if we're thinking top 10 best books of all time, we'd probably end up omitting this century. I looked at a bit of Ulysses. It looked a bit wierd.
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if we're thinking top 10 best books of all time, we'd probably end up omitting this century. I looked at a bit of Ulysses. It looked a bit wierd.
Harold Bloom list is not bad at all, as biased it is.
Of course every critic has his or her biases. Bloom's cannon is certainly one of the broadest or most inclusive. I must also admire the fact that he includes poets such as Robert Lowell whom he really does not like, but admits that considering all the others of an opposing opinion that it may just be him.
The problem of best book is not that it is subjective or not, it is first what maynervehave pointed, some authors of short stories and Poems have produced texts with 1, 2,3 pages that worth of War and Peace or Quixote...Keats is certainly one of the greats alongside Tolstoi or Flaubert, but not every single poem he wrote is genial in the same way not every single short story of Poe is genial. So, yeah, the Complete Poems or Short stories (insert here the name of the great writer) certainly is one of the best readings literature can offer but they are not, even near, a whole concept like a Romance is.
While I am certainly of the opinion that a small work can be a great work of art, I doubt I would ever go so far as to suggest that a single "perfect" poem of Keats or Shelley or perhaps a Checkov tale can equal Don Quixote or War and Peace. J.L. Borges, himself a master of smaller literary genre, tackles this subject in an essay in which he points out that even a good many mediocre poets have achieved that single "perfect" memorable sonnet, while Don Quixote and surely any other larger work is often far from perfect. Borges suggests that in spite of the "perfection" of the one and the "flaws" of the other, the great work like Don Quixote can never be matched by the mere perfect lyric. I tend to agree. As much as I love Blake's Tyger or Shelley's Ozymandias, or any number of other lyrics, I don't think I could honestly dare to suggest that they are equal to Don Quixote, The Odyssey, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, etc... You suggest that it is unfair to compare the collected poems of Keats or Donne with the great novel or epic poem due to the fact of inconsistency in the former. I would suggest that in this they are closer the larger works or literature... almost any of which have their flaws or moments of lapse. I also find that I would be far more likely to be impressed by a writer's abilities to carry on over the long run... to show some mastery of breadth and depth and variety, be this through a collection of shorter poems or the single epic work. This would be no less true of an artist in any art form. If all Chopin had composed was one of those exquisite nocturnes there is no way I could seriously place him as an equal of Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann... all of those marvelous "little" works together, however, certainly add up to a formidable artistic achievement.
One can hold lets say, Wordsworth's work written 1797-1807+his prelude up against Don Quixote easily. Selected works verses the big works match, as with poetry, it is a reflection of the artist over a period of time, and a collection of works develops like a narrative, if read chronologically. To exclude lyric poets in the "best books of all time" list is surely somewhat a mistake.
And, I do believe the selected poems of Keats, or even the complete poems hold up with the strongest novels. Sure, he had his mediocre moments (who doesn't, who has everything he wrote examined to the core, including personal notebooks and manuscripts) but he has moments which are unforgettable. No body is pulling out the mediocre short stories of Tolstoy and saying Ha, he wasn't perfect either. They are narrowing the playing field.
To exclude the lyric poets of the tradition is a mistake. Something like Keat's major long poems easily hold up against War and Peace, I would argue. Keats' odes too would seem to hold up against any number of major novels, in terms of influence, grandeur and depth.
As for Bloom's list, it is meant to be as a focus of his knowledge, as he is no expert literature beyond the English language, the same way he is on the English language. It is biased because the list is meant to be read by an American audience, and to be a guideline to American students.
In addition to this, the list isn't the book, but the appendixes. It is a suggestion and I highly doubt he meant it to be taken as seriously as it was. I personally feel he meant the actual scholarly work in the bulk of the book to be examined more thoroughly.
I am convinced there is no such thing as a top 10 list without Ulysses (I did find one where Ulysses was in spot "11" of a top 100 list). In most critical "best novels" list, however, Ulysses is almost guaranteed to have the 1-3 spot. Very predictable. It reminds me of top 100 horror movie lists (fan or critic-based), in the top 3 spots will almost always be The Exorcist and Jaws.Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
Constantly this stupid canon is being advertised on this forum, it really gets annoying. Why is it called the Western Canon? If he wanted it to be a somewhat representative Western canon he should have cut out 90% of the anglophone authors, or he should have been more honest and left out everyone else and named it The Anglophone Canon. In the way it is now, it doesn't make much sense to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
How many of the 27 major canons written about(I think I got the number right) are Anglophones? From my reading, I counted 13 non-English canons. Either way, it is a work of American criticism. How could one expect one single critic to be able to narrow down a full Western canon. There is not enough time to not just learn all the languages of the west, still spoken and dead, but to also read all of the literature within said languages, and not just be familiar with them, but to be able to write scholarship on them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erichtho
Bloom is writing for Americans. Everything he writes in that book reflects American, and English letters, since he is a teacher, and critic, of American, and English letters. There simply is too much for him to include in that list if he branches out beyond the major languages he has familiarity with.
As for the Appendices, those can be taken as a personal list, from all his knowledge of literature, and should not be taken as law. Of course, the Italians will read more Italian books, the Russians more Russian books, and the Swedish more Swedish books. He is American, therefore it makes sense for his knowledge to be primarily of American and English literature, and then secondarily on Western literatures, especially on those that influence American and English literature.
You are attacking one man's reading list for not including every odd book in the world. Even if he has read all those books in their original, which he hasn't, he already has 3000 works, which is far more than the average reader will ever be able to conquer in one lifetime. His major canons are what he decrees as essential, and they all are essential for the American audience, as he sees it.
I haven't seen a more complete list yet for an American scholar, perhaps you know of a better one? Can you possibly create such an all inclusive list, meanwhile maintaining that you have read every work in depth, most in the original? I doubt it. In fact, I doubt anyone else can, really. There perhaps are a few other critics with Bloom's expertise, but I can find none in the English speaking world with as wide a knowledge of literature.
If you are unable to take part in the discussion without adding inflammatory comments,
please feel free not to join in.
Constantly this stupid canon is being advertised on this forum, it really gets annoying. Why is it called the Western Canon? If he wanted it to be a somewhat representative Western canon he should have cut out 90% of the anglophone authors, or he should have been more honest and left out everyone else and named it The Anglophone Canon. In the way it is now, it doesn't make much sense to me.
Oh? And can you perhaps provide us with a more enlightened list? I admitted that any list is going to be biased and as JBI points out Bloom is a professor of English literature and so his focus is upon literature and literature that is accessible to the English-reading audience. I'm uncertain as to Bloom's own abilities in other languages outside of the fact that he is fluent in Hebrew and Yiddish as well as English... although I wouldn't be surprised if French or Latin or German were also among his abilities. Nevertheless, his abilities with Yiddish and Hebrew no doubt account for the fact that there are such a number of writers in these languages also upon the list. In spite of this his "canon" includes a large number of Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, Russian, Latin-American, etc... writers as well as British, American, Canadian, Australian, and other Anglo-writers. Beyond my initial question (and yes, please do offer me up a better list to introduce the average reader to a broad array of the greatest books of Western literature), who are all of these 90% of the English-language writers on Bloom's list that don't belong? Obviously you think that the majority of them are unworthy... Which one's and why? To make such a sweeping proclamation that 90% of the English-language literature on such a list does not deserve to be there would lead some to think that such a statement is anti-Anglo. Personally, I have disagreements with some of Bloom's preferences. I have yet to be able to really get into John Ashberry, while there are any number of other books by German, Italian, French (etc..) writers that I would surely add to the list... but again, do you have some guide that is better?
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlib...estnovels.html
this is the one where ulysses is 11- reader's poll. I'm always slightly dubious as to whether people have actually read these or whether they assume they should be on there.
I'm so glad that Mockingbird has been shoved off the first list and that Lolita is fourth. mockingbird is
so inferior to it yet it always appears above Lolita. I reckon that if these people had read the 2 then Lolita would be higher.
It makes no difference. If Ayn Rand is the highest rated writer in America, than it says something. Either way, if taken today, you probably would get Potter as number one or something, seeing as to how many fans there are on the internet.
It will be curious to see who wins the Booker of Bookers for the 40 year though, seeing as it is a reader-polled contest, and anyone can submit their response.
I'd definitely put Of Human Bondage on my "ten best" list. To me it's the "perfect" novel. Proust would surely go on the list too. At the opposite extreme of Proust's lengthy and "experimental" work I'd put Joseph Conrad's highly condensed and conventionally-narrated Heart of Darkness. Or maybe his Lord Jim; in any case, I'd name Conrad among the ten best. To toss in something a bit controversial, I might include Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. Because it's a whodunit, it could be condemned as mere genre fiction-- but I find Chandler's writing style superlative, and he has few rivals for creating a sense of atmosphere.Quote:
If you were the one making the list of the top 10 books of all time, what would be on it? This is my sinister method of getting book recommendations.
Virginia Woolf belongs on the list. Flaubert also. That makes six, and my list so far only covers the past couple of centuries...
I think Bloom's list is an excellent place to start. He's an old fossil, but he's a fair-minded old fossil.
It makes no difference. If Ayn Rand is the highest rated writer in America, than it says something.
Yes... but L. Ron Hubbard was given two spots in the top ten, so it isn't all bad.:rolleyes: :brickwall :brow: :goof: :confused: :D
I'd like to point out your also blind to how they conducted their reader's poll. All we are told is that: "The readers' poll for the best novels published in the English language since 1900 opened on July 20, 1998 and closed on October 20, 1998, with 217,520 votes cast."Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
But you don't know whether they only allowed one vote per a person or if they allowed two or three per a person. An already pre-selected list with a write-in box (thus influencing people to pick something already preselected). Basically, though, it's not like someone could just sit there and say, "hey, we're going to make Ulysses number 11." So I am less dubious of the results than you seem to be. Given the high numbers of votes this may in fact be a fair representation of the reading population. Then again, maybe not. Ayn Rand is less surprising than say L. Ron Hubbard (I've actually read Battlefield Earth and it was G-d awful, and this coming from someone who likes Sci-fi).
I agree with you. I don't expect anyone to narrow down a full Western canon, but obviously H. Bloom thinks he is in a position to do that, which is what I criticise.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
Exactly, but to which result does this lead? His selection of the anglophone works (and perhaps works from the other literatures he has thoroughly studied) is, as has already been mentioned, very inclusive, while literatures from other countries are cut-down to the utmost necessary. Still, those very different approaches are presented in the same manner by calling the whole a Western canon, which it simply isn't.Quote:
Bloom is writing for Americans. Everything he writes in that book reflects American, and English letters, since he is a teacher, and critic, of American, and English letters. There simply is too much for him to include in that list if he branches out beyond the major languages he has familiarity with.
I'm not attacking him for not including "every odd book", I'm attacking him for only including every odd book from the anglophone literature while not doing the same with other literatures and then having the presumptuousness for calling it a Western canon.Quote:
As for the Appendices, those can be taken as a personal list, from all his knowledge of literature, and should not be taken as law. Of course, the Italians will read more Italian books, the Russians more Russian books, and the Swedish more Swedish books. He is American, therefore it makes sense for his knowledge to be primarily of American and English literature, and then secondarily on Western literatures, especially on those that influence American and English literature.
You are attacking one man's reading list for not including every odd book in the world. Even if he has read all those books in their original, which he hasn't, he already has 3000 works, which is far more than the average reader will ever be able to conquer in one lifetime. His major canons are what he decrees as essential, and they all are essential for the American audience, as he sees it.
Bloom has studied Anglophone literature in-depth, which noone can deny him, but he hasen't studied Spanish, French, German literature etc. in-depth (which is impossible to do in one life - one always has to set priorities, and each of these literatures take a whole life of studying). Fact is, his studies only enable him to create a canon for the anglophone literature, but he also dares to include a very selective sample of other literatures, which do them in no way justice.Quote:
I haven't seen a more complete list yet for an American scholar, perhaps you know of a better one? Can you possibly create such an all inclusive list, meanwhile maintaining that you have read every work in depth, most in the original? I doubt it. In fact, I doubt anyone else can, really. There perhaps are a few other critics with Bloom's expertise, but I can find none in the English speaking world with as wide a knowledge of literature.
No, I cannot, as any other single person cannot, and unlike Bloom I'm aware of this.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
It doesn't matter so much how many languages he speaks - even if he was native-like in all Western languages he still wouldn't have the time to study their literatures in-depth...Quote:
I admitted that any list is going to be biased and as JBI points out Bloom is a professor of English literature and so his focus is upon literature and literature that is accessible to the English-reading audience. I'm uncertain as to Bloom's own abilities in other languages outside of the fact that he is fluent in Hebrew and Yiddish as well as English... although I wouldn't be surprised if French or Latin or German were also among his abilities. Nevertheless, his abilities with Yiddish and Hebrew no doubt account for the fact that there are such a number of writers in these languages also upon the list.
Those authors don't belong that aren't part of world literature. I admit this is a very abstract concept and noone can say for sure which authors are merely national authors and which are interesting for and read by an international audience, but don't you see that the vast majority of non-anglophone authors are the latter, while a plethora of the anglophone authors he lists are only interesting for an English-speaking reader, a student of English literature?Quote:
In spite of this his "canon" includes a large number of Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, Russian, Latin-American, etc... writers as well as British, American, Canadian, Australian, and other Anglo-writers. Beyond my initial question (and yes, please do offer me up a better list to introduce the average reader to a broad array of the greatest books of Western literature), who are all of these 90% of the English-language writers on Bloom's list that don't belong?
A better guide would be a list that adopts his non-anglophone suggestions and harshly cuts the anglophone list, which would result in a shorter canon one could actually try to go through completely. An all-inclusive list doesn't make much sense to me because it would be incredibly long - as I said before, one has to set priorities, you simply can't study everything in-depth.Quote:
Obviously you think that the majority of them are unworthy... Which one's and why? To make such a sweeping proclamation that 90% of the English-language literature on such a list does not deserve to be there would lead some to think that such a statement is anti-Anglo. Personally, I have disagreements with some of Bloom's preferences. I have yet to be able to really get into John Ashberry, while there are any number of other books by German, Italian, French (etc..) writers that I would surely add to the list... but again, do you have some guide that is better?
If you are, say, interested in Spanish literature, I would suggest to go look at a reading list for a Spanish literature student at a Spanish university, this should give you a good start, and other books will follow naturally...
I haven't read a lot of books that are really popular and most of those I have read I found rather overrated, but there are a few that lots of other people liked and I also like. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck is a book that I read and really enjoyed, even though the ending is pretty messed up. I liked The Republic a lot also, because it shows the infalible power of reason. Some of Roger Zelazny's short stories were pretty good. I've only read two of Shakespeare's plays, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, and I liked both, though I thought the second was a bit better.
Edit: Catch 22 is another book that I thought was really well written and that others seem to think the same about.