Book meme, etc.

[vaznetti]

Seen here, there, and everywhere:

The Museum, Libraries and Arts Council's list of 30 Books Every Adult Should Have Read. Bold the ones you have read. Italicize the ones you would like to read. Strike out the ones you never plan to read, or started but couldn't finish:


To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
The Bible Enough of it to count, anyway.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien Many, many times, as I believe I might have said earlier.
1984 by George Orwell I may have been too young for this book when I read it (I'd just read and loved Animal Farm), because I didn't enjoy it at all.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I have a feeling that I have in fact read this text, but it's possible that I've only seen film and TV versions.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Some summer I expect I'll get around to this.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Best comfort book ever.
All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. This is a WWI book, isn't it? BH, whose job it is to know such things, believes A Very Long Engagement to be the best novel written about the First World War. But Birdsong is on our shelves at home, and I expect I'll give it a try someday.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck I'm a little ashamed not to have read this already.
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon Why is this book here? It's not that good.
Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy. If I could ban one author from all libraries everywhere is would be Hardy. I loathe this book, and really do think that young girls, in particular, should be prevented from reading it.
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne OK, a classic, but why is it here?
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham I don't have anything against it, but I suspect that I missed my window of opportunity on this one.
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Don't much care for Dickens. See below.
The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger I've seen this, and it looks pretentious.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold If I were going to read this, I would have done it by now.
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran I'd rather read a real religious text, frankly.
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. The original cause of my loathing for Dickens. My seventh grade English teacher set me Catcher in the Rye, and when I came back and told him I didn't like it, he gave me Copperfield instead. God, I hated this book. And it just went on, and on, and on.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Isn't this some kind of weird, new-agey thing?
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Everything I've heard about this book suggests to me that I really, really need to read it.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel I have a bad feeling about this book; not sure why.
Middlemarch by George Eliot Tried, failed, and anyway, I saw the BBC version.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver Enjoyable, but not a "must-read."
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Not going to happen.
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn I expect I'll read this someday. Maybe. Anyway, I read The Gulag Archipelago as dissertation research -- surely that gives me an automatic out?

This is a very strange list -- I don't understand why some of these books are here. Why is there so much Dickens? And where is Moby Dick? I may hav my issues with C.S. Lewis, but there's no way that Pullman deserves "must-read" status and Narnia doesn't. When I make myself absolute dictator, there will be a very different list, that's for sure! Out with Dickens and all this modern novel stuff -- people will have to read Herodotus and Thucydides and Homer.


I'm reading Njal's Saga at he moment, in the dull, prosy Penguin translation, and like it very much. Considering that it's about cycles of violence and revenge, the style is surprisingly soothing. That Hallgerd woman really is a piece of work, though, isn't she?

Comments

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

Great Expectations was the cause of my loathing for Dickens. His books do make decent movies though, since that forces the scriptwriter to strip away all the extaneous characters and sidebars and focus in on the main plot. Dickens really needed a good editor to be readable.

I agree with you that this list is very odd. I've read a majority of the works they cite, but many of the others hold no appeal whatsoever.

[vaznetti]

He was paid by the word, which explains some of it. But I love Trollope, who is just as long and wordy and full of random characters. It's just that he seems less anvilicious than Dickens, at least to me.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

This is just a bizarre list – it looks like they smooshed the New York Times best-seller list with some “Classics of World Heritage” thingummy and made this up. I thought The Time Traveller was quite bad and The Lovely Bones very good, but neither of them is a MUST-read, IMO.

Bulgakov is fantastic; maybe you want to start with Heart of a Dog, though. It’s one of my all-time favorite novellas.

P.S.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

I actually love Dickens, but that's not what the P.S. is about. I think A Very Long Engagement is excellent, but one of the best novels (or trilogy of novels) about WWI is Pat Barker's brilliant "Regeneration" trilogy beginning with Regeneration, followed by The Eye in the Door and the last one, The Ghost Road, for which she won the Booker Prize. I personally think that Faulks novel is grossly overrated (much as with a lot of the other books on the list!) and although it has some excellent descriptive stuff in the middle about the war, much of the first half of the book is a soap-operatic story about a love affair between a young Englishman and the wife of a French factory-owner and has nothing whatsoever to do with WWI at all except that they have a lot of sex in 1913.

Re: P.S.

[vaznetti]

BH dislikes the "Regeneration" trilogy because he finds the main character completely unbelievable within that historical context (I think if he knew what a Mary Sue was he might use a term like that) -- so although there's a lot of historical detail, they just don't feel right to him. I haven't read them myself.

You know, now that I think about it, I've read some other Faulks which didn't really appeal to me -- it was OK, but not much to my taste.

Re: P.S.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

Hmmm! But the main character is someone who was a real person - he was a psychiatrist who introduced new techniques to the treatment of shell shock and he was also a noted anthropologist. Or is that not the person your husband is referring too? I don't know how someone can be a Mary Sue if they really did that stuff ;)

Re: P.S.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

P.S. to my earlier P.S.

The main “real” character is Dr. William Rivers, who really did treat Siegfriend Sassoon in 1917 when Sassoon was sent to a mental hospital after he published a piece denouncing the War (his friends – particularly Robert Graves – arranged for this because otherwise Sassoon would have likely been tried for treason for what he wrote. Here’s more on Rivers (http://www.greatwar.nl/frames/default-shellshock.html), the best I could do on short notice.

As for Billy Prior, who’s the other main character in all three books, I think he’s quite realistic, but obviously people have different opinions about that sort of thing! ;)

Re: P.S.

[vaznetti]

I was going to say that I couldn't answer this question, because I hadn't read the books myself. But now I remember that Billy Prior is the character he doesn't think is realistic in the historical context -- I remember him saying something about his having too many attributes -- that he was gay and from a working class background and all these other things.

But BH has a lot of uncommon opinions about WWI, as you'd expect since it's his field.

Re: P.S.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

Aaah! Well, I can't speak to that but billy's not actually gay - if anything he's bisexual, but even that could simply be read as his way of getting along in the world (i.e. he's not attracted to men, but not above using their attraction to him to smooth his path?)

I still think the Barker books are quite amazing and much, much better than Faulks - I'm always amazed at how much publicity Faulks's book gets compared to Barker's and this little list is another example of that.

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

I would reassure you that A Life of Pi is indeed not worth reading, but as Tess is one of my favourite books, perhaps that'd just send you straight off to read it. :)

I'm curious, though. Hardy was excoriated by the public for publishing a book so favourable to a woman who had been, if not raped, certainly date-raped. The book said the unsayable in suggesting that there could be life and even love after the loss of virginity, and Tess' ultimate tragic ending is painted clearly as Angel Clare's fault (well, his as well as Alex's), not her own. So how come you think girls, in particular, shouldn't read Hardy?

[vaznetti]

I think it was my sense that Tess's internal narrative was all about her self-loathing and sense of guilt. And then, everyone in Hardy is just so miserable, and OMG fate is cruel! but without the sort of frisson you get from fate being cruel in classical literature.

It might just be me.

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Well, Tess doesn't exist apart from her culture, so of course she couldn't shrug off feelings of guilt, but she does move on with her life - taking her baby to the fields with her, moving away from the sad memories of home to find a job after it died, and being extremely happy at her new home both before and after she fell in love with Angel Clare. Of course, then the guilt returned, but I think it would have been incredibly OOC for any 'pure woman', as he subtitled the book, not to feel guilty in that culture about the idea of marrying a man who loved her and thought she was a virgin. I think we're meant to want to reassure Tess that she needn't feel guilty. Then Angel rejects her (which he later regrets) and she feels judged by him, and there I think we're certainly supposed to blame him for her self-loathing and unhappiness.

Hardy doesn't flinch from unhappiness, it's true. I adore his writing, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to read Jude the Obscure again, because it's just. that. depressing. on every. single. count. But he can also write joy and peace, and Far From the Madding Crowd has a happy ending.

[vaznetti]

::shrug:: It may just be a matter of taste. I'm not a huge fan of the 19th century novel as it is, and that may be part of it; it's one of the reasons I keep putting off Jane Eyre.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Thank god there are other people who loathe Dickens. Many of my friends look askance at me when I say that but... ugh. I hate Dreiser, too, for many of the same reasons. *shudder*

I can't believe The Lovely Bones is on there. I thought some of the writing was lovely, but oh god there's this thing that happens towards the end? It ruins the whole book. Gah. *stabs*

And I'm bitter that there's no Faulkner and no Gatsby, but that's just me. There are so many things missing and the things that are on there instead are just baffling.

I'm tempted to do a "the top 50 books victoria's LJ circle things you should read" poll. But it'd be way too much work.

[vaznetti]

I was surprised by the lack of Faulkner, as well -- and Gatsby! And actually, Catcher in the Rye, even though I didn't care for it.

I could probably write a list of 30 books I think everyone ought to have read. It would be an interesting exercise, anyway.

[ms-pie.livejournal.com]

What an odd, odd list. Bizarre really. Alas, I guess I shall not be meeting the expectations of The Museum, Library and Arts Council :-)

A few book-specific comments -- Time Traveller's Wife was really quite good, but more in the "good on a plane as it moves quickly and is interesting" versus "good in a groundbreaking" way.

Life of Pi was horrid IMHO.

And why the loathing of Hardy? Just curious :-)

[vaznetti]

Everyone is so miserable in Hardy! And life is so cruel! It seems to me that having to live in a Hardy novel is its own kind of punishment, and reading about them is not much more fun. But I am not a huge fan of the 19th century novel, generally.

Isn't Life of Pi one of those weird "philosophy for everyone" novels? I fear that they're not successful as novels or as philosophy.

[ms-pie.livejournal.com]

LMAO at the icon. Fabulous!

And yes, misery is Hardy, but for some reason I enjoyed Tess.., but perhaps that is because I was on my honeymoon when I read it and thus the misery was cancelled out by the fun :-)

Life of Pi was a bible parable type thing that would definitely fit in the "philosophy for everyone" category. I just remember being really down on it in my book club. (I gave it a 2 out of 5 -- and the 2 was for decent writing.)

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Hallgerd only gets more interesting. Best Scene Ever; you'll know when your each it.

[vaznetti]

I can't wait! I really loved the section with the cycle of killings she and Begthora (spelling? Njal's wife) set in motion and how Gunnar and Njal are completely incapable of doing anything about it. So funny.

That's not an appropriate response, is it?

[kaseido.livejournal.com]

A very very bizarre list, with a lot of entries in the category of "I'd pry my eyeballs out with a rusty spoon first."

OTOH? Bulgakov=Love.

[vaznetti]

I'll have to make time for Bulgakov. But there were some very odd choices on that list.

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[musesfool.livejournal.com]

And actually, Catcher in the Rye, even though I didn't care for.

I'm not sure I'd dig CinR now, but as a teenager I *adored* it.

I could probably write a list of 30 books I think everyone ought to have read. It would be an interesting exercise, anyway.

You should! I think we all should. There was a meme last year with the "top 25 songs everyone should know" - we should do it with books. *nods*

I don't know if I could stop at 30, though. And I fear revealing my terribly plebian tastes to the world...

Re: reposted to fix the html

[vaznetti]

I fear that my must-books would be sadly predictable -- but I've just had to spend part of my seminar telling students some of the details of the story of jason and Medea, so I'm feeling a little prescritive at the moment!

[dagnylilytable.livejournal.com]

Go for the Bulgakov-- I have a feeling it's your kind of thing. Plus, it's a great example of the kind of thing that got censored during the Soviet period, for being way too *true*. I haven't even finished reading it yet, (darn not getting to take a class where it was assigned), and I already adore it.

Okay, taking off Russianist hat now.

[vaznetti]

I know I need to read it. Everything I read about it tells me that I need ot read it. I just never quite seem to get around to it -- it always seems like it will take more concentration than I have.

I'll have to take it on vacation -- that's where I do all my serious, non-work-related reading.

Actually, now that I think about it, it's a little weird that there's no Tolstoy on the list -- I liked War and Peace, darn it!

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

With you on Melville: WTF? Moby-Dick is a favorite of mine, anyway, and I do think it's actually a great book. And Njalssaga! Eee!

(I've just started Volume I of The Pentagon Papers and already it's crack. The bones of the debate never seem to change.)

I've been meaning to ask: Do you know whether the BH has an opinion on Margaret MacMillan's Paris 1919? I've been eyeing it with this amazon.com gift certificate burning a hole in my inbox.

[vaznetti]

I will try to remember to ask BH about the Paris book.

But yes, Moby-Dick. It's not an easy book, but how on earth it can be missing from any must-read list is a mystery to me. And I'm enjoying Njal's Saga, althouhg now that it's the week I have less time to read it, somehow. I've been collapsed on the couch all night.

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

The Prophet by Khalil Gibran - I'd rather read a real religious text, frankly.

Recommendations? (Assume the Bible and the Koran are on the list.)

- hg

[vaznetti]

Well, I was thinking that there's a lot of Islamic religious poetry which is supposed to be very interesting and beautiful, but I don't know anything about it aside from that, so I'm not exactly in a position to offer guidance!

Also on my to-read list are the older Zoroastrian texts -- I think they're usually referred to as the Zend-Avesta. I looked at them once, but it was a long time ago.