The people have spoken?
Part of the problem of living in Japan for an extended period of time is that if you're not careful, you can be overcome by a feeling of 'dumbness' that goes along with speaking simplified English all day, being unable to read anything around you, and just being separated from everyday critical thinking.
To help get my brain/intellect/ABC's back into shape, I've started ordering some books online. I decided to jump into the MLA 100 best novels list (an idea I stole from Sarah) and so I've ordered a few of those. Here's the list:
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html
But can I just rant about that MLA list for a bit? The MLA board seemed to go over the novel genre and pick out what they thought had outstanding literary value and quality, and those books made the Board's List. You know, your James Joyce and Hemingway and Steinbeck and Salinger (the list isn't perfect though, and it is short on female and non-American authors). But then for some democratic reason they opened up voting to the general public and allowed for a Reader's List, and guess what topped the list; 7 of the top 10 books are either by Ayn Rand or L. Ron Hubbard. BLAH! I mean, regardless of how you feel about their literary writing, the votes were obviously not cast on a literary agenda. Who did the voting here? Rush Limbaugh and Tom Cruise? Yah, real balanced voting, People. There's a reason why the public of today shouldn't be allowed to vote sometimes.
posted by Erik @ 11:42 PM
20 comments
20 Comments:
In all fairness - it's a rare man who can read more than a few pages of James Joyce without throwing up in his mouth a little. And yet it tops the MLA list.
Really, around the point where Ulysses shows up on any reading list is the point where the list becomes useless.
MLA top choice:
He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation.
The visible signs of postsatisfaction?
A silent contemplation: a tentative velation: a gradual abasement: a solicitous aversion: a proximate erection.
Reader top choice:
She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance.
The votes were not cast on a literary agenda?
personally i think james joyce is truely a genius. love him. love many writers, some that are deemed great writers, others that are not. i tend to make up my own mind as i don't like being told what to read, probably a legacy from my university days. however, i get really annoyed by what i call, book snobiness. i think that only good can come from reading, whatever the book
may be and whether it is deemed a great work of literature or not.all reading stimulates the mind. we shouldn't be so quick to judge a book by it's cover ;-) seriously, if someone derives pleasure from reading then that is the most important thing. the first thing i did every summer after my english lit exams in uni was to read a book for pleasure, one that i didn't have to rip apart and analyse to death.
happy reading eric and now i have to go and pack some books. really!
thanks kelly i agree. few of my favorite writers are on that list, but i like using it as a guide to learn some new books. and i'm not saying that ayn rand isn't good literature, i probably should have said that i've read a lot of Rand and atlas shrugged is one of my favorite books. L. Ron Hubbard has value in science fiction too. joyce is fun to read i think, the excerpt above is hilarious. i just think that it's obvious the voting on the reader's list did not end up being a general survey of the public's taste in literature, but that the ballot box was stuffed a bit to push an agenda. it's WAY unbalanced towards two real idealogical fundamentalists who have a cult-like following outside of their actual literature. If they made the list a couple times it would seem more natural but 7 of the top 10? kinda fishy.
totally get your point eric.
just had a look at the board's list and was excited by every second novel on it. i am a classics girl i guess.
i don't want to pack, i want to read!
yah packing is for losers. make tom read to you while you pack?
are you packing to go home, like forever?
yes, forever! or the forseeable future at least. we leave niigata on thurs a.m. japan sun a.m.
tom is currently an illegal immigrant (hee hee!) and is at the immigration office fighting his very late visa extension application with his ex supervisor. i am lying on my couch hungover but ready to jump up and look busy when he returns!
alas we were placed far away from each other but it was really good to meet you here eric. good luck with everything mate. you are very welcome to visit us in ireland or the u.k. i'll keep checking your blog so expect regular updates;-)
p.s. who is anonymous?
holy crap kelly! well if tom needs to be a fugitive for a while he can hide here, i have closet space. and i'm coming to the UK/Ireland within 2 years.
Please keep in touch! You are rad.
I don't know who anonymous is. I don't have any friends who read this site who would defend Ayn Rand so vehemently, other than my Republican ex-girlfriend who introduced me to Rand in the first place. He's undoubtedly an American, probably from the midwest or the southern states. Just my guess.
Erik, did you ever read Erik the Viking? It tops my list of books about vikings called Erik.
Chicago - close enough!
I wasn't defending Ayn Rand so much as calling out James Joyce - ugh. I saw that topping the MLA list and so I googled the URL, curious to see who was talking about the list. Yours was the first blog I found coming down on the side of the MLA's list.
Fair enough. Joyce can be strange reading at times. Thanks for checking out my site! Weird that I'm showing up on people's google searches!
Oh and Tom, did you ever read Uncle Tom's Cabin? Cuz...
a republican? Really?!! I guess it explains a lot, Or does it? Am I even thinking of the right Ex?
no, I'm talking about Lindsay from my first year of college. She was super Republican. Did you think it was Sarah? She'll probably read this and get really mad at you now :)
woah erik, 14 comments. people like to talk books ;-)
Agree with kel on the book snobs, so i suggest something trashy by Jackie Collins, "hollywoods husbands" or something. (i am kidding here by the way, just in case the sarcasm isn't quite coming across).
I love the classics...anything by Dickins or the Bronte sisters is always good. Travel lit, too. Awesome. Thinking about it, i don't really have much to add to this post. Just wanted to push you up to 15 comments. Hooray for you.
Thank you Kat. Maybe I'll visit your blog now. mmm...nah.
Ok, well sorry sarah if you're reading this, I was thinking of lindsay though. I'm reading the milagro beanfield war right now, it's awesome! Remeber going up to truchas to watch the filming?
ely, i don't hate you for thinking i'm a republican who loves ayn rand. but probably you owe me an ice cream cone for getting it all backwards...
erik, i meant to tell you--you should read the shipping news. i think you'd really like it. also, you probably owe me an ice cream cone, too, for leading your readers to believe i might just love ayn rand and i might just love george w.
also--did you hear the crocodile hunter died!!!!!!!?????????!!!!!!!!
yah dude i remember seeing robert redford and going 'who's THAT guy? and why is he waving at everybody?'
ok sarah ely never even thought it was you so he doesn't owe you any ice cream.
and i'm really sad about the crocodile hunter. :( now i can never watch the discovery channel again.
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