Listosaurus Rex

I’m a list fiend, but even I draw the line sometimes. For example, ranking the one hundred most important people. Ever. Has there ever been a more brazen call for controversy?

Michael H. Hart is a bolder man than I, and developed this list in book form, available on Amazon, “A ranking of the most influential persons in history,” it’s subtitled. Here is the top fifteen:

1. Muhammad
2. Isaac Newton
3. Jesus
4. Buddha
5. Confucius
6. St. Paul
7. Ts’ai Lun
8. Johannes Gutenberg
9. Christopher Columbus
10. Albert Einstein

Some perusal of the Internet reveals that the biggest controversy of this top fifteen is whether Muhammad or Jesus deserves to be number one. I suppose if you’re Christian it’s hard to see anyone other than Jesus at number one because, you know, he’s the key to eternal life.

Hart argues that Jesus founded his religion, leaving only a small circle of disciples, whereas Muhammad founded a religion, spread it, was a public figure for many decades, and died with millions of followers.

Hart adds, though, that Christianity is a more widespread and influential religion than Islam, and is quick to point out that St. Paul, the main spark in the international spread of Christianity, is also in the top ten.

Isaac Newton essentially invented mechanics, the backbone of physics, and co-invented calculus. I remember learning about him in physics class and thinking to myself, “Holy crap, what did this guy not invent?” I was honestly not too shocked to see him so high.

Rounding out the top four is another important religious founder, The Buddha. At number five is philosopher Confucius, best known for developing a myriad of beliefs about morality and ethics. He was long considered the most quotable man in history until Oscar Wilde stole the title before Mark Twain finally snatched it and holds it still today.

This Hart character clearly thinks very highly of paper, as he has the inventor of paper and the inventor of the movable type at numbers seven and eight.

Christopher Columbus started the movement of colonization of the Americas, and also established the unfortunate precedent of mistreating Native Americans.

The most recent man in the top ten is Albert Einstein, who was also Time Magazine’s Man of the Century. Einstein redefined what humanity understood about the relationship between time, mass, and motion, and also redefined humanity’s stereotypes of smart people. In fact, “Einstein” is now a term that fourth grade bullies call kids who get A’s on their math tests.

If you want to see the rest of Hart’s top 100, you can check out this site, which also breaks down in more depth some of the religious issues.

This list is very thought-provoking, but it’s so political and personal that I think it’s more contrversy than it’s worth. But, hey, it could be worse. At least Paris Hilton isn’t included.

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.