An audience poll in three parts!

[theweaselking]

1) In order to be considered educated in modern English literature (paper, so no movies or TV), one must (at a a bare minimum) be familiar with:

[Insert your answer here]


Me, I'm thinking:

Brave New World
1984
Animal Farm
Heart Of Darkness
Hamlet[1]
Romeo And Juliet[1]
The Bible[1][2]
A Tale Of Two Cities

Basically, a reference or allusion to the major points of any of those should be caught by anyone.

What else should be on that list?


2) I'm also thinking of an "honorable mentions" list, with stuff like The Lord Of The Rings, Treasure Island, The Lottery, Lord Of The Flies, I Am Legend, Ender's Game[3], Catcher In The Rye, Atlas Shrugged[3] - stuff where people CAN still be considered well-read without having read them, but they may be missing out. What should be on that?


3) It is not a coincidence that "grade school curriculum" heavily overlaps my essentials list, I think. Is this confirmation bias, or an indication that the Essential Reading list for schoolchildren actually starts with some really good choices?



[1]: gets "Modern English" cred by proxy and influence
[2]: No, seriously, INFLUENCE. But annotated, so people should know The Empty Tomb and The Brutal Torture Of Innocent Job By The Allegedly Benevolent Overlord[4], but who gives a shit about Zachariah? Point is, you need the highlights becuse they show up, a LOT, in other places.
[3]: Being able to recognise popular crap as CRAP, and dissect the failures of logic, worldbuilding, and persuasion is an important skill that more people should have.
[4]: The Book Of Job is a demonstration that not only CAN Satan win, but that he wins any time he feels like putting any effort in, because God is a gullible chump. But this is a diversion.

Comments

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I can reference most of them, but haven't read them all (and some I'd rather put my feet into a blender first)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it's the ability to reference them, and to catch a reference made to one of them, that matters for this list.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Then I am relieved, because reading Ayn Rand and Orson Scott Card is not something I'd wish on my worst enemy.

I did read a Tale of Two Cities though. Twice. The second time because I thought I'd read the wrong book since everyone rhapsodised over the damn thing and it's tripe. I hate Dickens.



Also i go confirmation bias. Some of those books - especially the classics... dare I say, especially Shakespeare and Dickens - have retained their prominence in our culture (certainly their omnipresence) in part because they ARE classics - so they're both forced on kids in education AND people feel a vague duty to read them

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

A Tale Of Two Cities was the only Dickens I ever read that I didn't COMPLETELY hate. I only mostly hated it, and thought it was good in comparison to his other work but not a patch on the Great Literary Works of Piers Anthony and Danielle Steele and Clive Cussler and a great many other TERRIBLE CRAP AUTHORS WHO WROTE BAD BOOKS.

But Dickens is actually culturally relevant, and A Tale Of Two Cities shows up a lot, and so his least-terrible work goes on the list, I think. I could be wrong?

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Culturally relevant yes- because it is referenced a lot (I blame English teachers). I think you may be right about a Tale of Two Cities being his least-awful book. I once read a load of Dickens to try and figure out why he was so hyped and I hated all of it. Oliver Twist, Great Expectations (my expectations were low and I was still disappointed), Pickwick Papers, Bleak House (very bleak indeed), David Copperfield, Christmas Carol. Oh the hours I wasted on this crap.


I sometimes wonder if classics aren't a big revenge fantasy. English teachers as (we hope) de facto lovers of the written word had these terrible abuses forced on them and now feel the need to get their revenge against the world by making future generations read them as well

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

LOTR might actually have classic status now. A few years ago, to the horror of "serious" literary folk, Tolkien was voted Author of the Century for the influence LOTR had on fiction. He invented an entire genre which remains all but unchanged today; not many can claim that.

I'd also throw Moby Dick into the essentials list.

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

My memory of Heart of Darkness was that it was boring as eff, but at least it was short...

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Heart Of Darkness was light and easy - but I wonder how much of its cultural relevance is dependent on Apocalypse Now.

One of MANY reasons I ask!

[mckenzee.livejournal.com]

I think allusions to Poe, Lovecraft, and Homer should be recognized.

Maybe Beowulf and Gilgamesh?

[mckenzee.livejournal.com]

Yes, show the whale some love!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Homer, Beowulf, and Gilgamesh are not in any way "Modern English". Poe and Lovecraft, sure, what would you consider the most essential of them?

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

I think Heart of Darkness is one of many artistic works that has been "superceded." It was once, I think, an important book that poked at the darker side of colonialism, but there are so many other works these days about the dangers of war and expansionism that it doesn't seem to have as much relevance today. Contrast that with the works of Orwell, which has a seemingly universal relevance, or with Shakespeare or Dickens, which are still important if for nothing else than as a snapshot of culture for the time period in which they were produced. However, my history with English literature is similarly limited to what I read in grade school (plus Discworld :V ), so I'm not the authority by any means.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

The Raven

Sure people have heard of the scythe and the tell tale heart - but has anyone not heard of "Never More"? It's almost impossible to see, hear or read of a raven now without the reference popping up in your head

[mckenzee.livejournal.com]

The Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven...

Hmmm... The Call of Cthulhu and I'd love to include The Colour Out of Space.


Perhaps Frankenstein? At least enough familiarity to realize how much the movie changed.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Shelley's Frankenstein, no, I don't think that's "essential". I'm tempted to suggest that Dracula is, though.

[mckenzee.livejournal.com]

I still think they may fit under your point [1].

[mckenzee.livejournal.com]

Urgh, no good English for Faust unless you count The Picture of Dorian Gray.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

"Not in English at all ever" is different from "their English is ALMOST-modern"

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The PIcture Of Dorian Gray, I could count as entirely 100% worthy of the "honorable mentions" list. I'm not sure it's something "everyone who speaks English" should know, but its absolutely essential in the genre of anything even slightly supernatural.

[mckenzee.livejournal.com]

So we stick with the King James Version for literary heritage and we leave Beowulf behind with Canterbury Tales as pre-modern.

Just clarifying the rules, as I'm enjoying the game. It kills me to leave out 19th-c. Russia and Kafka.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's a ton of "THIS IS NECESSARY CLASSICS" that I'm all "wait, translation, FUCK!" for this one.

The Bible gets a pass based on the almost-modern English translations being clearly English, and also brainmeltingly influential in a way that no nonfiction has ever been.

[andrewducker]

Much though I love Brave New World, and think it altogether more likely as a future (or, indeed, present) than 1984, I don't think that recognition is on the same level as 1984, Animal Farm, Hamlet, etc.

I'm intrigued that none of your list are from the last 50 years. From which I would deduce that it was the list of books you were introduced to between the ages of 14 and 25, and that you were therefore born in the 70s.

However, going with your list: Of Mice And Men, Diary of Anne Frank, To Kill A Mockingbird, Metamorphosis, Pride & Prejudice, Flowers for Algernon, Slaughterhouse V, and something by Joyce.

Witn an honorable mention for The Man Who Was Thursday.

Oh, and The Complete Series Of Unfortunate Events. Of course :->

[andrewducker]

Just realised that Kafka is disqualified for not writing in English. Also, Anne Frank.

[mckenzee.livejournal.com]

and this is where I give a shout out for Young's Literal Translation of 1898. It is a literal translation of the Hebrew and Greek, including keeping the original verb tenses, so most of the Old Testament is in present tense.

"and God saith, 'Let light be;' and light is."

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

For Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath". The latter is one of his longer works, although really, if it's going to be included, you may as well add the other major Randolph Carter stores "The Silver Key" and "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" for completion's sake.