Listosaurus Rex

Happy New Year!

What better way to kick off ‘09 than to look back at some of the things that made ‘08 great?

If Time-magazine’s bewildering set of end-of-year lists wasn’t enough lists for you, here is a run-down of some more countdown lists by the critics:

/Film’s Top 10 list podcast

Joystiq Network’s Video Game of the Year awards

allmusic’s (very extensive) Best Albums and Songs Films

NPR Best Books of 2008 Series

As thorough as those lists are, if you’re looking for something easier to scan, Metacritic’s probably the place to go, especially because most of these pages also have a section incoroporating in the top ten lists of most major critics.

Metacritic’s Best Films of 2008

Metacritic’s Best Music of 2008

Metacritic’s Best Games of 2008

I personally would make and share my own top ten lists in these categories, but I haven’t really experienced enough of any of these released in 2008 for me to be comfortable making the list.  What were some of your favorite movies, albums, or games of the year?

I never thought I’d do another post discussing a classic literature list that wasn’t at least focused to a single series or genre.  But alas, here we are.  Modern Library (which, I learn, is part of Random House) doesn’t have just one list for us to chew on, but a nice tandem!  Or, depending on how you count, a trifecta, or a quintfecta.  Let me explain.

First, there’s their Top 100 Novels List.  This is broken down into two parts: one assembled by a board of literary experts from Modern Library.  Another assembled by experts from a rival publisher, Radcliffe. And finally, one assembled by online voters.  Here are their respective top tens:

Top Ten Novels (Board by Modern Library)

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

Top Ten Novels (Board by Radcliffe)

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Top Ten Novels (Readers)

1. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
3. BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
8. WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
9. MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
10. FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard

The boards’ picks seem pretty reasonable.  Of the ten on Modern Library’s list, I’m familiar with eight.  I’ve read two and liked them both (Gatsby and Grapes).

The readers’ list is absurd!  Good God, the L. Ron Hubbard love!  Did scientologists tamper with the voting just like they so notoriously tamper with their criticizers online?  But I digress.

Equally insane is the number of Ayn Rand books in the top ten.  However, Ayn Rand is a writer of higher philosophical pedigree than L. Ron Hubbard, isn’t she?  Perhaps the Rand proponents and the Hubbard supporters traded blows until large sets of both authors’ works ended up near the top.  Whatever the case, having so many novels by each so high is silly.  There are decades of literature by thousands upon thousands to work with.  Do these two really compose seventy percent of the top ten best novels of the century?

Next up is Modern Library’s list of the 100 greatest non-fiction books.  Again there was one list made by a board of experts and one list made by online voters.  Here are the top tens:

Top Ten Non-Fiction Books (Board)

1. THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS by Henry Adams
2. THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE by William James
3. UP FROM SLAVERY by Booker T. Washington
4. A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN by Virginia Woolf
5. SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson
6. SELECTED ESSAYS, 1917-1932 by T. S. Eliot
7. THE DOUBLE HELIX by James D. Watson
8. SPEAK, MEMORY by Vladimir Nabokov
9. THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE by H. L. Mencken
10. THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST, AND MONEY by John Maynard Keynes

Top Ten Non-Fiction Books (readers)

1. THE VIRTUE OF SELFISHNESS by AYN RAND
2. DIANETICS:THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH by L. RON HUBBARD
3. OBJECTIVISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF AYN RAND by LEONARD PEIKOFF
4. 101 THINGS TO DO TIL THE REVOLUTION by CLAIRE WOLFE
5. THE GOD OF THE MACHINE by ISABEL PATERSON
6. AYN RAND: A SENSE OF LIFE by MICHAEL PAXTON
7. THE ULTIMATE RESOURCE by JULIAN SIMON
8. ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON by HENRY HAZLITT
9. SEND IN THE WACO KILLERS by VIN SUPRYNOWICZ
10. MORE GUNS, LESS CRIME by JOHN R. LOTT

From the Board, we have a lot of books that I’ve never heard of by authors whose names sound only vaguely familiar.  Here I was, thinking I’m a knowledgeable and well-educated guy, but I recognize very few of these books.  I’ve read, from all 200 picks of the two lists, a whopping… one book!  Double Helix.

From the readers, we have more Hubbard and a whole lot more Rand.

I’ve gathered that most of these voters were extremely libertarian, and let these views sway their voting.  I’m just not sure how Dianetics really fits into this.  Or Howard Stern’s autobiography, which nabs a spot at #84.

Really, these lists provide some interesting structure, but can’t be really useful or interesting because no discussion or justification is provided.  Numbers and names and titles are just thrown out there.  Perhaps, at least for the board’s picks, there is some explanation written somewhere.  It’s just not obvious from the site, rendering the lists nearly useless.

And then there’s the very issue of whether literature should be ranked in lists at all.  My answer: no.  Literature is a far broader medium than rock and roll or video games or cinema or American sports or… just about anything else covered on this site.

Overall, these lists are silly.  Especially the reader-voted sections.  Let’s just be thankful the voting didn’t happen ten years later, or the Twilight and Harry Potter fan groups would’ve probably gotten their favorites to the top of the list.

Note: I am not really the best person to discuss lists based on books.  If any readers come across any lists about books and want to write a guest post discussing the list, please shoot me an email. Also invited are original lists about books.

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.