In a recent conversation which turned out to be far too one sided, I ended up discussing the TV series Lost with a friend who considered it the show itself to be historic. I argued that only works of significant singular genius have a chance of surviving in the long run. He mentioned the possibility that Lost, like Twin Peaks, certainly has its own staying power not because it is necessarily a cohesive work, but because of its influential tone and style.
This might be true, but I pointed to the fact that many other cultural works have very influential style (even if others might be stylistically polemic) but are studied only in relation to other works, and are read or viewed not for pleasure, but for influence and therefore 'survive' in a very artificial sense. I would classify under this category the Everyman and Morality Plays (which doubtlessly also share multiple authorship), much of the Troy "Fan Fiction" and even the original but ultimately non-canonical "false" Part Two of Don Quixote.
But then again, if all the works we will study and enjoy for years to come work 'against' work they know but using things like tone and basic story based on previous material, the Canon of art our culture keeps around is certainly not the most original, but the most refined.
The Lost Weekend was admired for its brave approaching of the subject of alcoholism, and certainly caused great anxiety for Malcolm Lowry who was working on his own "quick downfall on the bottle" masterpiece that eventually became, possibly with the help of working 'against'
The Lost Weekend,
Under the Volcano.
In this way, we might say that the artistic works we have around during our own lifetime are not only in danger of aging poorly, but of being kicked out of the Canon by others.
Or possibly, like Margaret Atwood's work with
The Last Man with
Oryx and Crake and
On the Road with
Surfacing, can work be re-established into the Canon if artistic reasons are given by later works?
As my friends who write for money might end a blog post with, what are your thoughts?
It seems Judd Apatow has included Alice Munro's story, "Material" in his new (first?) anthology of humor, I Found This Funny. His box office record would seem to indicate he knows his demographic, but who knows how they'll handle literary gems from Munro and Fitzgerald in between pieces by Conan O'Brien and Steve Martin (but then again, I might be underestimating them).