I graduated from Columbia with a degree in English in 1974. While I was there, I read an essay on J. R. R. Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings by a professor in the English Department. The last words of the essay were, “The Lord of the Rings lives, but on borrowed time.” The professor did not think much of the Lord of the Rings. Her problems with the book were the standard: lack of realism, characterizations that were hardly subtle, good and evil depicted in black and white, the minor role that women played in the narrative. It’s now over forty years later, however, and The Lord of the Rings is still being read, more popular than ever.

When I was in 12th Grade, I remember one young woman stating that the books we were reading lacked relevance. She wanted to read Soul on Ice instead of Shakespeare. It’s now more than forty years later, and Soul on Ice is little more than an historical curiosity, a relic of the 1960’s. If literature is news that stays news, Soul on Ice has not made the grade.

Some years ago, I read on essay by Gore Vidal on Tarzan of the Apes. Vidal grudgingly stated that, “In action, Tarzan is excellent.” Aside from that, he had little good to say about the book. And yet, Tarzan was published in 1914. I doubt that it ever occurred to Gore Vidal that Edgar Rice Burroughs was and is a much more important, much more influential writer than himself. Very little that Gore Vidal wrote is still being read, not by a very wide audience, at least, but generations have read and loved the exploits of Tarzan and John Carter.

Again, if literature is news that stays news, sometimes we don’t know until many years later exactly what books and stories are going to achieve that status. So I say, don’t worry about it. Read what you enjoy. It’s a question that only our grandchildren will be able to answer.