tag.
Yes I read it. Yes I enjoyed it (in all its ridiculousness). No it wasn’t very good or well written. And no, it holds no literary merit whatsoever.
Sorry, Britney.
Miley, I’m sorry I’m not sorry. Any pity I had for you disappeared with all that hair you chopped off.
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Lovelies, what other books do you think would never be Penguin Classics? Get creative!
guest
I think you are wrong, especially about Snooki. She may not be the voice of my generation, I am pretty sure that honor goes to Courtney Love. She is definitely the voice of this generation or maybe that’s Lady Gaga. Snooki has better hair.
guest
I honestly think Fifty Shades of Grey will be. It’s the most downloaded eBook so far, it’s overtaken Harry Potter in book sales and it’s had a pretty huge impact on popular culture. Personally, I don’t like the books, but they are popular and I think they’ll become a “classic” someday. A lot of books that were looked down upon at the time are definitely classics now.
tulip / 24 posts
@daydreams_nightmares@xanga - But what about it will make it a classic? It doesn’t represent a generation or anything going on in the world, it’s nothing but a badly written romantic porno. Yes it’s popular at the moment but that sure as hell doesn’t mean it will stand the test of time and be refered to years later as a classic read, the way that Harry Potter undoubtedly will be. It’s simply a hugely blown up fad that will most likely fizzle just as easily as it started.
guest
@leesha628 - but how do you know that? Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to whether it will be a classic or not. A lot of the books we consider classics today weren’t popular at the time – many were banned for their content (Huckleberry Finn, for example) and similarly, I’m sure other books were “fads” then, yet they’re still read by millions today. I don’t even think Fifty Shades is a good book – I just think it’s well marketed. But then again, I find a lot of “classics” to be boring and vastly overrated, so who’s to say that Fifty Shades won’t go down as another over-hyped classics that kids in fifty years are being forced to analyse for literature classes?
guest
pretty much anything written by a celebrity shouldn’t be considered a classic. if it is, that just goes to show you how screwed up our society is.
sunflower / 300 posts
I mean, if selling a ton of copies makes something a classic, I think that book on the Atkins diet as well as the Twilight series are owed some honors…
But seriously, I agree with all of these. I also would add anything by James Patterson, Dan Brown, and Nicholas Sparks. I would love it if all three of them just agreed that they’d made enough money on terrible writing and would retire.
guest
I don’t think the Twilight series will make it as literary classics. First of all, they don’t really tell us anything about our time period or what’s going on in the world right now. Future generations can’t study it and understand what was important to us during this time period if they do. At a stretch, they might be able to draw the conclusion that we were in desperate times and needed the escape of controversy and teen fiction. Other than that, there’s nothing useful that can come from those books. The other part of it is the big controversy behind the series itself. It’s been one of those ‘you either love it or you hate it’ kind of book series. While many classics are controversial, like Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”, they made a real difference with their controversy and some of them were an actual catalyst for changes in society at large. Has Twilight made us more aware about taxes, foreign affairs, societal injustices? No. It just makes people argue about whether they like it or not,… OR which “team” they’re with. Universe help us if our descendants think that this is all we cared about in our time period. Seriously.
That being said, I know it wouldn’t happen, but I would love it if “World War Z” by Max Brooks became a classic. Like I said, I know it won’t happen, but it would be so cool. Can you imagine?
guest
@daydreams_nightmares@xanga - seriously? come on. it’s not a “guess” what will become a classic novel. sales don’t determine a classic. it’s the genius behind the writing, the technique, the development, the plot. how could a serious literary scholar study 50 shades of grey? no way. no fucking way. like, this is a joke. how can you even propose that that book will become a classic? that’s insulting to every true author in the world. yes, huckleberry finn was controversial at the time of its release, but for more reasons than it got some horny housewives off. like, good god. the woman has absolutely no talent or education as an author at all!
ugh, this just makes me sick when people think that the shit that is spewed in that book or twilight is anything near literature.
guest
@leesha628 - TOTALLY AGREE! very poorly written, I cringe every time I hear anyone talking about it.ug.