Books like The Giro Playboy

Searching for that defining thing that turns writing into literature, that makes it universal, and relevant and gives it a lifespan of at least a few hundred years turned out to be a fruitless task for me. I found a definition from someone else that seemed to satisfy me before I could find it for myself. Laura Miller, in an article for The Guardian, ruminated on how contemporary novelists struggle to fit that great socio-technological development of the late Twentieth Century/early 21st Century - the Internet - into contemporary fiction. Miller notes that authors, scared away from "frivolous nows" retreated into history. "Frivolous nows" versus "the timeless " - that seemed to encapsulate it for me. However, having confined myself almost exclusively to 19th and early to mid 20th century literature - the potentially frivolous nows of the books I have read over the last 2 or 3 years would go unnoticed as the novels, even those set in the present, are in fact set in my distant past. The real challenge it seems is to incorporate the frivolous and make it timeless. Smith has done this almost outrageously perfectly. How better to encapsulate the life of the lonely drifter, the single man with no purpose, no meaning, few real friends than this:The moon was in Scorpioand I was in Tesco1 frozen pizza1 pint of milk1 Terry's Orangewas the mystic result Meals for 1, long lonely walks filled with thoughts about the buildings around him, what they signify about society, about social trends - gentrification - the direction of his life, should he be satisfied with the ignomony of drinking and drugging himself into a stupor to keep his purity, to not conform, AT ALL, to any stereotype - be it the conventional family man, the career orientated, or the artistic Shoreditch type (for whom he reserves the most of his contempt ) - to keep his purity by hanging out with those that the rest of society - all of society, from the conformist non conformist Shoreditchers to the 9 to 5 middle of the road suburban clones, to the Cityboys - considers to be complete lowlife losers - Glue sniffers, alcoholics that spend their days in dire pubs that stink of piss and smoke, fellow "Giro Playboys" who dream of being rockstars for one drug and alcohol fueled evening before inevitably signing on the next day. Or should he break lose, carve himself his own niche, retain his purity whilst earning his own living.I discovered Michael Smith on BBC4, flicking through the channels late one night his voice captivated me. His soft North Eastern lilt, his sereneness and calmness as he ambled through the streets of Newcastle ruminating on urban decay, broken New Labour promises, regeneration that never materialised, or did so in the most superficial of ways; his disgust at the idea of rebranding the area as "Newcastle-Gateshead" casting aside thousands of years of organic history at the stroke of a PR guru's pen. What does he stand for though?He's found his niche. He's got this epic, original masterpiece published, he makes interesting, almost artistic, documentaries for the BBC. But what is he? Where does he fit? The answer is probably that he doesn't fit and he knows it, he likes it like that. He is now in the perfect position of being able to stand on his pulpit castigating whole sections of society for their values or lack of. And now he is sober (presumably), making his own living, he is in the perfect spot - there is no obvious come back to him. No one can tell him to sober up, no one can tell him to get a job. A society full of Michael Smiths wouldn't function as we know it, but it would be a society that searches for the truth, that doesn't bullshit, that isn't phoney - on to the Catcher in the Rye I go, logically, from this modern day masterpiece.