The weakness of the BBC list. . .
May. 19th, 2003 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphias. . . is that it is what it is -- a list of the books that the people who responded to the survey read and re-read. That means that it's a closed system. It reflects a culture, but does not expand the culture.
I would find it more interesting to talk about a different sort of list -- a list of books selected by, well, experts as things that are worth reading. I won't apologize for preferring the opinions of experts to the fancies of the crowd. The latter is a legitimate area of study -- it teaches things about the people who choose those lists. It teaches things about the people, but not about the books. And it does, usually, point to books that are fun. And that's an important consideration.
But what about that other kind of list?
As it turns out, I've got a copy of such a list -- Clifton Fadiman John S. Major's New Lifetime Reading Plan -- a list of the books that Clif Fadiman and John Major felt would be most illuminating for someone to read over the course of a lifetime.
I'm not going to mark which of these I've read and which I haven't. I'll merely point out that, according to actuarial charts, and given my reading speed, I've got a decent chance of having a shot at exposing myself to a fair number of these.
The list is DWM-heavy (Dead White Male-heavy.) That's because, when the book was first compiled, that's what the editors were exposed to. Over time, as works from around the world, by non-white authors, and by women started to actually be published widely and available, the editors could get copies of these, and add them in.
Here's a transcription of the books they chose.
I guess, if I was to make a meme out of this list, it would be, "Pick a book listed here that means something to you. What would you want to say to people about it?"
I'll go first.
Number 36 on the list, Journey to the West. My uncle Bob spent a bunch of time in India, Tibet, Japan, and various other places. He spent time in a Buddhist temple as a monk, teaching English to Japanese high school students, hanging out with Sherpas and discovering that tea with fermented yak butter is every bit as nasty as it sounds. He had this book, Volume 2 of Anthony Yu's translation of Journey. I started reading it, I asked if I could borrow it. I guess I was maybe ten or twelve or so.
That Christmas, I got Volume 1. Volume 3 came on my birthday, and 4 the next Christmas.
I still don't own Volume 2, which, of course, I returned to Bob, some time around when I went to college.
In The Lifetime Reading Plan, it says, "Wu Ch'eng-en's novel clearly is grounded in an oral tradition, and it really demands the kind of leisurely presentation that oral narration imposes on a story. It doesn't necessarily lend itself to the kind of straight-through assault that is the modern appraoch to reading a book." In response to Dr. Major's comment here, I would have to say, with deep respect, "bullshit." I tore through those books. I mean, we're talking flashlight-under-the-covers, "Just one more chapter, Mom," walk-into-lamppost books here. Sure, they had hundreds of pages of footnotes, endnotes, linguistic commentary and so forth. Yes, Yu's work is a scholarly masterpiece, and it is clearly supposed to be aimed at an academic audience. But Anthony Yu clearly understood that this stuff was fun. And he clearly realized that a good translation of a fun book has to be fun to read.
These are superhero pulp stories, pure and simple. Sure, they CLAIM it's a holy Buddhist scripture, they CLAIM that this is a religiously significant work -- but every chapter is something like "Hsuan-tang gets captured by monsters! Oh, no! Pigsy and Sandy have been captured, too! How can Monkey possibly save them all before the candle burns through the rope dropping them all into the pit of piranhas!"
I mean, the basic plot is, "Monkey is such a badass that he nearly took over heaven. All the gods managed to capture him, but even they couldn't kill him. They managed to strip him of his powers, and imprison him. Now, thousands of years later, Tripitaka is going on a Dangerous Mission. And the gods offer Monkey a deal: protect this monk, and you can be let out of your prison. Can one badass monkey, stripped of his power, manage to protect a monk, as, together, they go on a JOURNEY TO THE WEST!!"
For the record, the incredibly cheezey late-seventies anime SF Saiyuki: Starzinger, released in English as Spaceketeers was based on this legend. Then, of course, there's Monkey Magic!, and, for that matter, DragonBall -- also based on this important religious legend. It's why Goku has a tail. What, you don't believe me?
I would find it more interesting to talk about a different sort of list -- a list of books selected by, well, experts as things that are worth reading. I won't apologize for preferring the opinions of experts to the fancies of the crowd. The latter is a legitimate area of study -- it teaches things about the people who choose those lists. It teaches things about the people, but not about the books. And it does, usually, point to books that are fun. And that's an important consideration.
But what about that other kind of list?
As it turns out, I've got a copy of such a list -- Clifton Fadiman John S. Major's New Lifetime Reading Plan -- a list of the books that Clif Fadiman and John Major felt would be most illuminating for someone to read over the course of a lifetime.
I'm not going to mark which of these I've read and which I haven't. I'll merely point out that, according to actuarial charts, and given my reading speed, I've got a decent chance of having a shot at exposing myself to a fair number of these.
The list is DWM-heavy (Dead White Male-heavy.) That's because, when the book was first compiled, that's what the editors were exposed to. Over time, as works from around the world, by non-white authors, and by women started to actually be published widely and available, the editors could get copies of these, and add them in.
Here's a transcription of the books they chose.
I guess, if I was to make a meme out of this list, it would be, "Pick a book listed here that means something to you. What would you want to say to people about it?"
I'll go first.
Number 36 on the list, Journey to the West. My uncle Bob spent a bunch of time in India, Tibet, Japan, and various other places. He spent time in a Buddhist temple as a monk, teaching English to Japanese high school students, hanging out with Sherpas and discovering that tea with fermented yak butter is every bit as nasty as it sounds. He had this book, Volume 2 of Anthony Yu's translation of Journey. I started reading it, I asked if I could borrow it. I guess I was maybe ten or twelve or so.
That Christmas, I got Volume 1. Volume 3 came on my birthday, and 4 the next Christmas.
I still don't own Volume 2, which, of course, I returned to Bob, some time around when I went to college.
In The Lifetime Reading Plan, it says, "Wu Ch'eng-en's novel clearly is grounded in an oral tradition, and it really demands the kind of leisurely presentation that oral narration imposes on a story. It doesn't necessarily lend itself to the kind of straight-through assault that is the modern appraoch to reading a book." In response to Dr. Major's comment here, I would have to say, with deep respect, "bullshit." I tore through those books. I mean, we're talking flashlight-under-the-covers, "Just one more chapter, Mom," walk-into-lamppost books here. Sure, they had hundreds of pages of footnotes, endnotes, linguistic commentary and so forth. Yes, Yu's work is a scholarly masterpiece, and it is clearly supposed to be aimed at an academic audience. But Anthony Yu clearly understood that this stuff was fun. And he clearly realized that a good translation of a fun book has to be fun to read.
These are superhero pulp stories, pure and simple. Sure, they CLAIM it's a holy Buddhist scripture, they CLAIM that this is a religiously significant work -- but every chapter is something like "Hsuan-tang gets captured by monsters! Oh, no! Pigsy and Sandy have been captured, too! How can Monkey possibly save them all before the candle burns through the rope dropping them all into the pit of piranhas!"
I mean, the basic plot is, "Monkey is such a badass that he nearly took over heaven. All the gods managed to capture him, but even they couldn't kill him. They managed to strip him of his powers, and imprison him. Now, thousands of years later, Tripitaka is going on a Dangerous Mission. And the gods offer Monkey a deal: protect this monk, and you can be let out of your prison. Can one badass monkey, stripped of his power, manage to protect a monk, as, together, they go on a JOURNEY TO THE WEST!!"
For the record, the incredibly cheezey late-seventies anime SF Saiyuki: Starzinger, released in English as Spaceketeers was based on this legend. Then, of course, there's Monkey Magic!, and, for that matter, DragonBall -- also based on this important religious legend. It's why Goku has a tail. What, you don't believe me?
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-19 08:18 pm (UTC)I didn't know the name of the original for the Monkey series though - that *would* be worth looking into :)
I don't see that is a weakness
Date: 2003-05-20 01:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-20 05:35 am (UTC)I am ashamed that, much as I love Jane Austen, I haven't read everything by her, but what I've read, I do love. And read over and over again. (Probably why I haven't had time to read all she wrote.) I am not ashamed that I haven't read Bridget Jones's Diary. In fact, I view it as a point of pride.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-20 06:30 am (UTC)I think that depends on how one approaches such a list.
On the one hand, if somebody in authority comes up to you, hands you such a list and says "Thou Shouldst..." or "these are Good For You" yeah, that's a clear path to resentment and distrust.
On the other hand, if there's an authority you actually respect and you find out he or she has made such a list, and you seek out their list on your own, then it has quite a different tone. That's what we did with Clifton Fadiman, so while there's still a certain amount of guiltiness over what we haven't read, I respect it a lot more than I do, for example, Harold Bloom or William Bennett.
Out of curiousity, and just taking this out of the realm of books, how do you feel about Roger Ebert's ongoing list of the Great Movies? Does that evoke a similar sulkiness/shame? And why or why not?
[Offhand, I can see two major reasons for different reactions: one being the media (movies are considered more frivolous and less obligatory than books) and the other being the presentation (not a "thou shouldst" but more a "these are cool!")]
(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-20 10:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-20 06:13 am (UTC)Number 70: Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864. The Scarlet Letter -- I read this book in the 12th grade, slightly before I became a fundamentalist protestant christian. At that point, I stopped reading fiction at all for eight years. Still, the book stuck with me and had things to say to me about non-conformity, integrity, and hypocrisy that still mean something to me today.
[1] which is a mild way of saying I find your view a bit snobbish
(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-20 06:29 am (UTC)That's because I am a snob. I don't dislike the "popular" list. I just don't find it useful.
One of the fun things about growing up in Boston is that we got to visit, either on school field trips or on our own, most of the locations in Nathaniel Hawthorne's books.
Did you know that the House of Seven Gables has six gables, and a secret passageway? I went through it. I don't think I was supposed to, but I was like, eight, and it was so nifty, and I was faster than the curator. . .
(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-20 06:31 am (UTC)All the best people are, darling. ;-)
I don't dislike the "popular" list. I just don't find it useful.
*nod* Nor do I, but I do find it interesting.
One of the fun things about growing up in Boston is that we got to visit, either on school field trips or on our own, most of the locations in Nathaniel Hawthorne's books.
Very cool.
Did you know that the House of Seven Gables has six gables, and a secret passageway? I went through it. I don't think I was supposed to, but I was like, eight, and it was so nifty, and I was faster than the curator. . .
*envy*
(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-20 09:55 am (UTC)Next time I come visit you I must stay the night, so I can read at least one section of Journey to the West, and then the day, so I can sleep and dream of what I've read.
(A really bad recent live-action fantasy miniseries was also based on Journey to the West, but, well, it was really bad.)