A Dozen 21st Century Books I Think Will Become Classics

Thanks to these two bloggers for sponsoring the 2022 Blog Discussion Challenge:

• Nicole at Feed Your Fiction Addiction
• Shannon at It Starts at Midnight

This was the Top Ten Tuesday topic for March 29, 2022, but it grew into such a big topic for me that I didn’t complete it on time. Today’s topic is Books with [___] On the Cover, but since I’m not much into covers I’m substituting this one instead.

Introduction

When I began to think about what might make a particular book a future classic, I discovered that I could only think in general terms. Some of the books I’ve read since 2000 deal with topics that I imagine will remain pertinent as people continue to meet the challenges of life in an ever-changing world as the twenty-first century marches on.

I’ve therefore decided to focus here on books I’ve read that illustrate these topics. Even if the individual books I’ve chosen do not become classics, I imagine that their subject matter will remain current and relevant for a long time. And whatever other characteristics may define a classic, longevity is one of the essential qualities.

I couldn’t whittle the list down to 10, so here are a dozen novels that present ideas or issues I imagine people of the future will still be thinking and writing about. 

Across time and space, humanity has continued and always will continue to search for answers to the questions of identity, meaning, and purpose.

A Little Life (2015) by Hanya Yanagihara

(scroll down to #4)

I start with this novel not only because it’s atop my list of the best novels I’ve ever read but also because, at the time I read it, the Life Stories in Literature approach was incubating in my brain. When I look back on my blog, I find that I had started to discuss this topic in 2014, but the whole concept didn’t coalesce until just about a year ago. 

This novel addresses what it means to be a person in the complex world of humanity. It includes all the major themes that Life Stories in Literature encompasses.

Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell

This novel, which I think I read before A Little Life, also contains all the major themes that I look for in a great work of literature. Mitchell’s breadth of scope here is now always at the back of my mind when I read fiction.

Dark Matter (2016) by Blake Crouch

Blake Crouch uses science fiction to explore how scientific advances of the future might affect human life. Although the experiences the characters in this novel face aren’t yet possible, if (more likely, when) they become possible, people will still be looking for the meaning of their lives.

We Begin at the End (2020) by Chris Whitaker

Chris Whitaker has written a compelling novel that beautifully illustrates Kierkegaard’s famous quotation. This story demonstrates how we continue to adjust our life story throughout our lives as we learn how to understand more deeply the significance of events.

All the Light We Cannot See (2014) by Anthony Doerr

This novel, set during World War II, perfectly illustrates how significant encounters between people can be. Initially the interaction between the novel’s two main characters seems fleeting and insignificant, but Doerr emphasizes how that interaction plays out in future generations.  

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (2014) by Anthony Marra

Another war novel, set in 2004 in a rural village in Chechnya, also demonstrates how important and far-reaching human interactions can be, especially during times of war. Meeting the characters in this book allows us to understand both the agony of some choices circumstances force people to make and the great resilience and courage of the human spirit. 

I very much hope that, in the future, war becomes something that people will have to learn about through books rather than through personal experience.

Miracle Creek (2019) by Angie Kim

This novel effectively uses multiple points of view to demonstrate that people are individuals and that each may perceive events differently. The core story of a Korean family’s relocation to the U.S. addresses the need for global awareness, but the multiple points of view demonstrate how “the immigrant experience” is not a single concept. Rather, the three people in this Korean family (mother, father, teenage daughter) all have unique perspectives in their search to find identity and meaning in their adopted country.

Tell Me an Ending (2020) by Jo Harkin

Here’s another example of a science fiction novel that examines an issue that may become a reality in the future. The issue here is memory. Future science may develop the ability to manipulate individual memories. Erasing traumatic memories could, theoretically, eliminate post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But if we could manipulate memory, should we? If it’s true that we forge our sense of self through our memories, what would doing so mean in practice?

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (2014) by Atul Gawande 

This nonfiction book “offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person’s last weeks or months may be rich and dignified.” (Source: Goodreads)

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014) by Bessel A. van der Kolk

Modern medicine has greatly advanced both the duration and the quality of human life. But this nonfiction work encourages us to recognize the mind-body connection in our efforts to advance understanding in health care. 

Circe (2018) by Madeline Miller

History has always been written by the victors, and throughout most of human history those victors have been men. Many writers are now recognizing the importance of restoring the voices of people whom history had effectively erased: subjugated peoples and, particularly, women.

The first book serving this purpose that I remember reading is The Red Tent (1997) by Anita Diamant. This novel tells the story of Dinah, daughter of Jacob, in the Book of Genesis. Although Dinah receives only this cursory mention in the Bible, Diamant imagines a rich and complex life for Dinah and other women within the context of the culture of the time.

Because The Red Tent came out just before the start of the 21^st century, I’m including Circe on this list. Miller’s novel is one among a number of novels that have expanded this trend of giving voice to history’s forgotten people over the past 20 years.

The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura

A recent nonfiction work in the same vein is The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree (1849). Her younger sister, Emily, also became an M.D. a few years later. These two women were at the forefront of the movement to open the profession of medical doctor to women. 

Whereas Madeline Miller’s novel rescues Circe from the oblivion of ancient history and mythology, Janice Nimura is able to tell the much more recent story of the Blackwell sisters on the basis of historical documents. But whether through fictional imagining or historical documentation, both of these books aim to give voice to people whose existence history has previously tried to erase.

© 2022 by Mary Daniels Brown