Time magazine: the 10 greatest books...

[fajrdrako]

maaseru sent me this link, knowing it was just the kind of article that I love to pounce on, for several reasons.

For one thing, it starts out talking about lists. You know how I love lists, especially literary lists. It says:

Let's not mince words: literary lists are basically an obscenity. Literature is the realm of the ineffable and the unquantifiable; lists are the realm of menus and laundry and rotisserie baseball. There's something unseemly and promiscuous about all those letters and numbers jumbled together. Take it from me, a critic who has committed this particular sin many times over.

I suspect he is rather proud of his sin, and so he should be. Menus and laundry, indeed! Lists are a literary achievement of a very particular type.

I think I need to read The Top Ten even if just to scream and grumble about it. As might be predictable, at first glance the lists look rather pretentious to me. Writers who are fashionable among the literati, but who are not necessarily good - meaning that I don't necessarily like their style. Or I do like their style, but I am suspicious of their reputation. Nabokov, for instance. A brilliant stylist. But also fashionable, and that makes me look askance at him. I love Dickens, and since he is not fashionable, he seldom makes these lists. But why, or why not? Is he too popularist, too inclined to humour? What makes a writer great? Why is Dorothy Dunnett not on everyone's lists? I heartily approve of the inclusion of Scaramouche, of course.

Of the ultimate Top Ten list I am faintly (but only faintly) ashamed of how few I have read:

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
   
2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
   
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
   
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
   
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
   
6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
   
7. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
   
8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
   
9. The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
   
10. Middlemarch by George Eliot

I have read Madame Bovary (it bored me), 1/4 of War and Peace (read that first part three times before giving up, I just can't get past the Battle of Borodino), Lolita (loved it), Huckleberry Finn (meh), Hamlet - many times, unquestionably the best of the best and then some, and The Great Gatsby (liked it a lot but it isn't on my top ten lists, not even my top 100). I must admit, the list doesn't make me want to run out and read Anna Karenina or Middlemarch, which sound boringly schoolteacherish to me. Am I misjudging? Reacting to prejudice? Under an erroneous impression? Why does the rest of the world like Tolstoy more than I do?

Ever since seeing Little Miss Sunshine, though, I've been thinking I should read Proust. People talk about Proust in the abstract - I can't recall any of my friends actually ever saying they've read him. Is it their guilty secret, or has he just not come up in conversation? Or is he one of those writers who is universally admired and universally unread?

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I was eh about Anna Karinena: by the time I read it I was thoroughly sick of that plot: woman tries to be independent and has to die for it. Definitely A Man's Pick. Ditto Madame Bovary--she's not even interesting as a person.

Middlemarch though...an incredible book. Would it help you to know that it in it was the very latest scientific tech of the day, as people struggled to put that to practice in lives? It's a brilliant book, and its last paragraph is my favorite in all literature, Austen notwithstanding.

I do intend to read Proust--I didn't like Scott-Moncrieff's translation when I began reading it, and the more I know about him the more I know why; since my French isn't likely to get up to par, I'd like to read the new translation out. Otherwise I've read them all, and have to admit I adored the Tolstoi--especially as I read two accounts of eye-witnesses at Borodino before, including the woman disguised as a hussar, who wrote about her experiences. Tolstoi had gone out to those fields, paced them, talked to the local peasants who still remembered the battle, in fact had helped drive wagonload after wagonload of corpses away to be buried.

I don't know about Dunnett...have to think about that. My tendency is to appreciate heroic lit without thinking it great, because some of the very elements that make the characters suitably heroic are counter to psychology, and despite the unsentimental, even trenchant writing, in Dunnet, there is a melodramatic streak through it that supports heroic suffering on a heroic scale, but denies the normal human psychology that makes the greater novels so resonant, but I dunno....thinky think think.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Definitely A Man's Pick.

Yeah. I was wondering at the gender differentiation of the writers who were doing the choosing. With no evidence except the results my guess is that they were predominantly men.

Madame Bovary

Dare I say, the most boring woman I ever read about? Close, anyway.

Thanks for the comments on Middlemarch, about which I know almost nothing, including the reasons for its popularity. Hmm. You make me want to read it.

There's a new translation of Proust? Okay, I'll look for it.

Interesting comments about melodrama in literature and heroic suffering on a heroic scale. Since I absolutely love melodrama and heroic scales, this is a point in its favour in my opinion, but certainly that kind of literature-as-drama and psychology as pertaining to the norm (rather than the extraordinary) are not terribly popular in our time. The works I think are most great do tend to be take the larger-than-life approach rather than the slice-of-life approach.

Shakespeare, for example.

[littledrop.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of those! I have Lolita, Hamlet, and The Great Gatsby sitting on my bookshelves, partially read. I can't abide Fitzgerald, though. I don't know if I'll ever finish that one.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I don't see any virtue is reading novels one doesn't enjoy. Which is why I've never made a fourth attack on War and Peace.

Lolita is beautifully written, witty, intersting, and a lot of fun. I'm not sure if there's any real depth there, though.

Hamlet, I adore. I fell in love with Hamlet (the character as well as the play) when I was about 12 years old. I see every production or movie of it I can, and occasionally just reread passages because they are so wonderful and sexy and smart. Hamlet is the perfect Romantic-Byronic hero, in my opinion.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Forgot to say that I think Gatsby at best okay. But not even remotely great.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Gatsby is another book I found quite readable, though light. Enjoyed but didn't understand why there's a literary fuss over it. Worthy of being on a top ten books list? Not remotely!

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Couldn't get past some of Anna Karenina (the first 1/3rd or so had all the signs of heading for disaster and I didn't want to go there).

Madame Bovary - I think I ought to give it a try.

War and Peace - read it, in Russian (and French, which was much more of a problem), and rather liked it, until the guy I fell in love with was cheated and then killed; I still finished it.

Lolita - I know I've seen both movies, and I think I read the book too, although I'm not perfectly certain. Was probably 17 at the time (I remember my stepdad talking to me about it), and it impressed me rather a lot.

Huck Finn. Yep.

Hamlet - definitely. The only male part I've wanted to have a chance at, for all the beautiful things he says.

Great Gatsby - yep.

In Search of Lost Time - Not yet.

Stories of Anton Checkov - which stories? One of my most memorable drinking evenings was spent with my brother, and we ended up reading Checkov stories artistically to one another. Mom was somewhere on a tour... the world was ours (well, until the neighbours rang and asked us to turn the music down).

Middlemarch. I started it and loved it, but it was at a very busy time (I was taking sever courses that semester), and it went on, and on... and on. I think I dropped about halfway through, and I still want to know what happened with those characters. I should pick it up again.

Hmm. Not exactly my top ten list, but I think there are significant omissions (well, it's just 10... can't cover all the goodies, can it?)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I fyou try Madame Bovary, do tell me what you think. I had no sympathy for her at all.

I haven't seen either Lolita movie. They're on my 'to see' lists, but I don't feel particuarly eager to see them because the reason I loved the book was the beautiful style in which it was written - I can't imagine that sense of style and cleverness of language translating to the screen.

If I could act, I'd want to play Hamlet too.

[cyberducks.livejournal.com]

God, these kinds of lists irritate me....hope you don't mind me snagging the list so I can rant about it in my lj...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, by all means! Help yourself! I look forward to reading it.

[dargie.livejournal.com]

Sadly, of the ultimate top ten, not one is among my favorites, and of the authors, I can say that I enjoy Chekhov's plays, but his stories... meh. I've read some Proust, both in English and French. It's fascinating, but there's just too much of it. It wears me out. I might say different if I was reading a newer translation, but the Scott Moncreiff one is maddening.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm learning what translations of Proust to avoid, good!

I think I read some of Chekhov's short stories, but I don't remember them, so I didn't count them. (I did like Pushkin's short stories.) His plays - I enjoy them in a really good production but I haven't seen many of such.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

The difficulty is finding time to read fiction. I have Proust, mean to read Proust, but... research and stuff comes first, so somehow fiction gets put on the back-burner. Have seen a couple of good film versions, though, of parts of his work.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I really must try Proust for myself. But as you say - time! I love reading new novels and fanfic and comics and history and biographies and where is the time to fit in more?

[cupati.livejournal.com]

I must confess to having never read any of them, nor attempted to: and plays should be watched, not read.

These appear to be books that people want to have read, not want to read.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

plays should be watched, not read.

I agree in general, especially Shakespeare. But I do love reading his plays. And many others too, by favourite playwrights, especially when the opportunity to see a play is rare. (that was one reason living in London was such heaven. There were plays everywhere.)

These appear to be books that people want to have read, not want to read.

Or to appear to have read? I am deeply suspicious.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

there are no Dutch authors on the list!! How can this be. It is more international than other such lists I've seen, but English, American, French and Rusian, still limited.

I've read, and enjoyed immensely, War and Peace. It was the one book I brought along on a vacation to the Czech republic. My sister got thoroughly frustated that I picked it up all the time. (She was to depressed to read at that time, now she reads and I just sit waiting around).

Read Ana Karenina, enjoyed it, but got also immensely irritated with the heroine.

Loved Lolita.

For some reason I dislike all George Elliot novels, tried several but it rubs me up the wrong way. I'd prefer for example Charlotte Bronte's Shirley

I've read Hamlet.

I've read a simplified version of Hucklleberry Finn.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It is more international than other such lists I've seen, but English, American, French and Rusian, still limited.

The non-English inclusions are all books that have very famous English editions.

Interesting comments on War and Peace. Maybe I'll try it again some time. I enjoyed the movie versions.

I'd prefer for example Charlotte Bronte's Shirley

As would I. I love Charlotte Bronte's writing. Shirley was wonderful. I once rewrote it as a play - I wonder what happened to that ms?

[toraks.livejournal.com]

Going to read Lolita for next book club. Not sure how I feel about that!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Why? Do you not expect to like it? I read it very long ago - probably in the early seventies... Loved it.

[swanswan.livejournal.com]

I've read Proust! But it was a college requirement, so I don't get brownie points. I read it (by which I mean the first two and last books of "A La Recherche...") a few years ago and it is one of my life-changing books. Proust writes about thinking, and about writing:

"Style for the writer, no less than colour for the painter, is a question not of technique but of vision: it is the revelation, which by direct and conscious methods would be impossible, of the qualitative difference, the uniqueness of the fashion in which the world appears to each one of us, a difference which, if there were no art, would remain forever the secret of every individual."

"Real books are the product of darkness and silence, not of daylight and casual talk."

--- Marcel Proust

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I've read Proust! But it was a college requirement, so I don't get brownie points.

LOL! But you've read him, whatever the reason, so I salute you as my Official Flist Proust-reader! Funny, I studied an overview of French literature and he wasn't on it.

So where would you suggest I start? Should I try reading it in the original French? (The prospect is daunting, but not impossible. It would no doubt improve my French.)

Style for the writer, no less than colour for the painter, is a question not of technique but of vision

Woo. that is

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<i>I've read Proust! But it was a college requirement, so I don't get brownie points.</i>

LOL! But you've read him, whatever the reason, so I salute you as my Official Flist Proust-reader! Funny, I studied an overview of French literature and he wasn't on it.

So where would you suggest I start? Should I try reading it in the original French? (The prospect is daunting, but not impossible. It would no doubt improve my French.)

<i>Style for the writer, no less than colour for the painter, is a question not of technique but of vision</i>

Woo. that is <i.so true</i>.

<i>a difference which, if there were no art, would remain forever the secret of every individual.</i>

Beautifully said, and so true.

<i>"Real books are the product of darkness and silence, not of daylight and casual talk."</i>

Beautiful; but I'll have to think about whether I think it is true. Are books not the product of wherever the mind is that conceives them? Or... what does Proust mean by 'real books' rather than 'fake books'? Does he mean that writing begins in the subconscious? That is probably true.

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

Beyond the fact this list bored me just by looking at it, I was struck by the fact that, with the exception of Hamlet, they're all mid-19th to mid-20th century books. Four of them of the Russian faction. And TWO by Tolstoy. Very limited selection, I think. I'm surprised he didn't have Dostoevsky or Balzac (although he might have been a tad too early) or Hugo. They would all fit perfectly into that list. I agree with you that it sounds very pretentious.

I'm surprised that there were only three I haven't read (well, tried in the case of Tolstoy)- Nabokov, Proust and Eliot. I might try Eliot when I get a chance.
I need to like (at least some of) the characters in a book, and I didn't in any of these. Tolstoy has really stupid women who annoy me and whom I don't undesrstand, and men who twirl around them in a way that makes me wonder. Same with Bovary, same with Chekhov (plays as well as stories). I could put it down to cultural differences, but I think it runs deeper than that.
Great Gatsby didn't impress me. All I remember is recurring mentions of lights and a white clothing. Didn't find it very memorable, apparently.
Twain is readable, but I wouldn't have put it in a Top Ten list. Not by a long shot.
Hamlet is the predictable choice for the pretentious list, isn't it? If you're going to pick a Top Ten, you have to have a Shakespeare, and that's probably the most BNFy of the lot. Not my favorite. I prefer characters with less airs and and brains not in gear, and more balls, I guess. His dad could have been an interesting character if we got more of him.
Of course, when Shakespeare wrote, he was aiming for an audience that wanted the kind of melodrama the list owner would probably frown upon.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

this list bored me just by looking at it

You too?

with the exception of Hamlet, they're all mid-19th to mid-20th century books.

Which had me wondering: What about Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Lao Tse, the King James Bible or the Koran, Milton - the Eurocentric nature of the list could be explained by the fact that it's American and from a basically English-speaking tradition, though the high number of Russians on the list is ... odd. Is the world of American lit going through a phase of 19th century Russian authors? I might have put Dostoyevsky on the list myself (because I'm very fond of Crime and Punishment), at least if I were focussing on novels of a certain type, which I wouldn't be.

Saying Gatsby isn't memorable sort of sums it up for me. It's very American, very focussed on Americans of a certain type and style - the beautiful people of the 1920s. I enjoyed reading it, but didn't find it substantial in any way. If we were including American authors, I'd have maybe put Hemingway of Chandler.

I do adore Hamlet (both the play and the protagonist) but saying it's my favourite Shakespeare is a bit like saying that the top left square of chocolate in a chocolate bar is my favourite. I like it a lot better than Lear and somewhat more than Macbeth, so I'm happy to pick it as the place-holder for 'good Shakeseare' even though I think 'good Shakespeare' encompasses more. And as I have said: I love melodrama, especially melodrama centred on an individual.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Hm. I so strongly suspect that this list is actually of the top ten books of all time that someone else thinks you should have read. It seems to me like a fake answer on a "what would you do?" test given to an average person who wants to say "the right thing" to impress the tester.

That said, I agree with you on Hamlet, heartily. Huck Finn was once called "the only perfect novel," by whom I have no idea, but ever after that, it became sacrilege to bad-mouth it for any reason at all. I don't care for it, as it has Tom Sawyer acting badly out of character, and acting cruelly as well; in that, it seems almost as if the author had been fumbling with the plot as he wrote along, and ended up with something different but never going back to alter things so that it all fit seamlessly. (Marion Zimmer Bradley's writing often strikes me as the same sort of keep-walking-don't-go-back-to-edit-just-keep-on-walking.)

I have not read Proust, but as one of his writings (Remembrance of Things Past) was inspired eidetically by his catching the scent of muffins that took him back to a specific time of his childhood, and as this sort of eidetic imprinting is something that I know well, I think that I would either be wonderfully enraptured by his writing, or else left totally cold by it -- it could turn out to be too imprinted and personal for me to gain entry into.

My own list of the best ten books ever written (that I myself have read) might look something like (in no order):

1. Dune, Frank Herbert -- an incredibly subtle and exquisite retelling of the Electra myth cycle
2. Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett
3.& 4. A Wrinkle in Time & A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Madeline L'Engle
5. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
6. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. LeGuin
7. and that is all that I can enter at this time -- none others reach the high measure of these which I have named. Possibly, my mind is blank because lately I've been reading mostly only nonfiction!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

the top ten books of all time that someone else thinks you should have read.

Hrm. Maybe. The why of it continues to perplex me. Why Tolstoy and not Alexander Pope? Why Fitzgerald and not Burns? Why Proust and not Darwin? Why the emphasis on the 19th century novel, is that so well-regarded in American society? I guess I'm looking for a rationale in choice: a reason these books might have changed lives, illuminated minds, or inspired thinkers more than any others. What is the definition of a 'great' book? Has it to do with style or content or both? Its influence on our society? (Oops, almost misused an apostrophe there.)

Huck Finn was once called "the only perfect novel," by whom I have no idea

By someone of oddly narrow reading tastes! The notion that there can be only one 'perfect novel', or that there can by any 'perfect novel', strikes me as the wrong kind of measure entirely. Novels can't be 'perfect' any more than minds can be 'perfect'. They aren't like diamonds, made without flaws. They aren't even static objects. They are ongoing interactions between a writer and his readers.

I like the inclusion of The Game of Kings in your list, and of course I concur, from my not-unbiased position.

Since the criterion, as I understand, was for the top ten books not the top ten novels, seems to me you'd be perfectly justified in citing non-fiction here.

[wanderinunicorn.livejournal.com]

Usually I read biographies, therefore I haven't enough time for novels, but to my surpise I've read nr 2,3,4,5,6 on the list. Hamlet and Lolita not so long ago, the other in my teens. Hamlet is great, Lolita is good, the other I considered then as good (but they weren't my favoutits) but I know that my perception changed; I would probably feel otherwise when reading them now.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Do you think you'd like them more now, or less? I was wondering that about myself - except for Hamlet, I haven't read any of them recently. I don't know if my perceptions would have changed. Usually I am very consistent in my reactions over time.... but not invariably.

What, you haven't read War and Peace?

[(Anonymous)]

then order this:

http://www.worth1000.com/entries/289500/289887UADY.jpg

:-)

Re: What, you haven't read War and Peace?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

LOL - yes! Exactly what I need!