Literature vs A Contemporary Writer

I have just, for the first time, realized what the difference between a great writer and a random contemporary writer is. I think there can be many contributing things but one thing you can certainly count on is trust... I think you can trust literature to be literature... you can trust that whatever is in your anthology, for example, is great because there is a reason why a short-story, a novel, a poem and heck, even a play is relevant today. 

I never even cared about reading ancient books but after reading Henry James and James Baldwin this past week, I see what literary geniuses they really are... or were? vs. how plain and weak the works by contemporary writers are. 


The only reason why I am writing this is because when I am in school and am forced to read things... I have these cravings to read what I want to read... and now that I have time to read... i tried reading some books i bought at the thrift store months ago.... and they were utter crap. I got through 2 chapters and you know what... it was entertaining... but it was basic storytelling... nothing else... I didn't like that I second guessed if the writer had intentionally written what I understood... 


I liked that there was so much depth in every single word that I read in Going to Meet the Man by Baldwin... I liked that if I read it quickly, I wouldn't understand it. I liked that it makes you stop and think about what you just read and figure out every alternative interpretation that the writer has cleverly put in.


"You can read any book by a great author and find new things that they purposely wrote in. If you re-read  most of the junk that is just coming out now, you are wasting your time because it doesn't matter how many times you read Twilight. It doesn't matter how many times you read the entertaining Harry Potter books. You will always come to the conclusion that it is about a boy who is "the chosen one" that comes to save the universe from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It is stolen junk... Read the story of Jesus. There is depth in the gospels."