Which COUNTRY has produced the greatest literature?

[Brasil]

I did not intend to say "the biggest population in the world has the best literature".

But, maybe, the biggest population in the world has the biggest literature in numbers".

I know Brazil has bigger editorial market than Italy, for example. It means Brazil has more books, but not necessarily the best books.

As I said on my first post, I think the Greeks have the best literature. However, Dante, Shakespeare or Cervantes could be at the first place.

Again, what is the point: the number of books or the influence of the work?

[Erichtho]

Not to interrupt you all, but...

Again, what is the point?

Could someone please tell what it would mean if we really could give an exact answer, by using mortalterror's methods or any other...if we were to say: Iceland's literature stands above all, its literary body is definitely the best? Would it mean anything? Would it change our reading/writing customs? What would such a result cause?

I don't really see the sense of this thread other than showing-off and promoting one's own ignorance...

[PeterL]

Maybe the other way around: the fewest disagreements about the literature would be the best way to decide whence the best literature has come. For that reason, I nominate the Duchy of Grand Fenwick as the country that has produced the world's best literature, because no one has ever complained about the literature from there.

[JBI]

Made up countries don't count, sorry PeterL

[stlukesguild]

Kafka'sCrow... I don't know if I would lay the "problem" with a lot of Non-Western literature upon the genre, but rather upon the dearth of good translations. This, itself, is undoubtedly due to the fact that there are fewer western writers/translators of real ability who have elected to learn a language from Asia or the Middle-East or Africa as opposed to a second European language. This, undoubtedly, has both grown out of the Western attitude to Non-Western cultures and contributed to it. Personally, I have long been interested with the art and culture of the Asia and the Middle-East ever since first becoming enamored of the visual arts of those cultures. Certainly the ideal would be to master the language of any body of literature that one wishes to explore in greater depth... but unless one limits oneself to just a few cultures and languages then translation becomes a necessary evil. I have long been greatly inspired by Middle-Eastern art: Persian, Turkish, Moorish, Arabic, etc... but unfortunately there is a definite shortage of good (to say nothing of great) translations of even the most central texts. Only recently have we had the acclaimed new translation of the Shahnameh by Dick Davis which I have been reading while researching the stunning illuminated manuscripts which illustrated this epic poem. Certainly it will fall short of matching the original in almost every way... but then again the same could probably be said of the greatest translations of Dante into English, Shakespeare into Russian, or Cervantes into French. As I stated earlier, I can only hope that translations from Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Middle-Eastern languages become more common as their ties with the West become ever more important. Much of the nonsense spewed about the Middle-East as a result of the current war in Iraq reveals just how limited our concepts are of a very complex collection of cultures.

[JBI]

I'm with you StLukes. Perhaps the greatest living poet is Adunis, who comes from Syria.

[Brasil]

In anglophonic literature I also apreciate the Arthurians tales, not the facts, but the legend of Camelot and King Arthur. I love knight tales.

And what about H.G. Wells? What do you all think about his work?

[Inderjit Sanghe]

As for India not having a Tolstoi or Joyce, what do Tolstoi and Joyce represent? In both countries, the more central figure of national development in literature would be Pushkin for Russia, and Yeats for Ireland

I am not talking about 'representation'-if there is such a thing, I am talking about actual quality, India has not produced a novelist of the quality of Joyce or Tolstoi (as examples), it has not, in my opinion, produced a world-class, brilliant and original writers in the class of say Joyce or Tolstoi. The assetion that it has produced many fine writers, such as Rushdie, Anita Desai, Tagore, Rohinton Mistry and Vikram Chandra is true, but Indian culture on the whole is a vacuum which has produced few geniuses, with the exeption of Satajit Ray. Indian Cinema is abysmal (modern 'Bollywood' Indian cinema that is, not small-scale Indian indie flicks), Indian television is as banal as Indian cinema and its modern music scene is hardly great either.

The problem in talking about ancient 'Indian' culture is that there wasn't any. India is nothing but the arbitary agglomeration of colonial interests (as shown by the mess of it's current day politics) and it would be far better to talk about regional ancient Indian literary themes.

How is Tolkien one of the most important writers of 20th century literature. His influence extends only to epic fantasy literature in the English speaking world primarily. He himself is hardly original, and only started to become the Tolkien we think we see now in the 60s and 70s because of his counter-culture themes. His career actually ebbed for a while throughout the 80s and 90s before the movies got launched. Compared with the influence of someone like Beckett, or Nabokov. I won't even get started with Faulkner, or Borges, both of which were 100x more influential. The problem with Tolkien is this whole Emperors New Clothes situation where people mistake it for a classic, and therefore don't tear into it. Lets be honest, the only thing it really influenced was Tolkienian knock-off fantasy

I still don't understand how Tolkien is a 'mediocrity' apart from the usual tedentious yawn-inducing condescenions about fantasy etc. etc.

Tolkien was as original as any of the authors you quote-unless you are talking about his legendarium borrowing heavily on various Nordic myths. Tolkien is as brilliant writer as any of the above. Feel free to explain in more detail why you dislike him. As for the Emperors New Clothes analogy-it can be used for any classic book.

[Brasil]

I love Jostein Gaarder, from Norway.
Sophie's World is great!

[mortalterror]

If I had to name the most overrated writer ever, I would name James Joyce. Say what you want about Tolkien, at least his books are readable. People around here have as inflated an opinion about Joyce's Ulysses as the average person on the street has about Tolkien's Ring trilogy. They are both misguided in their judgements.

Don't get me wrong. Many years ago, when I read The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, I thought they were poorly written and boring; but then the movies came out and I found that I actually enjoyed them quite a bit. I had to figure that there was something in the novels that I had missed the first time around and I raised my opinion accordingly.

I still had some misgivings about the plot and the conflict; so I mentioned them to a friend who was an enthusiast of the series and she put me straight. Sauron is not the antagonist. The ring is. Once I realized that the conflict was all internal, and that the books were about temptation, personal integrity, and that the the exterior conflicts were all manifestations of an inward turmoil, I had to give credit were credit was do. Tolkien had done some pretty fancy adaptations of a universal monomyth.

Now, I'm not saying that The Lord of the Rings is as good as it gets. Obviously, it does not deserve the same consideration as a Hamlet or a Divine Comedy, but I will acknowledge that it does deserve some minor place in the canon. I'd argue for including The Rings and removing Ulysses from academia at least. As smart as Joyce was, his stuff is all intellectual masturbation and inaccessible to a wide cross section of readers. That really has to be taken into consideration when deciding what is and is not a classic. Does the work have merit, and can it even be read without too much difficulty? Those are possibly the two most important questions when determining artistic worth. However much scholars and writers push to have his work enshrined, the common readers will have none of him and that will be that. When a book ceases to be read by the public at large, it loses it's vitality, and ceases to be a true classic. It becomes an eccentricity of a peculiar sect, a cultish icon that has no bearing on the society at large. Some of Ulysses is good but difficult. Most is simply difficult. It's a shame that a man with so much talent should throw it all away writing such indecipherable drivel. You look at Dubliners and it's perfectly comprehensible. But I'd place Yeats or Wilde above Joyce in a second if I had to choose the greatest Irish writer.

[Brasil]

"I like this book, he likes that..." it's not a reason for a war.
I don't mind if somebody says "Tolkien is a poor writer" or "Exupéry is just for children and misses".
I can apreciate all books, from all contries. Does not matter if it's famous or not, lyric or not, rich literature or not. The world would be boring if all books were always the same thing.

See this beaufiful text bellow:

If Sharks were Men

"If sharks were men, they would build enormous boxes in the ocean for the little fish, with all kinds of food inside, both vegetable and animal. They would take care that the boxes always had fresh water, and in general they would make all kinds of sanitary arrangements. If, for example, a little fish were to injure a fin, it would immediately be bandaged, so that it would not die and be lost to the sharks before its time. So that the little fish would not become melancholy, there would be big water festivals from time to time; because cheerful fish taste better than melancholy ones.

"There would, of course, also be schools in the big boxes. In these schools the little fish would learn how to swim into the sharks' jaws. They would need to know geography, for example, so that they could find the big sharks, who lie idly around somewhere. The principal subject would, of course, be the moral education of the little fish. They would be taught that it would be the best and most beautiful thing in the world if a little fish sacrificed itself cheerfully and that they all had to believe the sharks, especially when the latter said they were providing for a beautiful future. The little fish would be taught that this future is assured only if they learned obedience. The little fish had to beware of all base, materialist, egotistical and Marxist inclinations, and if one of their number betrayed such inclinations they had to report it to the sharks immediately.

"If sharks were men, they would, of course, also wage wars against one another, in order to conquer other fish boxes and other little fish. The wars would be waged by their own little fish. They would teach their little fish that there was an enormous difference between themselves and the little fish belonging to the other sharks. Little fish, they would announce, are well known to be mute, but they are silent in quite different languages and hence find it impossible to understand one another. Each little fish that, in a war, killed a couple of other little fish, enemy ones, silent in their own language, would have a little order made of seaweed pinned to it and be awarded the title of hero.

"If sharks were men, there would, of course, also be art. There would be beautiful pictures, in which the sharks' teeth would be portrayed in magnificent colors and their jaws as pure pleasure gardens, in which one could romp about splendidly. The theaters at the bottom of the sea would show heroic little fish swimming enthusiastically into the jaws of sharks, and the music would be so beautiful that to the accompaniment of its sounds, the orchestra leading the way, the little fish would stream dreamily into the sharks' jaws, lulled by the most agreeable thoughts.

"There would also be a religion, if sharks were men. It would preach that little fish only really begin to live properly in the sharks' stomachs.

"Furthermore, if sharks were men there would be an end to all little fish being equal, as is the case now. Some would be given important offices and be placed above the others. Those who were a little bigger would even be allowed to eat up the smaller ones. That would be altogether agreeable for the sharks, since they themselves would more often get bigger bites to eat. And the bigger little fish, occupying their posts, would ensure order among the little fish, become teachers, officers, engineers in box construction, etc.

"In short, if sharks were men, they would for the first time bring culture to the ocean."

Bertold Brecht

[PeterL]

Made up countries don't count, sorry PeterL

All countries are made up; none is a natural thing.

[JBI]

I am not talking about 'representation'-if there is such a thing, I am talking about actual quality, India has not produced a novelist of the quality of Joyce or Tolstoi (as examples), it has not, in my opinion, produced a world-class, brilliant and original writers in the class of say Joyce or Tolstoi. The assetion that it has produced many fine writers, such as Rushdie, Anita Desai, Tagore, Rohinton Mistry and Vikram Chandra is true, but Indian culture on the whole is a vacuum which has produced few geniuses, with the exeption of Satajit Ray. Indian Cinema is abysmal (modern 'Bollywood' Indian cinema that is, not small-scale Indian indie flicks), Indian television is as banal as Indian cinema and its modern music scene is hardly great either.

The problem in talking about ancient 'Indian' culture is that there wasn't any. India is nothing but the arbitary agglomeration of colonial interests (as shown by the mess of it's current day politics) and it would be far better to talk about regional ancient Indian literary themes.



I still don't understand how Tolkien is a 'mediocrity' apart from the usual tedentious yawn-inducing condescenions about fantasy etc. etc.

Tolkien was as original as any of the authors you quote-unless you are talking about his legendarium borrowing heavily on various Nordic myths. Tolkien is as brilliant writer as any of the above. Feel free to explain in more detail why you dislike him. As for the Emperors New Clothes analogy-it can be used for any classic book.

Original is what sense? Have you read his primary texts? in terms of originality it is best to contrast him with someone who drew from the same sources, the great Opera composer and librettist, Richard Wagner. Wagner's version is primarily about the conflict between the characters. He had borrowed more aspects of the plot from other sources than Tolkien had, but had created genuine characters, and believable conflict within his fantasy world. Wagner's Ring is character driven. Each character is a representation of his society, and the plot creates a commentary. Wagner's Wotan, compared to Gandalf is cruel, selfish, flawed, brutal, lecherous, violent, yet at the same time, shares the wisdom in common. He is far more believable than his Tolkienian equal in the sense that he has negative qualities, and personal flaws.

Tolkien on the other hand relied primarily on plot. His characters too are primarily borrowed, but his plot is more original (though in no way original). His prose is mimicking the texts he drew on as well, being both archaic and boring. His characters act according to the necessity of the plot, being where they have to be for the sake of everything working out. They have no personalities, and often stop at the most bazaar times to do the most predictable things.

If we take this even further, we can argue on the merits of Tolkien. He may have influence, but to what end? What exterior affect does he have, beyond the realm of fantasy literature? Did he advance prose to a new level the way Joyce did? no. Did he advance the genre of fantasy beyond where it had been before? many would answer yes, but since if you read his primary sources, you can see that he really created nothing that had not been done before, sometimes way before, we can only answer one way, No. Is reading him enjoyable? no, many readers, even fans, agree his prose is dreadful. His most favorable critics can in no way defend the verse he wrote (I am reluctant to call it poetry).


Tolkien is in no way even close to equal to his contemporary writers. Not by a long shot.

Either way, Tolstoi and Joyce were influential, but they were not central figures of a national literary movement. Joyce, though always writing about Ireland, was more away from there than there. Tolstoi had less of an affect than Pushkin (the fact that Pushkin seems his biggest influence, especially for the early works which he is most famous for, proves this). India's philosophy seems to have taken the west at many angles, even leading to the rise of free love during the 1960s. You are ignorant in the sense that you only look at novelists, and ignore poetry writers, and non-fiction writers.

[mortalterror]

Joyce didn't take English prose to a new level. He introduced certain fads and trickery into writing which don't actually make reading his books more enjoyable for all of their so called "originality". People like Hemingway and sometimes Faulkner took English prose to new levels in practical, reproducible ways, which Joyce's prose doesn't. Da Vinci might have envisioned the helicopter but it was the Wright brothers who actually got us off of the ground. Joyce is a pie in the sky intellectual who's more concerned with how he thinks prose should work than with how it actually does. To this day there are a lot more Hemingway and Faulkner followers than there are Joyces. They are the ones with living legacies.

[JBI]

Joyce didn't take English prose to a new level. He introduced certain fads and trickery into writing which don't actually make reading his books more enjoyable for all of their so called "originality". People like Hemingway and sometimes Faulkner took English prose to new levels in practical, reproducible ways, which Joyce's prose doesn't. Da Vinci might have envisioned the helicopter but it was the Wright brothers who actually got us off of the ground. Joyce is a pie in the sky intellectual who's more concerned with how he thinks prose should work than with how it actually does. To this day there are a lot more Hemingway and Faulkner followers than there are Joyces. They are the ones with living legacies.

Footnotes please. I would like to know exactly what backing in the reading of Joyce in context provided this outburst. Either way, just look at the influence of Joyce on Faulkner. Also, I would challenge the notion that Hemingway has had a bigger influence. Keep in mind that both Deconstruction, and many other schools of thought also evolved out of reading Joyce, not to mention the profound affect he had on people like Borges, Eco, and Woolf.