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Books of the Century by Le Monde

standardebooks.org

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Re: Books of the Century by Le Monde

#61

Post by jhbadger »

onli wrote: post #7
jdsnape wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of interest, why does that seem a strange methodology?

When reading "Books of the Century" I expected a list of the most important, most influential or just best books. Skewed towards the french perspective, given Le Monde as a source. But this was never the goal, just a "what stuck in your mind" question. For example, 1984 is missing, and Louis Begley Wartime Lies. And I wouldn't have expected Ulysses in there given the french source, for me it was incomprehensible gibb…

If you found Ulysses confusing, what would you think of Finnegan's Wake? Ulysses is practically a children's book in comparison. As for the lack of 1984, Orwell was an important author sure, but not particularly a good one. People read 1984 and Animal Farm for the messages, not for the exquisite prose that someone like Joyce can manage.

Re: Books of the Century by Le Monde

#62

Post by onli »

jhbadger wrote: post #61
onli wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When reading "Books of the Century" I expected a list of the most important, most influential or just best books. Skewed towards the french perspective, given Le Monde as a source. But this was never the goal, just a "what stuck in your mind" question. For example, 1984 is missing, and Louis Begley Wartime Lies. And I wouldn't have expected Ulysses in there given the french source, for me it was incomprehensible gibb…

If you found Ulysses confusing, what would you think of Finnegan's Wake ? Ulysses is practically a children's book in comparison. As for the lack of 1984, Orwell was an important author sure, but not particularly a good one. People read 1984 and Animal Farm for the messages, not for the exquisite prose that someone like Joyce can manage.

Sorry, I haven't tried to read that one. If it's even more, hm, abstract?, then I won't ever try.

Note that 1984 is listed, just as "Nineteen Eighty-Four". I missed it when searching, didn't think of searching for "Orwell" instead.

I'd disagree with you about its quality, I remember it fondly (well, as much as possible given the topic of having one's identity erased), it was a powerful experience - and I do remember it vividly, so when asked for books one remembers I'd absolutely mention it, and in a list of books of the century it does belong.

Joyce "prose" on the other hand did nothing for me but make me despise his book.

Re: Books of the Century by Le Monde

#63

Post by givemeethekeys »

jackconsidine wrote: post #36

> 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

Were these books easier to read when they were written?

If not then it's like being forced to untangle the mind of a twisted person. Finally a job for the LLM's that we can all be thankful for outsourcing.

Re: Books of the Century by Le Monde

#64

Post by throwforfeds »

zwaps wrote: post #30
throwforfeds wrote: post #29

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…

Honestly, American lists are the same. Every decent English speaking author, plus some selections of other languages. Any national worlds book list, and this explicitly includes US and UK lists, are heavily skewed and I mean ridiculously so

Oh for sure, agreed. These lists do well to drive traffic and sell things, but I never put much weight in them.

Re: Books of the Century by Le Monde

#65

Post by lostmsu »

kergonath wrote: post #60
onli wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Le petit prince I wouldn't have wanted on the list, I know it's popular and french It is very popular and a huge influence. I am not surprised (but then I am French and always found St-Exupéry fascinating). > Ulysses, as mentioned below, surprised me as I thought it's only popular in some countries Me too, to be honest. Quite a few English-speaking authors are maybe unexpectedly quite popular (Hemingway and Fitzger…

> Sci-fi is underrepresented

That's because "from a preliminary list of 200 titles created by bookshops and journalists"

Re: Books of the Century by Le Monde

#67

Post by Ecco »

Kinda ironic that standardebooks.org refuses non-English books but will happily promote a French ranking... I mean none of those books are actually available on standardebooks.org - at least not in their original French version.

Re: Books of the Century by Le Monde

#68

Post by wackget »

Kafka at number 3? Meh. It was incredibly dull and tiresome IMHO. I understand it's supposed to be written like a fever dream but to what end? It was simply tedious and difficult to follow.

Then again I also hated the episode of The Sopranos which has an extremely long dream sequence.

Re: Books of the Century by Le Monde

#70

Post by sebastianz »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #63
jackconsidine wrote: post #36

> 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

Were these books easier to read when they were written? If not then it's like being forced to untangle the mind of a twisted person. Finally a job for the LLM's that we can all be thankful for outsourcing.

Using your mind to "untangle" is the whole point and pleasure of reading. Using llms to expand your understanding of it makes sense, but "Outsourcing" the reading not so much.
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