books every home library should have

[stlukesguild]

I don't really think the longevity of Amis' work is relevant...

Perhaps it is not a fair comparison considering Amis has not had 400+ years by which to be judged. On the other hand, when one artist passes judgment upon another it is not unfair to question why his or her opinion should be given any degree of weight... and what his or her motives (including, but not limited to, jealousy) might be. I assume Amis' quote was selected because it was believed that Amis was an author of some import whose opinions on literature must hold a degree of worth. I countered with the question of just how great a weight we should give to Amis' opinions in contrast to opposing opinions of far greater writers such as Borges, Kafka, Flaubert, and Sterne... to say nothing of Cervantes himself.

nor do i deny that Don Quixote has had great influence on many artists over several centuries.

Of course when offering up personal opinions we can only go our own responses. However there is always the recognition that our personal preferences do not always mirror those of history. The impact of an artist upon his or her predecessors is commonly one of the clearest measures of that artist's merit. The fact that a good number of artists, poets, novelists, playwrights, composers, etc... thought enough of Cervantes book to create a work of art in response to or dialog with it suggest that the work may just have more lasting merit than is suggested.

Even for the contemporary reader who enjoys challenging and difficult works, Don Q might be a bridge too far. Despite its strengths, its static 'narrative', its interminable digressions and its absurd length make it pretty exclusionary IMO.

Similar criticisms may be placed upon many older works of literature. Shakespeare and certainly Chaucer are laden with archaic language. War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Clarissa, The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire, The Divine Comedy, Les Miserables, In Search of Lost Time, etc... are all marked by great length. They all engage in digressions... but these digressions, many would argue, are often among the strengths. Not every masterwork need to follow the compression and the single-minded focus of narrative as put forth by the Pléiade.

While this is not a bad thing in itself, the fact that the book is so rooted to its own time means that many people will not want,or be able, to break through that barrier.

Nearly every work of literature is rooted to its own time to one degree or another. The fully appreciate most poetry one needs to develop an understanding of poetic forms, use of language, metaphor, etc... and these vary greatly from era to era. One does not jump lightly into Dante or Dickinson or T.S. Eliot. They demand... but I would argue they also greatly reward... effort. Even the prose of Dickens or Henry James may be imagined as formidable. Personally, I never found Cervantes to be overly difficult (although this unquestionably is due, in part, to the fact that I am reading him in translation and as such the more archaic aspects of 16th century Spanish have been mitigated). One need know little more than a bit about the romances (Arthurian and those based upon Roland/Orlando and Charlemagne) to have a grasp of the literary context in which the book was written. Beyond that, the themes, to my mind, seem universal enough.

[mortalterror]

If longevity and fertility are the only measures of man's greatness, where does that leave Keats, Jesus, or Alexander? If we are agreed that such elements are not important in the composition of a good man, then how can we nod our heads and placidly pass such judgements on our favorite books? Truly, there must be more to excellence than long life and influence! Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and The Odyssey were each lost for millennia. Melville was twenty years dead and seventy years had passed before Moby Dick got it's due. The Sound and the Fury was out of print and remaindered for a decade before Faulkner won the Nobel Prize. Shakespeare lived in Ben Jonson's shadow and for a century afterward Beaumont and Fletcher's plays were more popular. A century and a half passed without a performance of Shakespeare's original King Lear text. Some plays rise and some fall, but rarely does a new age adopt the opinions of the old. When it came out, The Great Gatsby was panned by critics such as H.L. Mencken. Give me a list of famous men who've loved a book and I can furnish you with another list of famous notables who've hated it. That proves nothing. Seneca was almost as popular during the Renaissance as Shakespeare is now. These trends are not constant. They ebb and flow.

"For the cities which were formerly great, have most of them become insignificant; and such as are at present powerful, were weak in the olden time. I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never continues long in one stay."- Herodotus, Histories

Where now are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Where the Colossus of Rhodes? Should we rob the dead of their due share of glory because they no longer linger to plead their case? Sophocles wrote 123 plays of which 7 survive. The best 7? Who can say? There are 7 left to us. Shall two in a room speak ill of a third who is absent, and shall we burn again the Library of Alexandria by implying that all those who perished were justly interred?

Do you think the fairness fairy has a hand in this? Is the canon the first working meritocracy? Nobody get's stepped over? Nobody gets pushed to the back? I know for a fact that The Farce of Sodom deserves to be higher rated and it was suppressed while mediocre comic works flourished.

[JBI]

This the same Amis who is the well known Islamophobe, or are we talking about the Senior one here? As for rooted in time - he seems to have jumped on the xenophobic bandwagon that's building amongst neo-neo-cons well enough.

Either way, the length of Don Quixote is not a patch on the length of any of the 4 Great Classical Chinese novels - yet I challenge anyone to suggest that something like Romance of the Three Kingdoms should be forgotten because of its length - to me, it still seems the most dominant text in the Chinese Canon - certainly the most dominant prose work by my reckoning (though perhaps someone will correct me, and suggest another - I think we can agree it is way up there).

In truth, the length matters very little - I think Amis is unable to see anything but text - I think his mentality is so rooted in text that he ignores the background behind the narrative - that of a changing society, and a dying (or perhaps dead) sense of chivalry and romance, that Cervantes spins into a comic farce. How much more comical is the book burning scene at the beginning, when one knows the books that are being burnt? The jabs Cervantes takes at them are hilarious.

[Drkshadow03]

This the same Amis who is the well known Islamophobe, or are we talking about the Senior one here? As for rooted in time - he seems to have jumped on the xenophobic bandwagon that's building amongst neo-neo-cons well enough.

What does Amis being an alleged Islamophobe have anything to do with his judgements of Cervantes' works?

[JBI]

What does Amis being an alleged Islamophobe have anything to do with his judgements of Cervantes' works?

Everything. One's outlook on one issue tells volumes on another issue. Perhaps his inability to accept a difference of culture is behind the reason for his rejection of Cervantes - in truth, I merely wanted to throw the comment into the fire of the debate over cultural assumptions of specific periods to illustrate a dating in perspective of Amis too, and reveal a sense of hypocrisy.

[Dr. Hill]

I don't think any work can be unreadable to the contemporary reader, provided it is in said reader's native language.

[JBI]

I don't think any work can be unreadable to the contemporary reader, provided it is in said reader's native language.

Derrida in English is still to me virtually unreadable - though I make out bits here and there.

[stlukesguild]

If longevity and fertility are the only measures of man's greatness, where does that leave Keats, Jesus, or Alexander? If we are agreed that such elements are not important in the composition of a good man, then how can we nod our heads and placidly pass such judgements on our favorite books?

Strange analogy. Last I heard we were still reading of and discussing Keats, Jesus, and Alexander. Of course I would never suggest that "fertility" might be the sole measure of artistic merit.

Truly, there must be more to excellence than long life and influence! Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and The Odyssey were each lost for millennia. Melville was twenty years dead and seventy years had passed before Moby Dick got it's due. The Sound and the Fury was out of print and remaindered for a decade before Faulkner won the Nobel Prize. Shakespeare lived in Ben Jonson's shadow and for a century afterward Beaumont and Fletcher's plays were more popular. A century and a half passed without a performance of Shakespeare's original King Lear text. Some plays rise and some fall, but rarely does a new age adopt the opinions of the old.

It would seem you undermine your own argument by pointing out the instances in which a work of art is forgotten or ignored in its own time only to be afforded proper due after the passage of time. What might be more needed to bolster your argument are multiple examples of works of art broadly accepted as masterpieces not only in their own time but for subsequent centuries... works with a multitude of artistic heirs that are also greatly acclaimed that suddenly fall out of favor or are seen as "unreadable". Certainly reputations rise and fall... too a degree. Ovid's Metamorphoses was once the most read book after the Bible... such is no longer true... yet Ovid is certainly not "unreadable" or forgotten. Raphael was once lionized as the greatest painter of all time. Today we'd not think to place him at such a pinnacle... certainly not before Michelangelo... and yet he is not dismissed as irrelevant.

Seneca was almost as popular during the Renaissance as Shakespeare is now. These trends are not constant. They ebb and flow.

Certainly... and yet is Seneca unreadable? Ironically I have a copy of his On the Shortness of Life sitting on my desk as I type. One of a marvelous collection of beautifully produced paperbacks by Penguin Books.

"For the cities which were formerly great, have most of them become insignificant; and such as are at present powerful, were weak in the olden time. I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never continues long in one stay."- Herodotus, Histories

Again... I'm not certain that is a valid analogy. Certainly the history of cities change in response to external changing conditions... but the cities themselves are also ever changing internally. People come and go. Industries come and go. All remains in constant flux. There is no single moment that is Rome or London. Of course your quotes are impressive... but can easily offer opposing views:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Reality probably lies somewhere in between.

Where now are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Where the Colossus of Rhodes? Should we rob the dead of their due share of glory because they no longer linger to plead their case? Sophocles wrote 123 plays of which 7 survive. The best 7? Who can say? There are 7 left to us. Shall two in a room speak ill of a third who is absent, and shall we burn again the Library of Alexandria by implying that all those who perished were justly interred?

Do you think the fairness fairy has a hand in this? Is the canon the first working meritocracy? Nobody get's stepped over? Nobody gets pushed to the back? I know for a fact that The Farce of Sodom deserves to be higher rated and it was suppressed while mediocre comic works flourished.

To suggest that a work which has stood the test of time may just be a masterwork and not something unreadable is not the same as to suggest that it is the greatest work that has ever been produced or that there have not been works of real genius... perhaps even greater genius... that have been lost due to the workings of history. There are quite probably works of true brilliance that have not survived... that never attained a level of recognition because they were written in a language or created in a place that has left them inaccessible to the larger world. There have been works of real brilliance that have been destroyed... and continue to be destroyed even today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/ar...gn/16blak.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamyan

http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Art/manuscript.htm

[mortalterror]

If longevity and fertility are the only measures of man's greatness, where does that leave Keats, Jesus, or Alexander? If we are agreed that such elements are not important in the composition of a good man, then how can we nod our heads and placidly pass such judgements on our favorite books?

Strange analogy. Last I heard we were still reading of and discussing Keats, Jesus, and Alexander. Of course I would never suggest that "fertility" might be the sole measure of artistic merit.

You have a strong belief in the value of artistic influence and I was analogizing it to the value men place on spawning many strong children; which reduces the value of merit in men and women to that of the common stud and brood mare. Keats, Jesus, Alexander, and Queen Elizabeth for that matter, had no living children when they died, yet their greatness was not of a quality to be passed on in their genes. That is what I was saying.

Truly, there must be more to excellence than long life and influence! Beowulf, Gilgamesh, and The Odyssey were each lost for millennia. Melville was twenty years dead and seventy years had passed before Moby Dick got it's due. The Sound and the Fury was out of print and remaindered for a decade before Faulkner won the Nobel Prize. Shakespeare lived in Ben Jonson's shadow and for a century afterward Beaumont and Fletcher's plays were more popular. A century and a half passed without a performance of Shakespeare's original King Lear text. Some plays rise and some fall, but rarely does a new age adopt the opinions of the old.

It would seem you undermine your own argument by pointing out the instances in which a work of art is forgotten or ignored in its own time only to be afforded proper due after the passage of time. What might be more needed to bolster your argument are multiple examples of works of art broadly accepted as masterpieces not only in their own time but for subsequent centuries... works with a multitude of artistic heirs that are also greatly acclaimed that suddenly fall out of favor or are seen as "unreadable". Certainly reputations rise and fall... too a degree. Ovid's Metamorphoses was once the most read book after the Bible... such is no longer true... yet Ovid is certainly not "unreadable" or forgotten. Raphael was once lionized as the greatest painter of all time. Today we'd not think to place him at such a pinnacle... certainly not before Michelangelo... and yet he is not dismissed as irrelevant.

Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."
-John Donne, The Sun Rising

My examples were all examples of reversals of fortune. You seem to believe that mechanism only works positively and that reputations can only grow. My intent was to show that these things are not constant. For instance, Tennyson was highly popular when he died. He went out of favor and came back. Tom Jones is not so popular as it once was though Ezra Pound seemed to think it the pinnacle of English prose. Just because Vivaldi and Caravaggio are back does not mean they are here to stay.

You seem to think that a good opinion can fluctuate for a few centuries and then it's carved in granite. But look at the critical history of any ancient work of art and you will see periods of enthusiasm and declines of interest. If it could happen to Aeschylus it can happen to Shakespeare who is still a teenager in the history of letters. He will go out of favor. Over a long enough time frame everyone does. That's part of what I meant by Beowulf, The Odyssey, and Gilgamesh. Even the most central important outstanding works fall upon the dust heap of history, fall victim to the arrow of time.

Believing that posterity has preserved these texts at the expense of lesser ones is an error. We have a great deal of lesser articles which have survived the ravages of floods, fire, moth. The oldest records of human writing are books of accounts and bills of sale. "Truly, a grocery list for the ages." The merit system is just not an accurate model of how preservation and longevity works.

Seneca was almost as popular during the Renaissance as Shakespeare is now. These trends are not constant. They ebb and flow.

Certainly... and yet is Seneca unreadable? Ironically I have a copy of his On the Shortness of Life sitting on my desk as I type. One of a marvelous collection of beautifully produced paperbacks by Penguin Books.

Certainly not. I think he's wonderful. I think he's spectacular. But contemporary dramatic theory is that his plays are too bombastic, too poetic, to play to a contemporary theater audience. I respectfully disagree, though it is often said. However, even you will concur that he is not so popular as he once was. He was once central to the canon and now he's an afterthought.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]"For the cities which were formerly great, have most of them become insignificant; and such as are at present powerful, were weak in the olden time. I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never continues long in one stay."- Herodotus, Histories

Again... I'm not certain that is a valid analogy. Certainly the history of cities change in response to external changing conditions... but the cities themselves are also ever changing internally. People come and go. Industries come and go. All remains in constant flux. There is no single moment that is Rome or London. Of course your quotes are impressive... but can easily offer opposing views:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Reality probably lies somewhere in between.

I see. You are saying that cities change but books are static and so the opinion about them should also remain static since their contents remain the same. But just consider Shakespeare: Hamlet, a common example. When it came out it was popular for it's plot elements. The ghost was big. Hamlet was either crazy or not. Then as literary opinion began to focus more on character that becomes the focus of the play. We get Hamlets with a greater sense of interiority, a new emphasis on ambiguity and delay which was never there before. The things we like about our favorite books have changed even if they haven't. The way we understand them is different, what they mean to us has changed, even if the words do not. Take the example of Shakespeare again. There are two Shakespeares. One is his reputation and tradition in the living theater. The other is the paper Shakespeare which academics enjoy. There is some overlap but the two traditions are seldom in harmony and praising the same plays at the same time. Shakespeare is a deck of thirty-seven cards getting shuffled over and over again for centuries. Just because the words don't change does not mean the value we infuse them with does not.

Empires wax and wane; states cleave asunder and coalesce.
-Luo Guan Zhong, Romance of the Seven Kingdoms

So much of life is a mutability, a changing, a metamorphosis. To trust in absolutes and forever is a folly. After much struggle, and interminable time, a man climbs a mountain. He sits at the top and says, "Now, that's done. I'm safe. Safe forever." Then he falls all the way back down. Croesus laughed at Solon and wailed when he learned the truth.

Where now are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Where the Colossus of Rhodes? Should we rob the dead of their due share of glory because they no longer linger to plead their case? Sophocles wrote 123 plays of which 7 survive. The best 7? Who can say? There are 7 left to us. Shall two in a room speak ill of a third who is absent, and shall we burn again the Library of Alexandria by implying that all those who perished were justly interred?

Do you think the fairness fairy has a hand in this? Is the canon the first working meritocracy? Nobody get's stepped over? Nobody gets pushed to the back? I know for a fact that The Farce of Sodom deserves to be higher rated and it was suppressed while mediocre comic works flourished.

To suggest that a work which has stood the test of time may just be a masterwork and not something unreadable is not the same as to suggest that it is the greatest work that has ever been produced or that there have not been works of real genius... perhaps even greater genius... that have been lost due to the workings of history. There are quite probably works of true brilliance that have not survived... that never attained a level of recognition because they were written in a language or created in a place that has left them inaccessible to the larger world. There have been works of real brilliance that have been destroyed... and continue to be destroyed even today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/ar...gn/16blak.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamyan

http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Art/manuscript.htm

Yes, but you act as though the test were over, and it's pencils down. The test of time is an ongoing test, and one we all ultimately fail.

[Bastable]

Something i don't think has been mentioned is the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm

[Vota]

I've been working on developing a small, but formidable library of knowledge, but I have yet to read most of the works.

Books that I have read, that I really feel the need to own based off that criteria, and not what I plan to read and/or know to be valuable:

1. Altered Carbon, hard-boiled sci-fi. The Lead character Takeshi Kovacs, is probably my favorite character of all time.
2. The Forever War
3. Old Man's War
4. Armor
5. Dune
6. The Stars My destination
7. Conan-works

I used to have a solid sci-fi/fantasy collection, but sold it off during hard times. I've slowly been reacquiring the books I really feel the need to own alongside greats like Tolstoy and Shakespear

that my present library consists of.

[Eiseabhal]

I wonder if the young girl with all the dough who started the thread has read any of the worthy tomes mentioned or is the room for books now abandoned. Buying ones books all at once seems like a sure-fire way to end up with many unread. I have to confess that I go on book-buying splurges and have rows and stacks where only every third one has been read. Only problem I have with the lists is that they are so top-heavy "intellectual". I got the impression the blone was young and as she was reading "A Tale of Two Cities" she was probably a competent reader but that was no reason to give her a reading list that contained so little light relief. Cruel, too cruel.

[ladderandbucket]

The Dorling Kindersly book of the Human Body, or something similar. I think every human should own such a book.

[ennison]

"Blone"! That is a very Stornowegian word Eiseabhal! Shows what an army education does!

[Eiseabhal]

Well I first came across it from Stornoway boys in Glasgow shipyards but there were a couple of Lewismen with me in the army and they did use that word. I liked it and sometimes still use it as a kind of joke .