I just finishing reading a novel written sometime around the late 1800s called The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. It was… well, it was awful, albeit well written. The story is about a rich, pampered idiot named Newland Archer who falls in love and is an idiot while all the rich people around him act like idiots.
Very frustrating, do not recommend.
But it made me think a little bit about how my writing will be viewed in a hundred or two hundred years. I mean, at this point it is beyond arrogant to think that anyone will care… there are literally millions of writers in the English language, and while I think I am better than most, I wouldn’t put myself in the top thousand yet. And who knows, maybe I never will be… but even if I am, even if I become somebody in the top hundred (ha), will my work really be worth looking at in that time? Will I be “indicative of writing of my time” or “an unusual specimen of writing that was ahead (or behind?) other samples”? Or will I just be forgotten like countless hundreds of other writers.
Which, to be perfectly clear, I am okay with. I make no illusions that my work will be transformative or stand the test of time or whatever. But I am curious, after reading this very well written disaster, how future readers would consider my humble offerings.
Ah well. For now I will have to content myself with how contemporary readers view my work!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!