Book Lists and Honesty

[Veho]

I see lists like the ones in the 'books you couldn't live without thread' (or something like that) by a couple of certain posters and I think surely those 20 books they listed just can't be the books they've derived the absolute most pleasure from. They're the kind of lists that you think they must have just sat there and come up with the top books that you feel you should choose, that people will admire you for, the books that they think make them sound the most intellectual and learned, perhaps the books they convince themselves are their favourites. But then I believe I'm judging others by my own feelings. I read Shakespeare, and such, and as much as I admire the beauty of the writing I get very little genuine pleasure from reading it.

This is in no way a personal attack on or judgement of others, although it probably sounds like it in some way, it's really just something I think bothers me on a personal level. I'm not clever, I don't have a degree, I'm not well-read but I do read and I read what's considered literary but even that I can't do like a lot of posters on here.

So, what I'm asking is for a discussion on whether appreciation for great literature and pure enjoyment of great literature are sometimes confused. Also it would be fun if, being as honest as possible to yourself, you could post the five or so books that have brought you the most genuine enjoyment (the kind were you can't wait to get home from work/school/parties to read).

[Palmerl24]

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simplehttp://www.hergoods.info/avatar2.jpg

[OrphanPip]

Idk, I always list Emma as my favourite novel, and I find it genuinely enjoyable and brilliant.

[Des Essientes]

Making lists of 'essential' books and the of ranking books on a hierarchical scale are strange practices to follow because one is dealing with works of art that cannot really be objectively ranked. They are understandable, and even valuable, practices if one is trying to get to know the person making the list. So too if one already knows that one has similar tastes to the person making the list then the list may put one on to some unread books that one will enjoy. The threadstarer is right in that they do perhaps tend to be 'wish lists' of books one wishes one enjoyed the most but really didn't enjoy as much as others left off the list because they were too 'low brow', but enjoyment of works of literature is also hard to quantify. I.E. I am reading an English translation of Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz's novel "Insatiability" at the moment and it's not what one would call an 'easy' read but it is also undeniably interesting and so I would probably put is somewhere on a list, if I made such lists, but perhaps I'd be doing so in the hope of introducing others to this novel, which is not very well known in the English speaking world, and perhaps also to seem cool. By the threadstarter's criteria of books that give one "the most genuine enjoyment (the kind were you can't wait to get home from work/school/parties to read)" I guess I wouldn't be able to put "Insatiability" on the list, because deeply philosophical experimental novels are not, for me, the type of books that "I just can't put down" and I suspect this is the same for alot of avid readers, but we still know that deeply philosophical experimental novels have merit, probably even more merit than the 'pageturners' that we have devoured in just a couple of sittings. A work of literature that requires alot of concentration, and reflection, may, in the end, actually provide more genuine enjoyment than an easy to read adventure tale that one 'can't put down', because it will leave one mentally richer after having made the effort to read it, and mental richness is a well in oneself that can be drawn from for the rest of one's life, whereas an exciting plot without any profoundity is soon forgotten.

[Pierre Menard]

To be honest, I think it's pretty arrogant to imply/assume that people don't actually like the books they like because YOU don't connect with those books as much.

I mean, I can honestly say I derive absolute enjoyment from Shakespeare. His language lifts me to another place. I always find myself thinking about scenes from his plays and reading monologues whenever I come across them online.

[kelby_lake]

I understand that there may be an element of posturing when people say what their favourite books are but sometimes people do just genuinely enjoy the classics. They are classics for a reason...

[Buh4Bee]

I agree with both of the above. I'm not sure why people would exaggerate or out right lie.

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Geothe
War and Peace by Tolstoy
The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway
Lady Chatterley's Love by DH Lawrence
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse


One day I will find the right words, and they will be simplehttp://www.hergoods.info/avatar2.jpg

:nono::nono::nono:

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I see lists like the ones in the 'books you couldn't live without thread' (or something like that) by a couple of certain posters and I think surely those 20 books they listed just can't be the books they've derived the absolute most pleasure from. They're the kind of lists that you think they must have just sat there and come up with the top books that you feel you should choose, that people will admire you for, the books that they think make them sound the most intellectual and learned, perhaps the books they convince themselves are their favourites. But then I believe I'm judging others by my own feelings. I read Shakespeare, and such, and as much as I admire the beauty of the writing I get very little genuine pleasure from reading it.

This is in no way a personal attack on or judgement of others, although it probably sounds like it in some way, it's really just something I think bothers me on a personal level. I'm not clever, I don't have a degree, I'm not well-read but I do read and I read what's considered literary but even that I can't do like a lot of posters on here.

So, what I'm asking is for a discussion on whether appreciation for great literature and pure enjoyment of great literature are sometimes confused. Also it would be fun if, being as honest as possible to yourself, you could post the five or so books that have brought you the most genuine enjoyment (the kind were you can't wait to get home from work/school/parties to read).

Assuming that these posters in question are just putting on a show, the question should not be whether or not they actually get pleasure from such book; the question should be, is pleasure the most essential derivative one should get from literature? I think the wholly depends on the person. Not everyone reads to be entertained only; some read to learn, to experience different mindsets, cultures, or times. I may not get as much pure entertainment out of Moby Dick as I do something like Game of Thrones, but I will always choose Moby Dick over Game of Thrones as the better book, and one I would rather read.

A couple years ago, I would've thought the same as you upon seeing those lists,but as I read more, the more I find myself being drawn to the classics. I find myself looking forward more to reading something like Dostoevsky rather then the latest hyped sci-fi/fantasy novel (both of which are on my to-read shelf).

[Mutie]

I think the problem with essential anything is that theyre always just slanted to our culture. I mean the best movies of all time in film magazines will always be Godfather, Casablanca etc. Does that mean that there has never been an Indian or Russian that good, and if there was it would have chance hypothetically for the list? Or that only hollywood movies had wide appeal. I mean, would whats important for a middle age white guy in USA be the same issues for an African teenage girl. BTW I love Godfather and Casablanca. But i think theres no such thing as any entertainment "everyone should experience" because people are so different. I think you should just look for what speaks to you. IE I would want a friend who liked mythology to know about Neil Gaiman books and recomend them to the friend. But i wouldnt say everyone in the world need to read Gaiman. Some people just dont relate to his style.

[Paulclem]

To follow on from Mutie's thought, one person's classic is another's charity shop donation. I recently rated Doestoyevsky's House of the Dead as a 10/10, but you couldn't give me an Austen, whereas Pip really rates Emma.

Lists are all a bit of a fabrication anyway based upon how we're feeling at the time, and are a bit of fun for us book nerds. I like to read what I fancy. There's too little time to spend on stuff i don't like, however well recommended they come. There are no rules anyway. Just enjoy it, and if you feel you want to impress someone with an impressive book list, go ahead. Who's going to know? It might be an aspiration, but no one's checking.

:lol:

[stlukesguild]

I see lists like the ones in the 'books you couldn't live without thread' (or something like that) by a couple of certain posters and I think surely those 20 books they listed just can't be the books they've derived the absolute most pleasure from. They're the kind of lists that you think they must have just sat there and come up with the top books that you feel you should choose, that people will admire you for, the books that they think make them sound the most intellectual and learned, perhaps the books they convince themselves are their favourites. But then I believe I'm judging others by my own feelings. I read Shakespeare, and such, and as much as I admire the beauty of the writing I get very little genuine pleasure from reading it.

This is in no way a personal attack on or judgement of others, although it probably sounds like it in some way, it's really just something I think bothers me on a personal level. I'm not clever, I don't have a degree, I'm not well-read but I do read and I read what's considered literary but even that I can't do like a lot of posters on here.

So, what I'm asking is for a discussion on whether appreciation for great literature and pure enjoyment of great literature are sometimes confused. Also it would be fun if, being as honest as possible to yourself, you could post the five or so books that have brought you the most genuine enjoyment (the kind were you can't wait to get home from work/school/parties to read).

Considering that I'm probably one of those individuals toward which this is addressed, I'll make some effort to answer this. The thread you mention asks for a list of "books you couldn't live without". I answered:

1. Dante's Comedia
2. The Complete Shakespeare
3. The Bible- King James Translation
4. The Complete Essays of Montaigne
5. J.L. Borges- Collected Works
6. Edward Gibbon-The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
7. Marcel Proust- In Search of Lost Time
8. Edmund Spenser- Collected Works
9. Rolf Toman- The Art of the Italian Renaissance
10. Edmonde de Goncourt, etc...- Japanese Woodblock Prints

This assumed that I was limited to only 10 books.

11. Rainer Maria Rilke
12. R.W. Emerson- Collected Essays
13. Charles Baudelaire- Les Fleurs du Mal
14. William Blake- Poems and Prose
15. Italo Calvino- Invisible Cities
16. Bonnard; The Work of Art: Suspending Time, ed. Suzanne Pagé
17. Robert Herrick- Poems
18. Theophile Gautier- Collected Poetry and Prose
19. anon.- The Arabian Nights Entertainments
20. Lewis Carroll- The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition

I added the following ten books to my list assuming that I was now allowed but 20.

The question was not which books gave you the most pleasure nor "which books do you believe to be the 10 greatest that you have read." My answers would have been somewhat different for each question. Limited to only 10 books I focused upon books of an epic scale that could keep me engaged over time; I sought a variety of prose and poetry, and new and old; and as a visual artist I absolutely could not do without a couple books loaded with reproductions of great art. Had I been asked to choose 10 books which had given me the most pleasure, I undoubtedly would have still kept the Dante, Shakespeare, the Bible, Montaigne, Borges, Proust, Spenser, Rilke, Baudelaire, Blake, Calvino, Herrick, Gautier, Lewiss Carroll, and the Arabian Nights for the simple reason that these texts have given me the greatest pleasure... to the extent that I have returned to many of them repeatedly.

Of course there are different degrees or types of pleasure. I laughed uproariously through Philip Roth's The Breast, John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, the first half of Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, and any number of other books... yet none of them struck me as the sort of reading I needed to return to again and again. "Pleasure" in reading may include intellectual stimulation and challenge, sensual pleasure, pleasure taken in the development of a well-told story or the development of characters who seem almost real. Some of the books that I now think of as having brought me the most pleasure over time did not initially resonate so profoundly at first... but something kept drawing me back to them repeatedly until they became like the closest of friends. Stephen Spielberg's First Indiana Jones movie is a sheer thrill-filled pleasure from start to end... but it is not of the same sort of pleasure wrought by The Seventh Seal or 2001:A Space Odyssey which ultimately give me more levels of pleasure as I return to them again and again.

In all honesty... if asked to list "the 20 greatest books I have read" Borges, Gibbon, the art books, Rilke, Emerson, Calvino, Herrick, Gautier, and Lewis Carroll would all fall to the wayside... although many of them would show up lower down... certainly on a "100 greatest" list. Rather, I would have included Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, The Shanameh, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Milton's Paradise Lost, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, etc...

[Darcy88]

I think the so called "great books" are called that for a reason. They really are great. My favourite books, the ones I derive the most pleasure from, are mostly classics. The Iliad, The Metamorphoses, Don Quixote, Thucydides, Leaves of Grass, Flowers of Evil, ect. To be honest though, when it comes to Shakespeare I like some of his plays but cannot really find enjoyment in others. His Sonnets are a pinnacle of literature and I can actually get high off them. Same with King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and a few other plays. But Macbeth and Hamlet are mountains that for me are not at all fun to climb, which is strange because I like other Shakespeare, but these two often highly praised plays I do not like.

[Charles Darnay]

I see lists like the ones in the 'books you couldn't live without thread' (or something like that) by a couple of certain posters and I think surely those 20 books they listed just can't be the books they've derived the absolute most pleasure from. They're the kind of lists that you think they must have just sat there and come up with the top books that you feel you should choose, that people will admire you for, the books that they think make them sound the most intellectual and learned, perhaps the books they convince themselves are their favourites. But then I believe I'm judging others by my own feelings. I read Shakespeare, and such, and as much as I admire the beauty of the writing I get very little genuine pleasure from reading it.

This is in no way a personal attack on or judgement of others, although it probably sounds like it in some way, it's really just something I think bothers me on a personal level. I'm not clever, I don't have a degree, I'm not well-read but I do read and I read what's considered literary but even that I can't do like a lot of posters on here.

So, what I'm asking is for a discussion on whether appreciation for great literature and pure enjoyment of great literature are sometimes confused. Also it would be fun if, being as honest as possible to yourself, you could post the five or so books that have brought you the most genuine enjoyment (the kind were you can't wait to get home from work/school/parties to read).

I have run into this criticism many times: when I tell someone I love Joyce's Ulysses I get scoffs. "Oh you just want to sound smart, so you say you like that book." No. I say I like it because it is hilarious, beautiful, and an amazing window into humanity. Same goes with Shakespeare, Milton or Dante.

I also don't believe that you need an English degree to enjoy the "classics". Sometimes it is a matter of diving in and allowing yourself to experience something new and accept the fact that you may struggle at first but if you go back and reread certain parts it will fall into place.


To be honest though, when it comes to Shakespeare I like some of his plays but cannot really find enjoyment in others. His Sonnets are a pinnacle of literature and I can actually get high off them. Same with King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and a few other plays. But Macbeth and Hamlet are mountains that for me are not at all fun to climb, which is strange because I like other Shakespeare, but these two often highly praised plays I do not like.

I don't think Shakespeare has to be swallowed as a collective. I am obsessed with Shakespeare and yet I think that "Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Two Gentlemen of Verona" are both awful and I have no desire to revisit them.

[Buh4Bee]

Reading is for everybody!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSS2U39E5g4

[JBI]

Meh, some people clearly pretend to read more than they have. It makes no difference, only a few posters have demonstrated to me at least a long list that actually feels informed with proper criteria and balance. That isn't to say people do not enjoy what they read, but their lists aren't as pretentious as they could be, nor as informed as would warrant some of their choices.

Pretending to read Ulysses to seem smart is a dated gimmick already - find me someone who has read all of Dream of Red Chambers and understood it, and then I will respect them more.

I remember giving a presentation on Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, where I ripped into the book, and it wasn't taken well, then with a turn of the head, people rip into Shakespeare and Milton non-stop, and we seem to take it as legitimate criticism. Such condescending double standards only show how deprived our society really is.

[AlysonofBathe]

Hi everyone,

I'm going to have to agree with much of the above posters - some people just love the classics, and I honestly don't feel most people would lie or exaggerate their tastes. There is no shame in liking mainstream fluff, just as there is no shame in liking the often obtuse classics. I myself read and enjoy both, and have no shame in either.

I'm currently working my way through the 1001 books list, a list comprised of academically significant works, and I've heard multiple comments about the pointlessness of it and how it's just a literary status symbol with no meaning. To those I say: I enjoy it and I'm not looking for converts - it's okay if the classics are not your thing, but don't knock others who find joy in them.

Cheers,
Alyson

[JuniperWoolf]

They're the kind of lists that you think they must have just sat there and come up with the top books that you feel you should choose, that people will admire you for, the books that they think make them sound the most intellectual and learned, perhaps the books they convince themselves are their favourites.

I get that impression fairly often. I just don't say anything about it, because...


To be honest, I think it's pretty arrogant to imply/assume that people don't actually like the books they like because YOU don't connect with those books as much.

He's right. It's no one's place to say if others are lying about what they themselves like.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Such condescending double standards only show how deprived our society really is.

I think there're are probably a few better indicators of society's deprivation than literary double standard. :lol:

[JBI]

I think there're are probably a few better indicators of society's deprivation than literary double standard. :lol:

I meant literary society, should have been clearer.

[Veho]

Thanks for the responses. It's good to read other people's perspectives and views on the discussion I introduced.

I think some people have misunderstood my "Shakespeare, and such" as meaning all classics. I didn't mean classics - I love them as much as the next person on this forum and classics are what I get the most pleasure from when reading. I did mean, as stlukes guessed, the kind of lists like his own which, apart from Lewis Carroll and a couple of others, include no real novels (classic or otherwise).

A part of me wondered, before reading the responses here, whether that was because novels are often considered "for the masses", whereas poetry, essays, philosophy are not for the masses but are, on the contrary, for the elite. Anyone and everyone reads Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations etc etc. and less, but still a fair amount, read other less mainstream classics but those works listed by stlukes in the other thread and on here are different.

Anyway, stlukes, it really wasn't personal. I just wanted a discussion really and your response is interesting. Paulclem has a point that these kinds of lists we make for ourselves change depending upon our moods and the aim of the list. I also like Mutatis's point with the Moby Dick and Game of Thrones comparison. I guess the books that are more challenging are the ones which can ultimately provide the most enduring pleasure.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Yeah, I think when people go into the mindset of the question of if you can only read ten more books for the rest of your life, pleasure is definitely going to take a back seat to re-readability. On my list would be Dante's Comedia, Paradise Lost, maybe Gravity's Rainbow, Don Quixote, War and Peace, and Faust, the last two of which I haven't even read. I wouldn't rank any of these on top of my most pleasurable reads (especially GR, that was a tough one), but I know they'd definitely give me the most reading time without becoming stale.


I meant literary society, should have been clearer.
I figured, just had to make sure. :D

[hawthorns]

What I've noticed too is that great works of literature (as well as music compostion) often require great amounts of effort. But once applied, the payoff can be magnificent. Example: I chucked Ulysses. Why? Because, honestly, I didn't make the commitment of energy and time to fully appreciate it. Did I recognize the genius of writing, construction, etc.? You bet. Can I see how it could be someone else's favorite? You bet. However, I did throw myself full bore into recherche du temps, and loved all 4,300pages. I always laugh at people who say with absolute certainty that they hate opera, especially when they've never really listened/studied it for more than 10 minutes. It took my mom over a year to really learn Tristan, but now she considers it the greatest thing ever penned. But that's another discussion...

BTW--I've only read about 6 of those on that list, and I'd ABSOLUTELY include them on my own. Those are 'stranded on a desert island' type of books for me.

[mortalterror]

Someone on the internet doesn't believe I really like Fight Club! I am shocked.

[Darcy88]

I get that impression fairly often. I just don't say anything about it, because...


I'm not lying. All my favorite books are classics. Maybe some wouldn't regard Tropic of Cancer as a classic, but its by any standard pretty darn close. How do you know I'm not lying? Because right here and now I confess that I like to listen to Avril Lavigne and I really enjoyed the movie Pearl Harbor. I'm only admitting it because I'm pissed drunk, but still, if I'm willing to admit such guilty pleasures, such pitiful lapses in taste in music and film as that, I would be willing to admit that I might relish the odd harlequin or some such pulpy book. I did read the first twilight novel. It sucked. Eww is all I have to say about it. I used to read John Grisham novels as a kid and when I tried reading one a few months ago I barely made it out of the first chapter and couldn't go on anymore after that.

Dostoevsky and Milton and Homer and all the rest are so highly regarded because they deliver, not just in terms of concepts and history and other such things, but in terms of drama and tragedy and action - they entertain. I think even a thoughtless person might find much to enjoy in Notes from the Underground. The sheer beauty of the poetry in a book like Paradise Lost is not some exclusively scholarly or intellectual thing. Its as simple and as pretty as are flowers in May. I recommended Stendhal to a friend who only ever reads popular pulp novels and she was taken in by it and enthralled.

Anyway.

[Mutie]

I've never understood the hate for the Pearl Harbor film. Yes the stars and story are cheesy, but I loved the historical visuals.

[Mutie]

Most of the acclamied books and films are about middle class middle age white guys. Even To Kill a Mockingbird (one of my all time faves btw) . The main character isn't a black person but a white lawyer. I know there classics by other races now, but will they ever enter the "best ever" lists. I don't think theres anything wrong with us loving our classics buts lets admit they're the best books for european men not the best books of all time.

[/dev/null]

Most of the acclamied books and films are about middle class middle age white guys. Even To Kill a Mockingbird (one of my all time faves btw) . The main character isn't a black person but a white lawyer. I know there classics by other races now, but will they ever enter the "best ever" lists. I don't think theres anything wrong with us loving our classics buts lets admit they're the best books for european men not the best books of all time.

What underrated western classic "by other races" do you have in mind.

[Mutie]

I don't really think I've read them. My brother studies highbrow indian african and arab authors, I could see what names he has. Sorry If i made it sound like I knew about the world's authors myself. My point really was my taste is geared to me and I don't think it should be all dominant.

[Charles Darnay]

Most of the acclamied books and films are about middle class middle age white guys. Even To Kill a Mockingbird (one of my all time faves btw) . The main character isn't a black person but a white lawyer. I know there classics by other races now, but will they ever enter the "best ever" lists. I don't think theres anything wrong with us loving our classics buts lets admit they're the best books for european men not the best books of all time.

In regards to the class issue....I am sure there have been impoverished authors over the centuries that have produced masterful works, but they would have fallen into obscurity and disappeared due to a lack of funds to publish.

As for race: it not until the 19th century that you start to see non-whites enter the Western literary cannon. And there are some wonderful works in this category, which I have seen on "best" lists.

And then of course there is the eastern cannon, and here you have a problem of accessibility. Only the major works in this cannon have multiple English editions. "Tale of Genji" for example, or "Arabian Nights Entertainment" - but but comparatively speaking, the average literature hunter in the West will come across more European/N. American works than others.

[stlukesguild]

A part of me wondered, before reading the responses here, whether that was because novels are often considered "for the masses", whereas poetry, essays, philosophy are not for the masses but are, on the contrary, for the elite. Anyone and everyone reads Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations etc etc. and less, but still a fair amount, read other less mainstream classics but those works listed by stlukes in the other thread and on here are different.

Personally, I tend to read poetry, short stories, and even non-fiction more than I read novels. Nevertheless, you will have noted several novels in my list of 20 "books I couldn't do without": Proust's In Search of Lost Time, Calvino's Invisible Cities, Lewis Caroll's The Annotated Alice which includes both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and the complete Gautier which would include the novel, Mademoiselle d' Maupin. The most obvious exclusion on my list is Cervantes' Don Quixote which I surely would have included along with Sterne's Tristram Shandy and either War and Peace of Les Miserables if I hadn't included the 3 art books. Again, if I were considering a "desert island" collection I would probably avoid most novels for the simple reason that they are essentially but a single extended narrative, where I would be more drawn to books like The Bible, Dante's Comedia, Firdawsi's Shanameh, or the Arabian Nights for the endless wealth of narratives they provide.

[Darcy88]

Most of my most cherished books are novels. Dostoevsky, Camus, Lawrence, Miller, Stendhal, ect. I don't really see a trend against the novel around me. Dickens and Austen and Hemingway and other novelists are incredibly popular among readers.

[stlukesguild]

Most of the acclamied books and films are about middle class middle age white guys. Even To Kill a Mockingbird (one of my all time faves btw) . The main character isn't a black person but a white lawyer. I know there classics by other races now, but will they ever enter the "best ever" lists. I don't think theres anything wrong with us loving our classics buts lets admit they're the best books for european men not the best books of all time.

It seems to me that great literature has come from authors of a wide range in terms of wealth. Sir Walter Raleigh, Michel de Montaigne, Edmund Spenser, Lord Byron, etc... were quite well off... never having to work. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Jean Genet, Villon, etc... were all dirt poor. The reality is that "great literature" commonly demands a degree of experience, if not education, to create... and to appreciate. Race and wealth have little to do with it. If the majority of the literature we discuss is written by "white" authors it is for the simple reason that "we" are part of Western culture some several millennia old. Ask yourself... how great were the chances that an Arab or African or Asian living in Europe or the US would have received the appropriate education let alone thought to be an author? As Charles pointed out, the Arabian Nights has long been a favorite with Western readers. Other Middle-Eastern writers (Hafez, Rumi, Said) Indian texts, and Asian writers (Tu Fu, Li Bai, Wang Wei) have entered into the dialog with Western culture... and as communications, trade, and travel becomes more global, this will continue to increase.

[JBI]

Most of the acclamied books and films are about middle class middle age white guys. Even To Kill a Mockingbird (one of my all time faves btw) . The main character isn't a black person but a white lawyer. I know there classics by other races now, but will they ever enter the "best ever" lists. I don't think theres anything wrong with us loving our classics buts lets admit they're the best books for european men not the best books of all time.

It seems to me that great literature has come from authors of a wide range in terms of wealth. Sir Walter Raleigh, Michel de Montaigne, Edmund Spenser, Lord Byron, etc... were quite well off... never having to work. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Jean Genet, Villon, etc... were all dirt poor. The reality is that "great literature" commonly demands a degree of experience, if not education, to create... and to appreciate. Race and wealth have little to do with it. If the majority of the literature we discuss is written by "white" authors it is for the simple reason that "we" are part of Western culture some several millennia old. Ask yourself... how great were the chances that an Arab or African or Asian living in Europe or the US would have received the appropriate education let alone thought to be an author? As Charles pointed out, the Arabian Nights has long been a favorite with Western readers. Other Middle-Eastern writers (Hafez, Rumi, Said) Indian texts, and Asian writers (Tu Fu, Li Bai, Wang Wei) have entered into the dialog with Western culture... and as communications, trade, and travel becomes more global, this will continue to increase.

Well, I can speak from somewhat of a Modernist Chinese perspective in saying, many of the major Chinese authors of the first half of the 20th century were clearly educated abroad, not as many in the states as in England, or Japan, but the major players, with the exception of perhaps Mao, all had some international experience.

Isolationism on both grounds is the major reason that Lu Xun is not regarded as a significant modernist voice, whereas to us someone like Joseph Conrad is (or call him anticipatory if you want). The same way there has not been a single good translation of Mao Dun's work into English either.

Natsume Soseki was English-educated, and was clearly accepted as the standard for the Japanese literary movements at the time - he didn't get accepted in England though, did he. We need to question what kind of education really means in terms of exposure.

There were numerous international voices floating in periods where we do not read. On the whole culturally, except for a few centres of the world, is isolationist. Yale and Columbia would probably be the best examples of open spaces, I would think, and multicultural cities like Toronto, New York, Singapore, or even places with open attitudes, like Amsterdam (in the past, not so much anymore) have embraced a more universal understanding of literature.

Sanskrit texts shook Europe when they arrive, we must recall. That is what T. S. Eliot was brought up studying and specializing in, and that also pervades his work. International discourses were floating forever - Kubla Khan is one of the first major trans-continental poems of English literature, and takes everything back 600 years to the heart of China, the penetrated space.

It is novels that generally seem to be the "whitest" of discourses, ironically though they are a major female genre, in terms of representation. We can complain about Charlotte Smith not making the Romantic canon as profoundly as Shakespeare, but we also should note that Sir Walter Scott is less read than Jane Austen. I am Canadian, 70% of our canon or more in almost every genre seems to be female - gynocriticism does not really make sense to me, especially reading mediocre poets for no other reason than their gender.

Of course, their is a basic argument - how can you be romantic while being a woman, where childbirthing, child-rearing and illness and death (as well as financial restraints) did not let you wander around like Shelley to the continent. There is also the second argument - that of illiteracy, or death in childbirth.

Multicultural arguments do not surface until multiculturalism - for most people, that meant 100 years ago.

I think the big factor that really informs our literature is actually just a lack of cultural understanding, or appreciation. Something like humor is not universal, after all, and even tragedy is not universal. Language is a secondary boundary, and most people will not spend the time to learn how to feel a language, let alone read original works of art in it.

You cannot read Chinese poetry at all in English - it is a headache and a mess, and nothing like what it is in Chinese. Occasionally a translator will come around, and you will get a new hybrid - like Ezra Pound, or Walley's translations. But those are nowhere near the original, the same way a modern Chinese translation will not suffice for a feeling for a classical poem, it loses everything.

We are at a time period where we really need to realize we do not understand, and think of a way to get people to a level of understanding. In a sense, society depends on it.

Now we have book lists like these - if you want to talk pretentiousness, or dishonesty, well, I would say I have to disagree. Most of these lists are "soft" and not controversial at all. In fact, they are rather bland lists of generic English works for the most part, padded with English non-English works (thinks like War and Peace is as good as an English novel to our perspective).

We have a culture that to an extent puts investment and pride into only reading Victorian novels. I personally find such lists neither snobbish nor interesting, and they rarely show any real personality.

A library should be a personal item, after all. Things like lists, unless they are personal, show very little about the author's understanding of literature, or him/herself. We should criticize things on those grounds, rather than on snobbish grounds, after all, it isn't snobbery that is limitting people to generic and pretentious lists as people see them, but rather lack of challenge to the self.

[PMLondonderry]

It's so funny that you mentioned this because when I was looking at my list (composed of Plato, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Tolkien, etc.) I said to my mom that I feel like a snob with a list like that. She said "you better have listed your dippy Nora Roberts book that you've read about 10 times." :blush:

Truth is, I genuinely enjoy classic literature. Especially literature from the Medieval/Renaissance period because it tends to be really filled with religious symbolism and critical of social hypocrisies and I could soak it up like a sponge. I also love 19th century American literature. So yes, even though I felt like a snob, I genuinely enjoy classic lit. Plus, I do feel accomplished after reading them.

On the flip side, however, I do enjoy the occasional book that doesn't really require any deep thinking. The dippy Nora Roberts book that I've read a million times is not deep by any means. It simply evokes pretty imagery in my head and I relate very much with the main character (the book is called Born in Ice and Brianna and I are very similar women.) The only reason why I wouldn't list it as a favorite is because I don't take anything away from the book. I get tips for decorating my house. That's pretty much it. With the books that I read for my classes in American literature and pre-1750 English literature, I actually take away a lot from the book. This isn't to say that I can't take lessons from modern literature, it's just that I don't have a lot of time to read that stuff because the classes that I take and the books that I'm consumed with are all 19th c. American lit and pre-1750 British lit. Since that's what I'm surrounded with right now, that's what I'm interested in.

[Pierre Menard]

A part of me wondered, before reading the responses here, whether that was because novels are often considered "for the masses", whereas poetry, essays, philosophy are not for the masses but are, on the contrary, for the elite. Anyone and everyone reads Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations etc etc. and less, but still a fair amount, read other less mainstream classics but those works listed by stlukes in the other thread and on here are different.



Is that true though?
I mean, poetry, essays etc may have fallen a little by the wayside these days for the common reader, but throughout history, poetry for example has been one of the most read forms of literature.

[stlukesguild]

While we are undoubtedly limited with regard to our sense of the whole of great literature, are you (JBI) suggesting that such is any different elsewhere? Do the Chinese have a great grasp of the literature in English, French, German, Italian, etc... How profound is your grasp of German literature? Arabic? Persian? Indian?

We are at a time period where we really need to realize we do not understand, and think of a way to get people to a level of understanding. In a sense, society depends on it.

Undoubtedly you have come to the point where you recognize with all that you have learned just how much there still is that remains unknown to you... and how much will remain forever unknown to you. How many books can you read and fully understand in one life time? How much will we ever be able to fully grasp the literary achievements of another culture without mastering their language and so much more? How much greater is your grasp of literature than Dante who was quite likely limited to little more than a couple hundred texts over the whole of his life? How does society depend upon our coming to a level of understanding of other cultures (what level?) and how do you imagine this might be achieved considering the unlikelihood of our mastering every language? Perhaps we are headed toward a single universal language... not unlike that imagined by Burgess... English laden with a heady mix of Russian, Chinese, German, Spanish, and perhaps a smidgen of French and Arabic? Is a single monolithic world culture really something to be longed for?

[lawpark]

Multicultural issues can really only be discussed when there is enough multicultural materials around to be discussed. If this is the right way to think about things, it is no surprise that most multicultural discussions take place in English.

As a bilingual (Chinese / English) person whose interest is to find out what "canonical texts" are out there in the world, I can really say that the English-language medium contains a lot more relevant materials on such topics.

One observation though is that almost all other cultures by now know the Western tradition quite a bit (call this "A"), but close to nothing about non-Western cultures other than their own (call this "B"). Western culture has quite a bit of understanding of every other cultures (call this "C"), but that level of understanding usually is not as high as "A". So the West is multicultural in that C>B, while the West is still often accused about lack of multicultural understanding because A>C.

Given we now has a situation of A>C>B, what needs to be done for a truly multicultural world to exist is fairly clear. For the non-western world, start to raise the level of B. For the West, continue to raise the level of C.

[mortalterror]

Perhaps we are headed toward a single universal language... not unlike that imagined by Burgess... English laden with a heady mix of Russian, Chinese, German, Spanish, and perhaps a smidgen of French and Arabic? Is a single monolithic world culture really something to be longed for?

Doubt it. Welsh, Scots, and Gaelic are making a comeback and they were all conquered and assimilated into the British culture a thousand years ago. People really like being different. I know that in America it's supposed to be a melting pot, but a lot of people cling to that old world bull**** and don't want to assimilate. I hear that the new analogy is that we're some kind of tossed salad where we mix but don't blend.

Also, translation software is improving so fast that in about ten years, we'll probably all have universal translators for our phones. I'll speak my language, you'll speak yours, and we'll both understand each other without years of classes. It's going to be the biggest innovation in travel since GPS.

[JBI]

Is that true though?
I mean, poetry, essays etc may have fallen a little by the wayside these days for the common reader, but throughout history, poetry for example has been one of the most read forms of literature.

Poetry is as present as it always was, if not more read than ever.


While we are undoubtedly limited with regard to our sense of the whole of great literature, are you (JBI) suggesting that such is any different elsewhere? Do the Chinese have a great grasp of the literature in English, French, German, Italian, etc... How profound is your grasp of German literature? Arabic? Persian? Indian?

We are at a time period where we really need to realize we do not understand, and think of a way to get people to a level of understanding. In a sense, society depends on it.

Undoubtedly you have come to the point where you recognize with all that you have learned just how much there still is that remains unknown to you... and how much will remain forever unknown to you. How many books can you read and fully understand in one life time? How much will we ever be able to fully grasp the literary achievements of another culture without mastering their language and so much more? How much greater is your grasp of literature than Dante who was quite likely limited to little more than a couple hundred texts over the whole of his life? How does society depend upon our coming to a level of understanding of other cultures (what level?) and how do you imagine this might be achieved considering the unlikelihood of our mastering every language? Perhaps we are headed toward a single universal language... not unlike that imagined by Burgess... English laden with a heady mix of Russian, Chinese, German, Spanish, and perhaps a smidgen of French and Arabic? Is a single monolithic world culture really something to be longed for?

Oh, of course that is true, and I am just as limited, and surely the Chinese are limited in their exposure to English literature the same way we are to Chinese literature.

My point was that at this point in time, it becomes necessary for people to question where we come from, in terms of texts, in terms of culture, in terms of food, artwork, music, relative to their own position in the world. I do not think that is a particularly new idea, but I suggest we come at it from a perspective that remains open minded and questions our own tradition.

I think to remain within a standard grid of the accepted norm ruins part of the exploratory process. After all, to me reading is best when you look into the sea of possibilities, and come out with something you truly relate to, and love, and have a personal relationship with.

I am not saying that Victorian novels are bad, mind you, but they are not the be-all-and-end-all of literature, the same way classical Chinese poetry is not the complete essence of the world's literature.

Monolingualism to me is becoming more of a contentious issue. I just think how much better my own country would be if actual bilingualism was able to succeed, rather than the messy job that has been made of it in many places. How much more comfortable would we feel knowing our neighbors more, and reading and experiencing the world knowing how they experience it.

As a student of Chinese literature as well, I see the need for a sort of exploratory process that is beyond the limits of one's own comfort, and that necessarily challenges. This isn't a new idea - it is essentially what Shelley describes as the pragmatic use of poetry in his Defense of Poetry.

That we can get buy only reading one tradition doesn't seem legitimate to me anymore. We cannot, because we know that our culture is not made up of only one tradition. Within that sphere, there are things you discover when branching out that you would never expected - you fall in love with things you never knew possible - things that were beyond understanding. English is lucky in that it has a rich number of perspectives contained within its absorbing nature, but it is not everything.

English fiction is just one small slice of the general sea of excellence. I think if one wants to really feel literature to their utmost fullest, they owe it to themselves to branch out more widely. i doubt we would have the same reaction to world events today if we were taught to appreciate others' cultures from a younger age.

[stlukesguild]

My point was that at this point in time, it becomes necessary for people to question where we come from, in terms of texts, in terms of culture, in terms of food, artwork, music, relative to their own position in the world. I do not think that is a particularly new idea...

Of course not. The arts and sure literature have always thrived in those great cities that sit at the crossroads where multiple cultures rub shoulders against each other... whether as as result of trade, military conquest, or immigration.

I think to remain within a standard grid of the accepted norm ruins part of the exploratory process. After all, to me reading is best when you look into the sea of possibilities, and come out with something you truly relate to, and love, and have a personal relationship with.

I am not saying that Victorian novels are bad, mind you, but they are not the be-all-and-end-all of literature, the same way classical Chinese poetry is not the complete essence of the world's literature.

Even within the context of Western literature... or merely English literature, the Victorian novel presents but a single small realm to be explored. Undoubtedly, there are reasons for the popularity of the Victorian novel or the poetry of Anglo-American Romanticism. Much of it, I suspect, has to do with an ability of the audience to immediately relate to the characters and the narratives... whether as a result of the well-delineated characters not overly far removed from the readers, or the emphasis upon emotions. This is probably even more true of the literature of the 19th century than it is in a great deal of the instances of Modernist literature in which the formal innovations often make for a more challenging and knotty experience. It's intriguing that this obsession with the 19th century when it comes to "classic literature" carries over a great deal when it comes to "classical music" and "classic" or "fine art". Impressionism remains unrivaled in terms of popularity with the larger audience, while Romanticism (late Beethoven and Schubert through the Post-Romanticism of Mahler, Puccini, Richard Strauss, Copland, and Samuel Barber remains at the heart of the so-called "core repertoire.

I suspect that you, not unlike myself, do not look to art solely to reinforce your own experiences, values, beliefs, standards, biases, etc... but rather are open to exploring experiences, values, beliefs, standards, biases, etc... of others. Obviously, reading Elizabethan poetry or theater or French and Italian Renaissance literature, or the Greek classics, or the classics of India, Persia, China, Japan, Latin-America, etc... places certain demands upon the reader... but the rewards, I think, are immeasurable. Ultimately, I doubt any one of us can even grasp the whole of our own culture, let alone all the other cultures in existence, but I agree that even making an effort to explore one other culture well-removed from one's own has the advantage of resulting in an increased sense of empathy or understanding of others and of ideas/concepts/debates/world events from a position beyond that of one's own culture.

I agree that multilingualism would be an ideal. It was virtually a requirement for graduation (at least if one was thinking at all of college) when I attended school. Hence, my own three years of studying German... which is now more than rusty. Unfortunately, the US has always had a minority population of fundamentalist conservatives who are nevertheless highly vocal and politically active. A great many of these individuals are isolationists and racist/nationalists who cannot fathom the need for "learnin' on of them furrin' languages" and are openly hostile toward the large percentage of the US population for which Spanish is the first language. From what you and others have suggested, it seems as if the English/French divide in Canada is just as politicized.

[JBI]

Well, in Canada it is more of a failed system. We are required to study French up until grade 10 in Ontario, and more in other provinces (such as New Brunswick, the only bilingual province). However it never takes people very far. I would advocate that students should have to spend a year somewhere else as part of education. To me formal exchange seems the best, and perhaps only way to learn something of someone else.

But at the same time, there is a rejection of it, especially amongst anglophone students. I grew up with broken English, of which the repercussions are still felt when I use phrases out of habit that were mistranslated from Hebrew by my father. Somewhere like Toronto, it is the norm to be somewhat bilingual, and is often the case that students are required to learn English in high school - the problem is, what are the mother tongues of the students? French is nowhere near as prevalent as certain varieties of Chinese, for instance.

Still, I cannot help but think if they made everyone study a second language in University, regardless of discipline, we would be better off. My big mistake in University was taking English literature, I have come to realize, as I could have had a specialist in East Asian Cultures and picked up Japanese with Chinese; or I could have taken up Arabic.

But then there are my former classmates whose careers in the academy consisted of merely reading English novels, especially modern-contemporary ones, where one language, one perspective, and one method could be applied. In other words, they learned how to close read specific brands of text. They should have had a requirement to take another language, and if they didn't like it, should not have studied literature.

It is one of the weirdest ironies that came out of the academy, that one actually closes their mind through specialty, rather than opens it through comparison and multidisciplinary exploration. If people really want to jump on the dead white male hate bandwagon, they should at least not be so ridiculously silly that their idea of multiculturalism is just periphery voices - you hate Wordsworth so you read Mary Robinson? What a waste of time, as she is Coleridge's footnotes.

The Idea that there is still an "English literature" is ridiculous to me, the same way that there is this idea that we have a "Western Canon" which ultimately implies an "Eastern Canon(s)". In the end, those who cling to it will ultimately find their world slowly cringing as time proves time and time again that there are no borders on culture other than those we assemble ourselves.

Authors have been multicultural, so readers to understand authors must also be multicultural. It is only natural to understand Milton through knowing Latin and a bunch of other languages. You cannot know Chaucer without French really, you cannot know Virgil without knowing Homer. There are no borders on the literary imagination, even if we are reduced to translation to cope with it.

The biggest punishment in my mind to literary culture has been this absolute feeling of novels. Novels to me are the most nationalist and border-drawing form of literature that we have today. There is a Great American Novel the same way there is the Victorian novel, which stands opposite the Realist Novel in France. Novels are so punishing, because they remain a solidification of time, and a testament to national character. They can be shipped to India to teach how one needs to behave to be more "English". They can be celebrated as cultural capital, as national manifesto, as post-colonial testimony.

What a terrible tyranny. The Modernist period really put country or defined space so firmly behind literary fiction that we still have not shaken it off.

How do we look at lists then? Best 100 novels of X or why between x and y. Well, those can hardly be taken as either honest, expansive, interesting or exploratory. To me, that seems to be the most sheepish form of reading, and rather than look at someone impressed for them having read all those novels, i turn and think how cheated and deprived they are.

Especially in the academic circles of walked in. I know people who spent four years reading 19th-20th century British novels, without ever having read a poem or play. Is that studying literature, or is that studying novels. Is that even studying anything at all?

[Paulclem]

Some good thoughts about multiculturalism. I know canada is not unique in having problems with the national language, as there are similar struggles in Belgium, and the whole Soviet collapse has meant a return to national languages rather than Russian as the official one.

The same thing happened in India as it has gradually shaken off a lot of the language residue of the Raj. Bombay is now Mumbai, and was 20 years ago, and the Indian Govt there changed the British street names to Hindi.

Where I live quite a lot of communities live side by side. I am fortunate - in my monolingual self - in that they all know English and their own languages too. I regularly meet people who know five languages, and who are learning English too. I wholly agree with the sentiment that languges should be promoted.

I'm not sure the novel situation is as you describe. It may well have been in the colonial past, but now it is a function of the audience, and the audience here in the UK is increasingly multicultural. We also no longer have aristocratic author, but writing is a job that responds to an audience.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I don't think a second language should be required at the college level, or even high school level. I think it should be required at the elementary level, maybe even more than one language. Tons of studies show that the longer one waits to learn a second language the more difficult it is. I have to take a year of foreign language for my masters and it's brutal. I'm horrible at memorization. I'm pretty good at reading French (in the sense that I can get the gist of most paragraphs on the text book) and I'm better than many of my classmates at speaking the pronunciations . . . But remembering definitions and keeping the grammar, especially word genders, straight? Forget it.

I think it's a bit off base to say that one needs to learn a second language for a literature degree. One probably should, and one definitely needs to read books (translations) from other cultures (as I do, but only because I choose to out-of-class). I wish I had the ability, desire, focus, and fortitude to learn a second language, but I don't. I'm smart enough to get through a couple classes to get my masters, but that definitely does not mean a fluency in the language. I think if one had to learn a language to fluency in order to get a literature degree, you'd see people going for that degree plummet (I know I'd drop out), and with the arts already in such dire straights, that's the last thing needed.

[Darcy88]

I've had professors in the humanities who know only english and others who know several languages and I've noticed no difference in intelligence and insight between them.

[JBI]

I don't think a second language should be required at the college level, or even high school level. I think it should be required at the elementary level, maybe even more than one language. Tons of studies show that the longer one waits to learn a second language the more difficult it is. I have to take a year of foreign language for my masters and it's brutal. I'm horrible at memorization. I'm pretty good at reading French (in the sense that I can get the gist of most paragraphs on the text book) and I'm better than many of my classmates at speaking the pronunciations . . . But remembering definitions and keeping the grammar, especially word genders, straight? Forget it.

I think it's a bit off base to say that one needs to learn a second language for a literature degree. One probably should, and one definitely needs to read books (translations) from other cultures (as I do, but only because I choose to out-of-class). I wish I had the ability, desire, focus, and fortitude to learn a second language, but I don't. I'm smart enough to get through a couple classes to get my masters, but that definitely does not mean a fluency in the language. I think if one had to learn a language to fluency in order to get a literature degree, you'd see people going for that degree plummet (I know I'd drop out), and with the arts already in such dire straights, that's the last thing needed.

I don't know - my experience of language learning has taught me that neither age nor ability seem to be real factors in acquisition. Attitude and ability of teachers to me seems the real determiner of success. As such, if one had 3 hours of class a week, and did 1 hour of work outside of class every day (10 hours a week) in any particularly close language to their first language, they would progress at a steady and successful rate. The real problem is people are never trained how to learn languages, and many people teaching languages are not taught how to teach languages properly. There is tons of scientific work on the subject, but it never really gets incorporated.

I started learning Chinese when I was turning 20. I may not have as accurate pronunciation as some local speakers, but I progressed far faster than those who started at an earlier age. Then again, I was always the student who would memorize poetry, and stories, and passages outside of class, out of general interest, and who would read primary sources outside of the textbook.

Without interest and desire, arguably things are quite difficult to learn. The real enemy to French as a second language in English Canada is attitude, even on the part of teachers. Students here are taught to hate French culture, and not value it. If they were taken and taught to appreciate it though, I am sure they would learn much faster.

[Darcy88]

Students here are taught to hate French culture, and not value it. If they were taken and taught to appreciate it though, I am sure they would learn much faster.

I was never taught to hate French culture. Through school it was like something that did not exist. We are this supposedly multi-cultural bilingual nation but I didn't have to read a single great French writer in all my years of school, in the original or in translation. Not even an excerpt. And I am actually of part French descent, so its kind of bull**** to me that I wasn't introduced to any Francophone culture in the 12 years from grade one to graduation.

[stlukesguild]

How do we look at lists then? Best 100 novels of X or why between x and y. Well, those can hardly be taken as either honest, expansive, interesting or exploratory. To me, that seems to be the most sheepish form of reading, and rather than look at someone impressed for them having read all those novels, i turn and think how cheated and deprived they are.

Especially in the academic circles of walked in. I know people who spent four years reading 19th-20th century British novels, without ever having read a poem or play. Is that studying literature, or is that studying novels. Is that even studying anything at all?

And yet how did did you go about making your formal study of Western Literature... or later, Chinese Literature? I am assuming that the study of Chinese Literature did not include the reading of French Symbolist poetry, classical Greek plays, Persian poetry, Medieval European philosophy, etc... I was required at college to take a two-year survey of Western Literature. It barely scraped the surface... but this did give me enough of a grasp of history, literary genre and forms, etc... to then go off on my own and simply read what I liked and whatever caught my attention of piqued my curiosity. Is a focused study of the Greek Classics or French Symbolism really an inferior approach to bouncing all over the place. If I recall, LitNet member, Petrarch's Love was majoring in English Renaissance Literature. In spite of this focus, she had also studied Old English, French, and Italian as well as the earlier literature of English and the earlier and contemporary literature of France and Italy. It would seem absolutely absurd, to me, for someone who's focus was post-war American novels, or 20th century Latin-American literature to not read anything except works within that realm. I did honors work on German Expressionist print-makers. This required that I also look at the German Expressionist painters, sculptors, and film-makers, precursors such as Edvard Much, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and James Ensor, the contemporary art of France, as well as Medieval and Renaissance German art. A great deal of the greatest art has always involved the artist engaging in a dialog with other artists and other art works. Perhaps you are right, and the majority of novels avoid this... but I don't think that the greatest novels are really all that isolationist or hermetic in nature.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

The tradition when going into a masters or doctorate program is to focus on one particular area than focus on broad, multiple subjects. This makes sense to me. Undergrad studies let students explore different genres and time periods, whether it be taking classes (which are usually largely up to the student) or reading other materials on one's own.

I think it's really up to the student more than anything else. No one is stopping him from going out and buying translations of different books. At my university we're allowed to do our master's thesis on pretty much any subject we want.

[mortalterror]

The biggest punishment in my mind to literary culture has been this absolute feeling of novels. Novels to me are the most nationalist and border-drawing form of literature that we have today. There is a Great American Novel the same way there is the Victorian novel, which stands opposite the Realist Novel in France. Novels are so punishing, because they remain a solidification of time, and a testament to national character. They can be shipped to India to teach how one needs to behave to be more "English". They can be celebrated as cultural capital, as national manifesto, as post-colonial testimony.

What a terrible tyranny. The Modernist period really put country or defined space so firmly behind literary fiction that we still have not shaken it off.

The novel is tyranny?

[lawpark]

About learning multiple languages ... I have thought about this question quite a bit several years back. Actually, if we look at this situation worldwide, it is quite different from the "ideal" picture of an "American" kid growing up speaking only one language - English.

For many kids (use China or India for example), their mother tongues (e.g. Cantonese or Bengali) are different from the national language (i.e. Mandarin or Hindi). To go through secondary education, many would need to learn the classical languages of their culture (e.g. classical Chinese or Sanskrit). To be considered truly educated through college, even in those countries, English is a must. So to become college-educated, many kids already know 3-4 languages.

Now ... at one point I was looking at graduate programs either in philosophy or religious studies or sociology, or even East Asian studies. And I find that my language skills is insufficient for most of the reputable programs out there. Why? Most of these require German and/or French. Even for East Asian studies Japanese is a requirement.

I guess what I am saying is that American 1) graduate programs (other than literature, I guess) do have strict language requirements, and that 2) arguably it is too strict at times.

[JBI]

About learning multiple languages ... I have thought about this question quite a bit several years back. Actually, if we look at this situation worldwide, it is quite different from the "ideal" picture of an "American" kid growing up speaking only one language - English.

For many kids (use China or India for example), their mother tongues (e.g. Cantonese or Bengali) are different from the national language (i.e. Mandarin or Hindi). To go through secondary education, many would need to learn the classical languages of their culture (e.g. classical Chinese or Sanskrit). To be considered truly educated through college, even in those countries, English is a must. So to become college-educated, many kids already know 3-4 languages.

Now ... at one point I was looking at graduate programs either in philosophy or religious studies or sociology, or even East Asian studies. And I find that my language skills is insufficient for most of the reputable programs out there. Why? Most of these require German and/or French. Even for East Asian studies Japanese is a requirement.

I guess what I am saying is that American 1) graduate programs (other than literature, I guess) do have strict language requirements, and that 2) arguably it is too strict at times.

Depends on the field. East Asian studies needs two languages because you cannot functionally do research in only one. You need Japanese for so many things, after all. The same way you need classical Chinese to know Ancient literature (and modern for that matter), and need English to read certain scholarship, and Sanskrit/Tibetan for other more specialized fields.

Take an historian of early 20th century Korea. You need, to conduct research with accuracy, Japanese (as it was the colonial language), Classical Chinese (as it was the language of the literary elite), and Korean, as that was the spoken language of communication. To read Classical Chinese, you probably need some understanding of Chinese. You end up needing a lot to get anywhere.

I would suspect that studying Arabic literature requires something of a similar intensive education. Maybe you need Persian, or Turkish, or Hebrew, or Classical Arabic, or something else.

But take studying English literature though. Take American literature for instance - do you really need to know anything else about the world to study it?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

But take studying English literature though. Take American literature for instance - do you really need to know anything else about the world to study it?

Do you need to? No. Need is a silly word, though; i don't need anything but an internet connection to study anythinb. But if you don't know anything about the world, it will significantly hinder your studies of American Literature. After all, we are a nation of immigrants, many of whom write from their respective cultures, by it African American, Italian, German, Irish, etc etc. All of them may be "American," but they all have their different identities. We are a melting pot, after all.

[lawpark]

I think there is a difference between "must' vs. "nice-to-have". It is nice to have all the languages of relevance at one's disposal. But if one's field is history of WWII, wouldn't one need ALL languages of the world to study it? Yes, it is nice, but I would say not a "must". Another example is Mongolian history - who would really have all language skills - Russian, the Turkic languages, Persian, Arabic, Chinese, English, and the modern research languages - to study it?

For American literature, you are probably right - again it is a matter of "must" vs. "nice-to-have". There are some complaints I have heard in China that nowadays to study Chinese literature in graduate school, one needs to pass English (which some applicants find ridiculous - and I can definitely sympathesize with that too).

==================================
On another note, about book lists, I was just flipping through Don Quixote - in Book One Chapter VI Cervantes also did a book list, including one of his own -- some thing I find interesting given this book list discussion here.

[mortalterror]

I think there is a difference between "must' vs. "nice-to-have". It is nice to have all the languages of relevance at one's disposal. But if one's field is history of WWII, wouldn't one need ALL languages of the world to study it? Yes, it is nice, but I would say not a "must". Another example is Mongolian history - who would really have all language skills - Russian, the Turkic languages, Persian, Arabic, Chinese, English, and the modern research languages - to study it?

For American literature, you are probably right - again it is a matter of "must" vs. "nice-to-have". There are some complaints I have heard in China that nowadays to study Chinese literature in graduate school, one needs to pass English (which some applicants find ridiculous - and I can definitely sympathesize with that too).

==================================
On another note, about book lists, I was just flipping through Don Quixote - in Book One Chapter VI Cervantes also did a book list, including one of his own -- some thing I find interesting given this book list discussion here.

I think I heard once that most of the world's graduate level textbooks are written in English because they are the only group with the disposable income to buy the latest expensive textbooks every year. They have textbooks written in most languages, but they are usually four or five years out of date, which is a long time in science and medicine. American's complain about their $200 dollar textbooks but that's like half a months salary for some places in the world.

Oh, and if I recall correctly, Don Quixote only managed to save Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Joanot Martorell's Tirant Lo Blanc from the bonfire.

[YouBetcha]

I'm new to reading fiction, I started this year, so I can't make a list, but I'm drawn to classics.

So far this year I've read Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men, and The Stranger. I love all three. I'm currently reading Crime and Punishment and Light in August. After those, I don't know, I have a big stack of books.

[JBI]

I think I heard once that most of the world's graduate level textbooks are written in English because they are the only group with the disposable income to buy the latest expensive textbooks every year. They have textbooks written in most languages, but they are usually four or five years out of date, which is a long time in science and medicine. American's complain about their $200 dollar textbooks but that's like half a months salary for some places in the world.

Oh, and if I recall correctly, Don Quixote only managed to save Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Joanot Martorell's Tirant Lo Blanc from the bonfire.

Depends what discipline. In contemporary science perhaps, but in others, like Chinese literature, or area studies in general, one needs really to go to the Area to get access to the texts which are unavailable.

I think the real problem is you need a language of discourse to have cohesion. You essentially need English for science, I would argue, and even scientific works I read in Chinese rely heavily on English within the texts themselves.

That being said, we are in an age when publishing is digital, and therefore free. Textbooks will be cheaper.

[mortalterror]

That being said, we are in an age when publishing is digital, and therefore free. Textbooks will be cheaper.

We've had digital distribution of music, movies, books, and video games for the last seven years JBI. The digital price point remains the same as the hard copy. The money they save on distribution just goes into their company's profit margin.

[Paulclem]

We've had digital distribution of music, movies, books, and video games for the last seven years JBI. The digital price point remains the same as the hard copy. The money they save on distribution just goes into their company's profit margin.

The avarage saving on my kindle is about 40%, so long as the book is not newly published.

[mortalterror]

The avarage saving on my kindle is about 40%, so long as the book is not newly published.

Are you buying stuff which is still under copyright or something older? My Nook offered to help me buy a copy of Dracula from the online marketplace which is a suckers game because I could get it for free from Project Gutenberg. Charging anything for books in the public domain should be a crime. If they are only giving you 40% off of those you are being fleeced.

[JBI]

We've had digital distribution of music, movies, books, and video games for the last seven years JBI. The digital price point remains the same as the hard copy. The money they save on distribution just goes into their company's profit margin.

not quite, every country has their own system. Google music, in China for instance, allows anybody to legally go online and download an entire CD of music, no matter where from.

[JCamilo]

The basic difference between a digital and printed book are only the paper price and in large number of copies, this goes to cents on individual copies. And considering they now are using multimedia on e-books, the price of a digital book will only go down in self publishing because you erased one of the links of the chain, the publisher.

But text books will be interesting: self-publishing wont work there, because i doubt academies around the globe will just adopt a text book without the "approval" of a reckonizable institution and this demands a publishing house to put in montion all the research, organization, etc.

[Paulclem]

Are you buying stuff which is still under copyright or something older? My Nook offered to help me buy a copy of Dracula from the online marketplace which is a suckers game because I could get it for free from Project Gutenberg. Charging anything for books in the public domain should be a crime. If they are only giving you 40% off of those you are being fleeced.

My last two buys were a Robert Harris - Archangel and a Peter F Hamilton - The reality Dysfunction. Neither are brand new, but within the last decade. The first saved me 40% and the second saved me 38%of the hard copy price. The out of copyright material can be picked up for free, though there are versions you can buy. I haven't when there's a free option.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Well, I think any way you look at it, for what you're getting, buying digital books is a ripoff. Most cases I've seen, non copyrighted books cost a few books less then most. There's no way one can convince me that that digital book is as cotslt to "manufacture" as an actual book. They could cost a couple books and I'm betting their profit margins would be just fine (maybe even more--people may start buying more book, digital or otherwise, if they were cheaper). I'll still buy ebooks on occasion, sometimes even if they're more expensive than they're physical counterparts (which isn't all that rare on Amazon) just because they're so much easier for me to use.

[Paulclem]

I wouldn't say so. Archangel is a bestseller which i got for just overhalf the price, and the sci fi I mentioned is 1100 pages long. it was the one recommended by cafolini. I think I put somewhere that my Kindle will pay for itself in a year if I read the same amount as last year. I really like it - and the price.

[rootinghog]

Hi Veho-- It's interesting. I can rail against the pretension of people who claim to like discordant noise rock, 6-hour symbolist movies, or opera, and then turn around and post on the thread you referred to that my books would include Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest... Or, more to the point, I can say that my favorite book is Ulysses, and then say that anyone who claims to actually enjoy or understand Finnegans Wake is a bold-faced liar.

We all have our limits (don’t forget: instigating an online debate about the relative merits of reading difficult vs enjoyable literature would most certainly qualify as pretentious or posturing to the vast majority of, at least, Americans). But we're also all different, and we all enjoy different things. Personally, I really and truly enjoy difficult literature that makes me work to understand it. When it comes to books, struggle and enjoyment almost always come hand-in-hand for me. It’s not that I don’t ever relax or seek “pure” enjoyment; it’s just that I go to TV, movies, or the internet for that, not books. I appreciate your post, because it’s made me explore what I consider my limits—it seems absurd that anyone would ever call into question my true enjoyment of Gravity’s Rainbow, yet who am I to call into question others’ enjoyment of, say, certain contemporary visual art? I can question or debate the quality of the art, certainly, but if someone claims to be moved by it (especially on an anonymous online forum—why lie?), I think I’ll start trying to take them at their word.