More on what novels will be read in the 22nd century

Book group got derailed last night because of illness of one but the remainder met anyway socially and I posed question I raised in yesterday's post: what novels published in our lifetime (roughly since 1950) will people still be reading (in whatever form that may be!) a hundred years from now? Some of those I suggested yesterday came up, and there was general agreement that that farther back in time the easier it is to project the enduring qualities: that's why I can say pretty confidently that Catcher in the Rye will be read in the 22nd century but who really knows about Jonathan Franzen or David Foster Wallace? Will they be classics, curiosities, or obscurities? Other suggestions from the group: LR immediately suggested Naked and the Dead (1948, I think), and I suppose at least one WWII novel will be still read, but not sure it's that one (does anyone even read it now?), maybe Catch22? Several then suggested the Pat Barker Ghost Road trilogy re World War I. Several also thought a few of the novels that have been made into reasonably good movies would endure: English Patient, Namesake, Remains of the Day, and especially Atonement. I'm not sure I agree about any of these - interesting how each of them, however, is contemporary but written about the past and (3 of them) in a "classic" style - they at least seem like classic books. There are a # of great novels of the past 20 years whose chances of enduring are hurt, I'm afraid, by the limited output of the writer: God of Small Things and, perhaps, The Known World, are two of the best novels of recent years, but they're not talked about much any more because the writers haven't really followed up. TP suggested Naipaul, probably A Bend in the River(hm, maybe), and RR suggested Baldwin's Another Country (seems less likely to me). I added Lolita as a possibility. MR added AS Byatt (again, a writer who writes as if she's writing classics), TP suggested Oe, though no particular book, and LR suggested Pahmuk's Snow and possibly something by Yehoshua. RR added The Old Man and the Sea, and M had what I think is the most likely suggestion of all: On the Road. Not the best book on the list by a long shot, but one that will probably find a readership as long as there are books - and roads.