So, prominent literary critic Lee Siegel has pronounced the American novel dead. In doing so, he's sparked a wave of controversy, but I for one can certainly see his point.

Most of the novels I've got lined up to read are from the beginning of the twentieth century or earlier (I have The Divine Comedy sat next to me as I type this, and am working my way through an incredibly dense introduction that is leading me to believe that thirteenth century Italy was a lot like Romeo & Juliet - plenty of death centred around love and honour whilst powerful families waged war with one another). It was the recent '20 Under 40' list published in The New Yorker that got Siegel's goat. Outside of Jonathan Safran Foer I'm at a loss as to who any of them are - an indictment of both my own unwillingness to engage with twenty-first century literature and the ever-declining popularity of "proper" fiction that has rendered it as something of a cultural relic - and I don't see myself becoming excited about any of them any time soon. I still haven't read Moby Dick. I still haven't read The Grapes of Wrath. I've been reading Breakfast at Tiffany's for the first time today, and I need some more Truman Capote in my life once I'm done. And I could go on, and on and on... At the same time, the only still-living American novelists I have any interest in reading in the near future are all older than forty (such as Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen and Glen David Gold, who was responsible for Carter Beats The Devil, which deserves to be lauded as one of the best novels of the last decade).

Of course, it should be pointed out that this problem isn't confined to America. It's much more universal than that, and the problem is most likely terminal. It'd be easy to speculate as to the reasons for this, but it'd also be a futile exercise. I'm content knowing that I'll never get the chance to read all the books I'd like to, and that freedom of choice makes the paucity of modern day classics much easier to bear.