No Such Thing As A Contemporary Novel?

Russell Smith on Graham's Swift essay that claims that there is no such thing as a contemporary novel:

"His argument is simple and undeniable: As soon as something’s written and published it is about the past. Novels take years to write, so “… the ‘now’ with which they begin will be defunct by the time they’re finished.” And the hippest of new novels will look very dated in a couple of years. He points out that many of our favourite novels from the 19th century are actually not about their own time but are set many years previous to their writing: War and Peace, for example, was written in the 1860s but set during the Napoleonic wars, about 50 years earlier. The lag seems immaterial to us now."


Globe and Mail