41–50 of 84 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Starting with only 200 titles in the survey, for a final list of 100, seems off to me for starters. Every book surveyed has a 50% chance of making “book of the century”
That makes it sound like 50 shades of grey would have had a 50/50 chance of getting into the top 100 if it only was included in the wider selection
The Stranger at #1 sort of tells me everything I need to know about the list. It's a fine book, and I ended up liking it a lot more when I went back and re-read it in French many years later, but #1 of the 20th century. Yeah, not even close. I know this is primarily a Francophone list, but not having Toni Morrison or Cormac McCarthy or so many of the great Latin American authors on it makes me wonder how much makes i…
To the same token, French authors who make it across the Atlantic aren't always the most valued here.
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It's completely irrelevant where it was written, where it was published and where it was banned, I'm talking about how it is seen today. It is possible I am getting this wrong -certainly possible, since I'm taking this impression from English speaking sites like this, that I attribute to the US what should be attributed to England -, but I have seen no argument so far that even strives the point I made.
What is your question? If you just want to know why Ulysses is seen as influential you can start with the wikipedia article. If you want to try again to read it you can try to read it with a guide of some kind, there are multiple, I used this one https://www.ulyssesguide.com/1-telemachus .
I'm aware that some think this book is influential, I'm not clear on how widespread that belief is. Also, whether regular readers really like it. And no, Wikipedia does not clear that up.
The general debate on what's the objective list doesn't hold weight, and I'd rather see what each corner of the world values.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is your question? If you just want to know why Ulysses is seen as influential you can start with the wikipedia article. If you want to try again to read it you can try to read it with a guide of some kind, there are multiple, I used this one https://www.ulyssesguide.com/1-telemachus .
No question. It's completely against my being to consider something as good if it can't be enjoyed without a guide. I hated the tendency in computer science to hide simple definitions behind jargon. I'm okay with stuff having hidden meaning, with texts being interpretable, I'm not okay with it just being gibberish when not studying it in closest detail. I'm aware that some think this book is influential, I'm not clea…
The Stranger at #1 sort of tells me everything I need to know about the list. It's a fine book, and I ended up liking it a lot more when I went back and re-read it in French many years later, but #1 of the 20th century. Yeah, not even close. I know this is primarily a Francophone list, but not having Toni Morrison or Cormac McCarthy or so many of the great Latin American authors on it makes me wonder how much makes i…
Cormac McCarthy is decently translated (for having read him in both English and French) and is well known. But for the average French litterati, American literature harks back to Hemingway, Steinbeck, Salinger, Burroughs, Capote, Nabokov and so on much before McCarthy. Toni Morrison isn't well known here yet, if only because her writing is embedded with Afro-American reality which is off-phase with Europe culture. Fo…
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> Many books I'd never expect to be listed, others I'd expect to be listed are missing Most of them make sense to me. I don’t know some of them but then I don’t know everything. The methodology can be discussed (and indeed, a pre-selection of 200 books is at the same time a lot and not that much), but none of these lists can be perfect. Out of curiosity, which one would you remove from the list, and which ones would…
Hm, you are right. Those lists can't be perfect and giving this a second look, I guess my comment was hasty. For the choices I thought weird I can mostly see the justification when researching the titles a bit more (and partly by checking for their names in my language -> properly identifying them). For what it's worth and what mostly triggered my comment, I expected 1984 to be on the list but thought it missing, but…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde%27s_100_Books_of_the_...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cormac McCarthy is decently translated (for having read him in both English and French) and is well known. But for the average French litterati, American literature harks back to Hemingway, Steinbeck, Salinger, Burroughs, Capote, Nabokov and so on much before McCarthy. Toni Morrison isn't well known here yet, if only because her writing is embedded with Afro-American reality which is off-phase with Europe culture. Fo…
It's interesting Nabakov is thought of as American. Yes, an American citizen beginning age ~46 (in 1945) but born in Russia, wrote in multiple languages, lived much of life in Europe.
After all you might not chose where you live, but how you live and where you die can be up to you. And as far as I can I try to respect what people chose for themselves.
> Ulysses by Joyce => 264,258 words (16 hours 1 minute) with a reading ease of 74.9 (fairly easy) Don't want to know what difficult is
> Ulysses by Joyce => 264,258 words (16 hours 1 minute) with a reading ease of 74.9 (fairly easy) Don't want to know what difficult is