There is this effect, as with Shakespeare or the Bible, where you read a classic and it seems tacky and common because you read the same references a thousand t

There is this effect, as with Shakespeare or the Bible, where you read a classic and it seems tacky and common because you read the same references a thousand times without realizing that originally it was the source of those references. Maybe that has some influence in your opinion, or maybe you don't like Flaubert, and that is fine, just adding to the conversation. There are other tropes, like the tortured French intellectual (old professor usually) and womanizer character in a novel (cough Houellebecq) that I find tiring, but "para gustos colores" (different strokes for different folks). IMO Long descriptions of rooms do not feel as modern as Hemingway, but who is to say that fashion won't change in the future.