'Booking' the Trend

Today's Guardian features a (to me anyway) fascinating debate about the world’s favourite underrated contemporary writers in its Book Blog.

Yesterday’s edition explored the most overrated writers – a topic I can get a bit loquacious on when it comes to overrated books. I think I am most definitely in the minority here, but the likes of Harry Potter and Twilight have made as much impact on me as the latest series of Big Brother (that is none whatsoever).

Twilight is a series the world seems to have gone bananas for. OK, so I can understand the Robert Pattinson hoopla. But lovestruck vampires? What happened to the mad passion of classic protagonists like Heathcliff and Cathy or Blanche and Stanley?

Just to be clear, I am categorically NOT slating those who like to read contemporary books like this at all. Nor am I slating the books themselves, even if it seems like I am. I think anything that encourages more people to read can never be a bad thing. But I, personally, struggle to understand what can be learned from books like Twilight and Harry Potter. Yet an avid fan of both could challenge me and ask what can be learned from the classics, or even if we need to learn from books at all. Which leads me to an interesting debate. What is the point of literature?

Well for me, it’s about a journey of education, discovery and escapism. I admire authors who enable their readers to think hard. It requires effort to do so. There’s nothing wrong with taking an ‘easy read’ on holiday to read on the beach. Nor with feeding your mind with trivia every once in a while. We all do it. But why hail books as ‘modern classics’ when they are generally lacking in substance?

Adrian Mole - world's greatest diarist

Modern life demands quick fixes to everything and books like Twilight mirror this culture in requiring no depth of thought. Am I jumping to conclusions when I assume that a large number of young people today have only started reading the Twilight series because of its good looking lead male in the movie version?

I hate the thought of the ‘classic’ books being overlooked. By ‘classic’ I mean books that continue to ask questions and go some way to providing many of the answers. When JD Salinger died earlier this year, he left one of the greatest pieces of modern literature in his legacy, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. A lot of young people today have never even heard of it.

Probably my favourite literature series of all time and what I would definitely peg as ‘modern classics’ are the Adrian Mole diaries. I have followed his life's trials and tribulations since I was about 12 and can honestly say, no other book has taught me so much about the society in which we live. Granted, it is quite politically one sided but through Adrian Mole, author Sue Townsend completely captures the zeitgeist of both the 1980s and modern times. Reading the series from the beginning teaches the reader about how Thatcherism paved the way for how society is today. The books are superbly written and balance the right amount of utter hilarity and pathos. I can’t praise them enough.

And a lot of modern books today are excellent too. Through literature, people can learn about people, and that must mean some sort of progression and development. Without good books in the world, people will never be able to find themselves, and society will simply stagnate.