Why was early Hollywood (1930s and 40s) so obsessed with Emile Zola, and why did his books fall off a cliff in popularity/relevance? What are your other examples of "forgotten" authors?
>>25638093Zola is hardly forgotten. People are just willing to admit he's a mediocre writer who had five good novels.
>>25638093>liberal>philosemite>naturalistAll things "uncool" right now in the current zeitgeist, but as the Trump zeitgeist is now ending, who knows what the future may hold?
>>25638099He was more of a pioneer in technique than a master craftsman.>>25638093G. B. Shaw
>>25638093The most famous thing Zola did is J’Accuse!, so it's not hard to see why Hollywood might decide he is a Good Thing.I haven't read any of his books so I can't really comment but probably he's not first-rate, because very few people are. And if he has faded that is probably why.>What are your other examples of "forgotten" authors?Depends what you mean by‘ forgotten’. <Pic attached> was the most celebrated and successful author in late-Victorian / turn-of-the-century England, but he wasn't any good, and discerning people at the time knew it. He has pretty much disappeared, as far as I know.I agree with Samuel Johnson: Time, while not a perfect critic, is better than most. It might be best in a negative sense, though. i.e. If someone is undeservedly famous in his own era, Time will cut him down to size. But if someone is undeservedly *obscure* in his own era, I'm not sure Time will always rehabilitate him.Of course we will never know if there are any great undiscovered genuises, because how would we know, by definition? (I have a vague feeling Simone Weil made this point. Maybe it was someone else.)
Pretty sure I'm the only readson anyone still 4knows John Hawkes exists
>>25638093I can't speak for America but in Europe Zola is far from forgotten, as already said ITT the sycophants that existed at some point have disappeared, so that people read him as a novelist without caring about any "message" there migth have been. I even got assigned one of his novels in high school and I'm not even from a French speaking country. Now >>25638844 and >>25639360 are true fame to oblivion stories, that are 100 year old or less. Particularly Shaw, Caine was always seen as a midwit writer but Shaw had somehow managed to capture the fascination of most of the international intelligentsia of the first half of the 20th century. I guess double chudding out by being both pro-fascist and pro-communist played a part but mostly his style suddenly fell out of fasion after 1950, probably permanently. >>25639360>Of course we will never know if there are any great undiscovered genuises, because how would we know, by definition?For those totally undiscovered, the question is trivial. In literature as in other domains there is a good amount of people that have a (deserved) cult following even if they don't show up on meme "canon" listings that are nothing but popularity contest set by academics paralysed by intertia and imitation. >It might be best in a negative sense, though. i.e. If someone is undeservedly famous in his own era, Time will cut him down to size.When looking at long enough periods there are examples that come and go in popularity over extended time frames. It is most obvious when you look at ancient writers. Someone like Nonnos of Panopolis, revered in his time, fell into obscurity, became revered again at some point in the Byzantine empire, fell again, became one of the top five darlings of the Renaissance, was still read as one of the greats up to the mid 1700s, and is now back to being an erudite footnote ("some guy wrote another epic in the 5th century AD").
>>25638099>a mediocre writer who had five good novelsI can't tell if you're joking or clueless
Shaw’s big problem was being a ‘this is how to think’ writer. Always going to date you (Ruskin and Carlyle come to mind), but he was particularly unlucky to be writing just before WWII, Stalin, Auschwitz, the atom bomb, genetics etc, so all his positions are now laughable. He even managed to write a play about the Irish Question without spotting that Irish nationalism might be a thing.Robert Lowell seems to have already slipped from most important post war poet to an afterthought.
