I just saw a post about which books are the greatest of all time. Maybe A Little Life, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Wolf Hall, or Circe?
On that note, maybe I just haven’t read widely but I feel like modern books do not have as much variety in how they tell stories.
By modern I mean written in the 21st century.
by MixAlternative7735
1 Comment
I have the opposite take. I feel like Classics are in many ways more formulaic than modern books, and while the literary quality is very high of course, they seem to take fewer risks in terms of how they tell their story, or dare use weird framing devices or such. Modern books have the advantage of standing on their shoulders so to say, in that they can build upon previous works and methods. But, as always, you can find exceptions in any era that go against the norm.
Anyhow, I can’t really give you an example without knowing what you mean by “measuring up”. What is the criterion you are measuring here exactly? What is “greatness” for a book?