British Kits — Here they come!
By Kristen on Nov 13, 2007 in Future Classics...?
Well, I just finished the first five kits for my “British Beauties” series (available Thursday!!) and started thinking — again — about why some books endure. The comment made two weeks ago about a classic needing to “resonate” with readers across the years has me thinking about my choices for the kits, which tend to be well accepted as classics that have stood the test of time.
I recently noticed how my “American Classics” series is dominated by modernism, yet the “British Beauties” are primarily Victorian. Does this reflect simply my own preference, or more significantly when we began to grow into our identity as a country? And do we (Americans, readers, women) prefer to view England through a Victorian “lens”? Modernism emphasizes how difficult it is to find meaning or Truth in the world – WWI had many writers questioning the existence of God or whether the old values and modes of thinking were sufficient after witnessing the horrors of the “war of the machine.” With regard to gender, aren’t the Victorian classics doing the same thing, in their own tea-drinking, mood lighting, polite way? Certainly the Victorian’s “angel in the house” ideal of womanhood is questioned in Jane Eyre and Mrs. Dalloway.
Maybe what truly resonates with readers is the desire to question what has come before? There is an element of comfort in the Victorian classics since we are pretty sure the heroine will end up with true love and financial independence. There is little comfort in most of the American classics I chose, however, except that the shallow or unethical tend to get punished in some way. I would love to hear more about what a novel needs in order to resonate in the immediate future and in order to become timeless.
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