Books You Found Way After Their Popularity Faded [Oh, It’s Tuesday]

I have a rather fond memory of this one paper I wrote about Milton’s Paradise Lost back in college. This epic poem belongs on the rather short list of English canon works that I actually enjoyed on a non-academic level, and I remember feeling particularly validated when I discovered that it was a bestseller before the idea of bestsellers had really been minted in the Western world’s vocabulary. If I’m remembering right, this was also one of the first works to be pirated, with versions popping up all over Europe. I found it fascinating that an epic poem I found myself enjoying now was also popular with the masses in its heyday. We English majors were more used to hearing about writers who were under appreciated while living, but were rescued from obscurity by later generations. This launched me into what will probably become a lifelong meditation about ongoing book popularity.

About a year after Milton, I “discovered” two more bestsellers during my junior year abroad in China. One was THE GODFATHER (pub. date 1969) by Mario Puzo. I had never actually seen the movie, THE GODFATHER. Back then, if I was going to watch an “old” movie, I wanted it to be a musical or a romantic comedy. I’ll confess to having found SCARFACE, which I first viewed in high school, rather ridiculous and unbearable, and that turned me off of mafia films all together. That is, until finding THE GODFATHER in our Foreigner’s Dorm library. There was a limited selection (the entire “library” was actually composed of two bookcases), and I was desperate, so I decided to give it a shot. To my great shock, THE GODFATHER sent me into complete and utter book thrall. I didn’t want to eat, I didn’t want to sleep, I just wanted to finish this book, which was almost thirty-years-old at that point. I just loved it — however, I’ve met very few people my age who have actually read this book. As popular as it was back in 1969, when it stayed at number one on the NYT bestseller list for several months, it’s just not THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO — one of those enjoyable books that also gets taken seriously by “those that read.” And alas, while the movie adaptation’s star continues to rise, it seems that the actual book’s popularity has faded. It’s billed as “a classic,” but today’s modern reader doesn’t seem compelled to read it.

Another book that I read in China long after its popularity had faded was THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG (pub. date 1957). I had never heard of this book when I plucked it off the dorm library’s bookshelf, which was by the way, composed of books left behind by the foreign students who had come before us. I remember liking the book very much, thinking it wildly romantic, and wanting more than anything to live as an artist in a foreign country. In one of those weird book-influenced, life-changing coincidences that all of us avid readers are subject to, this book paved the way for my year in Japan, during which I wrote the screenplay that got me into my MFA program. Still, back in 1997, SUZIE WONG’s popularity had not only faded, but was beginning to morph into something else all together in the field of contemporary Asian studies. By the time I finished with my East Asian Literature minor at Smith, I had begun to think of the novel as less wildly romantic, and more problematic on cultural, feminist, and sexual levels. I’m still wishing that I’d had the chance to live in a Hong Kong apartment and have all my food delivered, though.

What book(s) have you read long after their original popularity has faded? Let me know in the comments.