Very odd to count plays: Waiting for Godot and Death of a Salesman, too.
And what exactly are these books influencing? Why not Uncle Tom's Cabin by "the little lady that made this big war"? Or A Hunter's Sketches by Turgenev, which is said to have helped determine the Tsar to abolish serfdom?
And in general a list with Finnegans Wake is suspect. If it were made a requirement for the B.A. in English that one read at least half of that book, English majors would be rare.
I quite agree, George. I cannot be the only person who has discovered that the brevity of life will prevent me from finishing Finnegans Wake. And Uncle Tom's Cabin certain was influential.
I too balked at counting plays as "books"; though on reflection I have to grant most people probably encounter them only in the form of books -- and at that, only as school assignments.
More troubling is the absence of all-but-forgotten books that exerted vast influence before any of us came on the scene. (For example the novels or romances of Rousseau, but scores of examples could be named.) These are books that contributed to the making of such a world as we now inhabit: how ignore them and yet call the list "most influential of all time?
One thing further: every book listed can claim a pretty high standing in academic or cultural esteem; (spurious in not a few instances, but there it is). Yet books of piffle -- and well recognized as piffle -- have not been without influence.
Very odd to count plays: Waiting for Godot and Death of a Salesman, too.
ReplyDeleteAnd what exactly are these books influencing? Why not Uncle Tom's Cabin by "the little lady that made this big war"? Or A Hunter's Sketches by Turgenev, which is said to have helped determine the Tsar to abolish serfdom?
And in general a list with Finnegans Wake is suspect. If it were made a requirement for the B.A. in English that one read at least half of that book, English majors would be rare.
I quite agree, George. I cannot be the only person who has discovered that the brevity of life will prevent me from finishing Finnegans Wake. And Uncle Tom's Cabin certain was influential.
ReplyDeleteI too balked at counting plays as "books"; though on reflection I have to grant most people probably encounter them only in the form of books -- and at that, only as school assignments.
ReplyDeleteMore troubling is the absence of all-but-forgotten books that exerted vast influence before any of us came on the scene. (For example the novels or romances of Rousseau, but scores of examples could be named.) These are books that contributed to the making of such a world as we now inhabit: how ignore them and yet call the list "most influential of all time?
One thing further: every book listed can claim a pretty high standing in academic or cultural esteem; (spurious in not a few instances, but there it is). Yet books of piffle -- and well recognized as piffle -- have not been without influence.