Classics & Antiques

Wednesday morning my mother and I woke to a heck of a thunderstorm, the type that damages roofs, knocks limbs out of trees, ruins gardens, and makes for great sleeping weather, which is exactly what both of us did when the rain and thunder woke us. We rolled back over, tucked our heads under the covers, and fell back asleep. Problem is, both of us forgot that the front windows were open, and the wind was driving everything against that side of the house.

My mother was the first up. By the time I emerged from my room, she had already shut the windows, pulled the furniture away from the walls, and dried everything off. She’s efficient that way. When she told me what had happened, I asked, “What got wet?” I was walking into the living room to assess the damage myself as I talked. A lot of my stuff that isn’t in storage (read that as books and photos) are in the living room.

“Keep walking,” she said.

In short order my bare feet hit damp carpet. “How’s the furniture?” The trunk had been pulled out and the antique rocker my great-grandmother had refinished just for my mother was sitting in the middle of the room.

“I dried them off,” she said, as I approached the outer wall to see exactly how wet the carpet was nearer the windows and check out the baseboards, “but I forgot to check the tapes. They’re probably wet, too.”

I glanced down at the video rack full of an assortment of CDs and VHS tapes. “Yep. They’re wet.”

I left my mother to take care of them while I hurried into the shower to get ready for my work day. As I left, I wondered to myself how many of the CD cases were ruined and how well a VHS tape could withstand a good soaking. I hoped they had fared okay. The shelf was metal, but I hoped its protective coat of paint had done its job, though I figured water had pooled in little divots on its surface.

The thing is, I was far less worried about how the old steamer trunk and the rocking chair fared our housekeeping lapse than I was concerned about the tapes and CDs and the shelf they sat on, modern as they. More to the point, I was worried about them because they were modern. Such things don’t always stand the test of time as much as the furniture we’ve built out lives, and our family’s lives, on.

The same is true with books. Many writers want to create something new, something modern, something that will sell well now. Yet, just because something is a bestseller today doesn’t mean it’s constructed to stand the test of time. It could very easily go out of print next week. To be a true classic, a book must be something that is handed down through the generations. It needs to be well crafted, have an entertaining story, and speak directly to what it means to be human.

Classic literature can withstand the critics and the evolving world. Take Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for example. Sure, he talks about slavery and uses the word “nigger,” but his work is still read today, both casually and academically, not because of those issues but in spite of them. Regardless of the setting in which the story is told and the language used to tell it, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is about what makes a man, a man. And because it is well crafted and an entertaining story and speaks directly to the heart of humanity, it endures regardless of changing standards and altered social mores.

As writers, we must ask ourselves what we’re striving to do. There is value in entertainment and in creating something readers enjoy today, but if the craftsmanship is equal to the story, then its possible that what you write will also be able to withstand harsh criticism and endure to be passed on from generation to generation. After all, my mother rescued that old steamer trunk from her father’s barn, where it was being used to store greasy car parts, and the rocking chair came from my great-grandmother’s attic where it had been discarded. Both are classic pieces that would fit into almost any décor, despite being created for an earlier time. And the rain? It didn’t harm them one bit. After they were wiped off and the floor around them was given a chance to dry out, they were slid right back into position under the windows. They’ll probably remain there until they’re transferred to either my brother’s or my home in twenty or thirty years. As for the DVDs, I’m certain some of their cases are starting to fall apart now. Not that it much matters. They’ll be replaced by something new before too much longer.