From Brain Pickings comes this article on a new book:
The Top 10: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books asks 125 of modernity’s greatest British and American writers — including Norman Mailer, Ann Pratchett, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, and Joyce Carol Oates — “to provide a list, ranked, in order, of what [they] consider the ten greatest works of fiction of all time– novels, story collections, plays, or poems.”
Of the 544 separate titles selected, each is assigned a reverse-order point value based on the number position at which it appears on any list — so, a book that tops a list at number one receives 10 points, and a book that graces the bottom, at number ten, receives 1 point.
In introducing the lists, David Orr offers a litmus test for greatness:
If you’re putting together a list of ‘the greatest books,’ you’ll want to do two things: (1) out of kindness, avoid anyone working on a novel; and (2) decide what the word ‘great’ means. The first part is easy, but how about the second? A short list of possible definitions of ‘greatness’ might look like this:
1. ‘Great’ means ‘books that have been greatest for me.’
2. ‘Great’ means ‘books that would be considered great by the most people over time.’
3. ‘Great’ has nothing to do with you or me — or people at all. It involves transcendental concepts like God or the Sublime.
4. ‘Great’? I like Tom Clancy.…
TOP TEN WORKS OF THE 20TH CENTURY
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
- Ulysses* by James Joyce
- Dubliners* by James Joyce
- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
- To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- The complete stories of Flannery O’Connor
- Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
I don’t believe any of these picks from any living human being are really their favorite books of all time. All unimaginative stock responses. Why not ask what are their guilty pleasure reading favorites?
I find that I rarely ever like books that writers like or films that directors like. They are too involved in the process rather than the reading/watching. That is why I would never use them as a guide to what I should read or watch next.
Interesting. This list above is near perfect set of books that I’d recommend no one bother to read. They range from perverted (Lolita) to dull (The Great Gatsby) to obscure (Ulysses). Perhaps the best explanation is that, if you have a screwed up life and don’t want to feel guilty about it or responsible for it, those would be the books you’re read. With them, there’s no danger that you’ll be inspired to be a better person. No danger at all.
Also, keep in mind that the list above is the Top Ten for the 20th century and perhaps indicates why the century was so rotten, dominated as it was by nihilism, totalitarianism, war, violence and genocide. The top ten of all time is a bit better and includes Hamlet and Huck Finn. Also, keep in mind that these are lists compiled by elitists. Similar surveys among the public come up with radically different books in the top ten, including the Bible and the Lord of the Rings. Like I said, some people like to have their rottenness affirmed, some like to be inspired.
Tolkien responded to his critics by pointed out that those who didn’t like his books typically wrote and liked books that he loathed. I feel much the same when someone whose writings I dislike tells me what books I ought to write. “Thanks, now I know what not to read.”
–Michael W. Perry, author of Untangling Tolkien