Listosaurus Rex

What inventions have most swayed human history, are “most consequential to who we are today?”  A columnist for the MSN Encarta encyclopedia named Tamim Ansary has compiled a list of his ten picks, backed with some pretty solid reasoning.  Of course, you’ll probably disagree with him, he notes, but isn’t that the point of any top ten list?  To start a good argument?

Here are his picks:

1. The mechanical clock
2. The toilet and modern plumbing
3. The printing press
4. Immunization and antibiotics
5. The telephone
6. The electrical grid
7. The automobile
8. The television
9. The computer
10. Something new

By “something new” he means some invention whose effects are only starting to be understood and ripple through society.  He tosses out birth control, the Internet, and virtual reality as possible picks here.

I agree, with exceptions.  I would have tossed television out and included the gun.  Meanwhile, I would have placed the electrical grid higher, as our instant, easy access to electricity drives so much of how we spend our time nowadays.  However, the list is arranged generally chronologically, so I’m not sure he means for the ten to be ranked.

Overall, his reasoning is pretty solid, though.  It really makes you think how different our lives are from the people who lived a thousand years ago.  Can you imagine not having any of these things?

Check out his original list if you want to read more.

ESPN recently put together a list of the greatest seasons of all time for individuals in college football history. Here is their top ten:

1. 1988 Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State
2. 1924 Red Grange, Illinois
3. 1963 Roger Staubach, Navy
4. 1976 Tony Dorsett, Pittsburgh
5. 2005 Vince Young, Texas
6. 1968 Al Worley, Washington
7. 1980 Herschel Walker, Georgia
8. 1984 Doug Flutie, Boston College
9. 1980 Hugh Green, Pittsburgh
10. 1948 Doak Walker, SMU

When it comes to college football, I’m not much of a stat hound or history buff, so I don’t have particularly strong reactions here. The one thing that surprised to see Vince Young so high. That was a great season for him, but top five all time high? Eh. Better than defensive back Al Worley’s astronomical interception-record setting season that they discuss for slot six? Not sure I buy it.

For me, it’s impossible to see Doug Flutie 1984 without thinking of The Hail Mary, and sure enough, it’s mentioned. Talk about a great ending to a football game.

If you want to read the writer’s reasoning for each pick, check out the site.

Modern cinema was born in 1927, rock and roll in the early 1950’s, video games in the late 1970’s. Each of these artistic mediums are presented in scopes that can easily be perceived. scrutinized, and contained. Thus, they are topics which it’s pretty easy to construct a list around. It’s reasonable for a film critic to have seen most major pieces of film, for rock aficiando to understand the importance of both Chuck Berry and The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and for modern gaming magazine editors to know that Geometry Wars is just a souped version of Robotron 2084.

Other artistic mediums do not have this condition. Even art museum curators with doctorates in art history can only have a small grasp at the significance of each member of the wide spectrum of visual art over the past dozen-plus millennia. Likewise, literature professors at Oxford can only guess the importance of something like the Ramayana compared to something like Huckleberry Finn or something by Faulkner. It’s not any insult to those experts when I make those statements, but rather a statement about the broad, multi-era history of the mediums. You can’t fully grasp the immediate power of art unless you are around in the era it is produced, it’s just not possible.

All of that being said, there are a few novels and books that are widely praised as some of the Best Ever. Anna Karenina, Lolita, In Search of Lost Time, etc. These are the books that middle school English teachers effuse about with a hint of romance in their voice, the books that deans of prestigious liberal arts display on their fireplace mantle, and famous authors cite as their inspirations for getting into the literature business.

If literature scholars are allowed to have favorites like those, which they are, why can’t they have second-favorites? Third-favorites? How about, all the way down to tenth-favorites? And just like that, a top ten list is constructed, as vulgar and suppressive to the vast scope of literature as that seems.

J. Peder Zane has talked to 125 famous authors, convinced them to construct Top Ten favorite pieces of literature lists, and combined the lists into one ultimate, authoritative ranking of the Top Ten greatest pieces of literature, according to writers worldwide. He released his findings in a book that can be bought on Amazon.

Without further ado, here are the ten greatest books of all time. I feel ridiculous just saying that.

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
7. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
9. The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
10. Middlemarch by George Eliot

Nothing Earth-shattering or blasphemous there. In fact, I think it’s about as safe a top ten as you could have. How many have you read? I am totally embarrassed by my number, so I won’t tell you what it is. But here’s a hint: you can count it on three fingers.

Props to Leo Tolstoy for nabbing two of the top three slots on this uber-selective list.

For more commentary on this list and this book, check out this great article from Time magazine. Columnist Lev Grossman shares my hesitation in listifying literature (”There’s something unseemly and promiscuous about all those letters and numbers jumbled together”) and provides some interesting insight.

Maybe some boring, rainy day, I’ll buy this book from Borders just so I can remind myself how little classic literature I’ve actually read. In the mean time, I’ll stick with my Dave Barry booger jokes, thank you very much.