Nobody *ought* to read anything

[oursin]

Apparently someone has produced a list of '1001 books to read before you die' (I'm not going to link to locked post where I first saw it, but this here appears to be the list in question).

I continue to be strongly of the opinion that there is no book whatsoever, lo, not even Middlemarch, which everybody should read. Although I might concur with Miss Cromwell in The Cricket Term when she tells Nicola that there are books/authors that an educated person ought to have read (though I might modulate that to 'tried to have read').

However, I don't give a lot of credence to any list which is so heavily front-loaded with very recent books (and which fades significantly as it goes back in time). I think of those lists of 1908 bestsellers - can't find that exactly, but do have this listing of bestselling US books by decade, and suspect that if it were possible to do a listing of what-was-critically-rated at any given year in the past there would be a lot of WTF entries.

I look back to my reading of more or less contemporary litfic during the 70s and 80s, and while some writers stay solid (Angus Wilson! He DA MAN!) others have faded and I have no desire to re-read e.g. anything by Janice Elliott (who I suspect may having been writing about adultery in Hampstead, but I can't remember any of her novels with sufficient detail to say).

Was way annoyed when writing about the really how-not-to-do-it novel by someone much more famous for other things for an edited volume and was told that I shouldn't make critical judgements indicating that person's strengths were not in fictional creation. Because I have read lots of other fiction by other writers of the same period who are pretty much neglected and their work holds up extremely well, an opinion in which I am supported by Virago and Persephone.

Some work does survive the ravages of time and some is more of its day and age than it may seem to exact contemporaries.

But while I would make a very strong case for the revival of e.g. certain of G B Stern's novels or Stella Gibbons' non-Cold Comfort Farm oeuvre, I wouldn't go around saying everybody should read them.

Comments

[buffysquirrel.livejournal.com]

Gah, I hate that whole "before you die" genre. Personally I don't feel a need to be reminded of my mortality every five minutes.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

I suspect there's a subtle threat: "Read it now or read it in hell."

[oursin.livejournal.com]

The bookshelves of Hell.... what a ghastly thought. And they'd be different for everybody. (After all, there are many people whose opinion I respect who like Tristram Shandy.)

[buffysquirrel.livejournal.com]

The bookshelves of Hell...every book you've ever wanted to read on the covers and only Jackie Collins inside.

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

Like what happened every time I looked for Colette in my local bookstore - I impatiently passed Coetzee to end up at Collins...

[lamentables.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this NYT article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/books/23read.html) on the list.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Quite!

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Channel 4 has all those incredibly cheap to make top hundred programmes with shallow commentary by z-list celebrities which seem to be the 100 Best Assuming I Have the Memory of a Goldfish and Only Remember Back to About 1995 and Stuff I've Heard About. That way Shawshank Redemption gets to be best film and Second Coming by Stone Roses gets to be best album.

I can remember we used to do ice-breaking questionnaires on favourite movies and when someone said something like INdiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I'd think, isn't it too early to tell?


There seems to be a genre of "1001" books - I've seen buildings and films among others. I think it evolved out of ten things to do before you die/turn thirty which were either too easy to achieve or offers longer essays than 1001 does and thus threaten not to be soundbites.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Reminds one of the stories about tinies getting up at serious discussions of YA fiction and declaring that Harry Potter is the bestest evah book in the whole history of the universe (with a heavy subtext of, the only book they've ever actually read that wasn't a graded reader).

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

I am, as you may have seen on your flist, attempting to compile a thousand-book meme composed entirely of medieval/Renaissance texts, on the grounds that memetic posts of those book lists always make me look really ill-read, when I'm not, I just read stuff earlier than is invariably on such lists (really, how many of them have read ALL of The Faerie Queene?)

I shall certainly not use the phrases "ought to have read" or "before you die" on it, though. ;)

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Does 'having heard of it' count? (Once managed to impress Jonathan Miller with my somewhat spurious knowledge of 'The Testament of Crysede').

[buffysquirrel.livejournal.com]

I read the whole of it. Then promptly forgot every word. Does that still count?

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Angus Wilson! He DA MAN!

Yes!

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I was so pleased when the Observer review section had a thing on neglected writers and at least 3 people they asked were also AW fans.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I was about to say the only books people ought to read are those by living and indigent authors, but then realised that actually I only think they ought to buy those books; afterwards they can prop the table leg with them for all I care....

[tree_and_leaf]

Hm. On the whole, I agree with you: I do think that there are some basic texts that everyone who wants to study, say, English literature ought to read, because otherwise an awful lot is going to remain obscure.† But that's not at all the same thing.

On the third hand, I was illogically cheered to see 'Der Stechlin' on the list, though I must admit I didn't know it was available in English translation.

† I'm thinking chiefly of the Bible, because I am fed up of seminars where people think that the author is using a really weird and original image and it's actually a direct reference to Mark or Isiah or whichever, and also remember a fellow student moaning about oppression because her (incidentally atheist, but she hadn't twigged this) tutor wanted her to read the beginning of Genesis when we were doing Paradise Lost.

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

I tend to tell my students that if they want a career in English Lit. they need to read the Bible and greek mythology. It's amazing how their enthusiasm evaporates - but it really is true.

[tree_and_leaf]

Book of Common Prayer, too!

But it's odd that they object to reading Greek myths. Lots of sex and violence, and surely they can't suspect you're trying to convert them to classical paganism?

[lalouve.livejournal.com]

They're not concerned about being converted - it's just difficult texts about a lot of people who never existed, and it doesn't have a bearing on their own lives right now. And why should they have to read to take a BA in English anyway?
I have students who tell me they don't like reading books. Another major than English might be a good idea in that case.

[tree_and_leaf]

Oh dear God. Why do people like that think they want to do English? What on earth do they think the course consists of, video games?

And how do you stop yourself throwing heavy objects at them?

[hafren.livejournal.com]

And how do you stop yourself throwing heavy objects at them?

Preferably books....

[sillymouse.livejournal.com]

The evangelicals do suspect that reading Greek myths will convert you to paganism. As I got told when I was an undergraduate Classicist attempting to be an evangelical.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

I'd never put a figure on them, and I wouldn't go by literary merit, but I would like it if even more people read the books that are the origins of references in speech or other books, just so they know what the others are talking about. Admittedly this would mean I would have to get fiercely evangelical about Molesworth, just so I could write "Any fule kno" with an easier conscience.