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Books without history - alternate timelines and relevanc

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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Callan S. ---For some reason I was thinking about time lines and them being disrupted. Say you disrupt one time line and The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series becomes an obscure, unknown work. It just didn't get printed, for one. So imagine in one time line someones a huge fan of Tolkien, gushing about it, in the other time line he doesn't know about it at all and as a adult you hand him one of the books that to him is some obscure unknown, he reads it and...doesn't think much of it. Certainly none of his friends gush about it.

I was thinking, could one say one trait of good writing is that irregardless of timeline, it will have the effect it has? I know, alternate time lines, what the heck? But regardless, the question...?

Maybe you'd say that the lord of the rings series would still have it's effect. It might be a harsh/missplaced example, but I wanted to touch on turbo fandom being non plussed in another time line. And so shear away a layer (or layers) there to the effect the book has.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Wilshire ---I think LOTR series is a bad example. My reasoning is because I believe it is literally impossible to judge the book by whats inside at this point. Regardless of whether or not you like it, love it, hate it, whatever, some of your feelings and thoughts towards it have been, shall we say, conditioned. Though, maybe this is what makes it a good example... maybe that is your whole point and I totally messed that up. Hmmm, cant decide.

Anyway, good writing irregardless of timeline? I'd like to say sure, but I think anything taken out of context is hard to appreciate.  Einstein said everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing it was stupid.
I think that quote fits nicely into what I'm trying to say. That great is probably only relative to the here/now/current time. Great is a relative term, so when circumstances change so too then does the meaning.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Duskweaver ---A piece of writing that would be successful entirely regardless of historical context?

Not possible unless we, at the very least, allow for the work to be translated. English is the dominant language of literature today entirely due to historical events. Just as one example, change history so the Industrial Revolution started in France or Spain and the British Empire never happened and any work written in English is probably doomed to eternal obscurity.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Wilshire ---If you consider an alternate timeline that was the same in every way except what/when books were published... then maybe they could still be great. But still only just maybe. I think context is just too important.
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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Callan S. ---Well, you could dial back to when we were cavemen or even before humans existed as well, as a disproval.

What I'm suggesting is a way of looking past the gushing of certain people, they way they say this or that is the big thing, simply because in another time line, where the thing they refer to is obscure, if they were to read it (or watch it if it's a movie), they'd be non plussed.

To sheer away that level, towards works which even in a timeline where they are obscure, if the person read it, it'd provoke them still.

You can say the book or movie still relies on history. But not as much as one which banks on a gushing fan but which in an alternate time line would evoke no effect from that same person.

Too grand a claim? (Heh, though I'll take the charge of my raising alternate time lines as being too grand a thing to talk about - guilty as charged!  :o  :mrgreen: )
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