Author: Mark

You can read last week’s post to get a feel for what this very short series is about. Broadly speaking, in my quest to read more modern literature, I’m finding myself grappling with modern issues in a way that is rather different than when I’m having broad conversations with others, or reading news stories. Books are affecting to me, and always have been. I’m typically more emotionally moved by a book that just about any other stimulus. So, I take the stories they tell seriously and look for what the author wants to say with it.

As I mentioned last week, I’m trying to make a concerted effort to read modern fiction books. What tends to come along with this are modern takes on old issues in society, and modern takes on modern problems. This is perhaps the strongest argument for reading difficult modern literature: it makes us confront issues in a new way, and become warier of issues facing our current society.

Over the years, I’ve read very little modern fiction. I went through some of the main young-adult fiction of my generation (Harry Potter, Eragon and the likes) but have rarely read any modern literature published this century. There are a few exceptions, such as the work of Neal Stephenson. Yet throughout school, most books we read were much older. This caused me to become more interested in older literature, and believe that the ability to read it was some sign of maturity.

There are many reasons for this. One is that in the limited time we have available to us, we want to maximize our experiences. Taking a chance on a newer book that is unproven, without any immediate obvious cultural impact, can be a tough sell. It is easier than ever to find old books, to determine what you’ll enjoy, and be told that certain classics have had a profound effect on the world. Within that context, why wouldn’t you focus on older, profound literature as opposed to anything written by a modern author?

But I’ve realized that there’s always new literature coming out, and much of it speaks to the current state of our world. Other bits are just informative and interesting. So, I’ve been trying to make a more conscious effort in my various reading binges to find newer books. The first of these (among the conscious effort) is a National Book Award runner up in 2018, The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. Next week I plan to write a much more in-depth review of the book and its impact on me. Suffice it to say that it’s an engaging book that took me a bit out of my comfort zone, and it affected me deeply.

This helped confirm my decision to read more modern literature. That doesn’t mean I’ll stick to these highly-recommended books. In the past I’ve had luck doing a random sort in my library book reader app, and taking out the first thing that seems interesting. I hope to maintain some sort of cycle, reading an older book, then a newer book that seems promising, then a random newer book. This will keeps things interesting and give me a wide range of books to read, which helps improve the flow of ideas I consider.