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What is the classic book of the 80s and 90s?
That's Ryan Holiday's query. This is not about quality, this is about "representing a literary era" or perhaps just representing the era itself. I'll cite Bonfire of the Vanities and Fight Club as the obvious picks. Loyal MR reader Jeff Ritze is thinking of Easton Ellis ("though not American Psycho"). How about you? Dare I mention John Grisham's The Firm as embodying the blockbuster trend of King, Steele, Clancy and others? There's always Harry Potter and graphic novels.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 3, 2008 at 06:42 PM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Money by Martin Amis?
Posted by: Will Perkins at Sep 3, 2008 6:52:37 PM
"Neuromancer" by William Gibson. Introduced the term "cyberspace" 20 years before anyone knew what that was, and was seminal in not just the cyberpunk era of SF but also in inspiring the mainstreaming of it in movies via "The Matrix" and everything that followed.
And just to play devil's advocate, who said it had to be fiction?
Posted by: Jim at Sep 3, 2008 6:55:03 PM
Departing from the Anglo world, a strong case can be made for Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose". It's hard to overestimate the impact of this work in the literary world of the 80's.
Posted by: Diogo at Sep 3, 2008 6:55:36 PM
Brett Easton Ellis - American Psycho, for sure.
It's Joris-Karl Huysmans - À Rebours of the 1990s.
Posted by: megapolisomancy at Sep 3, 2008 7:05:16 PM
Red Storm Rising for the 80s.
Posted by: dave smith at Sep 3, 2008 7:10:48 PM
80's : White Noise by Don Delillo
90's : A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
Posted by: bags at Sep 3, 2008 7:30:16 PM
No one read it, but Going Native by Stephen Wright is a pretty neat novel of the '90s.
Posted by: Virtual Memories at Sep 3, 2008 7:31:43 PM
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk?
Posted by: Matt at Sep 3, 2008 7:40:25 PM
Sorry, I don't know why I posted that without finishing. I'd say Survivor is his better example of capturing the 90s and the generation coming of age in that decade.
Posted by: Matt at Sep 3, 2008 7:43:44 PM
Neuromancer/The Diamond Age (respectively)
Posted by: Andy at Sep 3, 2008 7:44:51 PM
If you're going to let graphic novels qualify, I'd have to go with WATCHMEN for the 80s.
Posted by: Patrick Minton at Sep 3, 2008 7:47:26 PM
Blood Meridian for the 80s
Posted by: whitebread at Sep 3, 2008 7:52:51 PM
The Name of the Rose. The best book of any recent decade on so many different levels. Awesome.
Posted by: wwren at Sep 3, 2008 7:54:40 PM
A Clancy for the 80s
Atlas Shrugged for the 90s, for me personally!
But seriously, Jurassic Park? The promise and threat of technology in the wrong hands?
Posted by: Andrew at Sep 3, 2008 7:57:17 PM
Jurassic Park.
Posted by: Chris at Sep 3, 2008 7:58:54 PM
I like the pick of Bonfire of the Vanities, but I think Norman Rush's Mating more likely to endure.
Otherwise, I'm hard pressed to say—have we entered an era without a few giant books, a phenomenon which seems to be evident up through the era of Bellow, Updike, and Roth? I wonder.
Posted by: Jake at Sep 3, 2008 8:00:24 PM
Perhaps Douglas Coupland, Generation X...
Posted by: Kat at Sep 3, 2008 8:00:36 PM
Whoa. Now it's going somewhere
Someone else suggested Liar's Poker which seems like a good pick.
Posted by: Ryan Holiday at Sep 3, 2008 8:02:17 PM
Blood Meridian / Rising Sun
80's 90's
Posted by: Nathanael at Sep 3, 2008 9:11:49 PM
80s - Raymond Carver's Cathedral or B. E. Ellis' Less Than Zero
90s - Cormac McCarthy's Trilogy All the Pretty Horses/The Crossing/Cities of the Plain or Burrough's Barbarians at the Gate
Posted by: frelkins at Sep 3, 2008 9:20:47 PM
Not a literary masterpiece or anything, but Stephen King's The Stand seems to have been an 80s book about the 00s. Superbugs? Apocalyptic credulity? Red State / Blue State angst? Domestic terrorism? It's all there...
Posted by: mrshl at Sep 3, 2008 9:32:05 PM
Amsterdam.
the Atonement
A man in full
Disgrace
Posted by: k at Sep 3, 2008 9:38:16 PM
The umberable lightness of being
Posted by: k at Sep 3, 2008 9:41:22 PM
Wow--good calls on Liar's Poker and Watchmen. I'd add Bright Lights, Big City...
Posted by: monboddo at Sep 3, 2008 9:54:23 PM
Does it have to be an American novel? If not, I vote for "The War of the End of the World" by Mario Vargas Llosa.
Posted by: John S. at Sep 3, 2008 10:10:10 PM
