I hated this book. It’s not a novel, certainly; filling 300 pages with f-bombs and see-you-next-Tuesdays without regard for plot or character does not a novel make. There is one sequence, covering about 3% of the book, that might actually be called a plot, but the rest is the self-serving and often vile ramblings of Miller’s alter-ego narrator. I’m a little Homer Simpsonish in that I like stories. When I pick up a novel, I want a story. Miller didn’t bother with one. Somehow it still made the TIME, Modern Library (#50), and Radcliffe (#84) 100s.
And since there’s little more to say on that front, here’s the Klaw anti-10, the ten books I’ve read through and hated the most.
10. A Death in the Family, James Agee.
Reviewed in December of 2007. Depressing, but also incoherent and distant.
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
I know many of you loved it. I found it simplistic and totally derivative of the first book of The Sound and the Fury, and was put off by the diatribes Haddon put into the protagonist’s mouth. And it was boring. Other than that it rocked.
8. The Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos.
Reviewed in January. Other than occasionally making me hungry with its descriptions of Cuban food, the book has nothing to recommend it. It’s definitely in the Miller tradition of sex-as-bodily-function writing, but I’m pretty sure Hijuelos was trying to be lascivious, whereas Miller was just writing whatever words he vomited out of his brain.
7. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
Difficult prose, the merest shadow of a plot, and a completely bizarre and long tangent on the specific physical characteristics of hell. I know I’m eventually going to crater and read Ulysses, but let’s just say starting Joyce with Portrait because it was short was a Pedroia-esque error on my part.
6. The Sportswriter, Richard Ford
I would guess that of the TIME 100, this book is the most-read among BBWAA members, most of whom have told me they liked it. I found the title character to be insipid and immature and self-justifying and I wanted to smack him for about 300 pages. Grow up already.
5. Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin
Perhaps the only major work of African-American literature that I didn’t like – and oh boy did I not like it. It was never clear to me what the book was about; there was brutality, but to what end? I also felt no connection or empathy with the main character, John, which made the whole exercise seem like a waste of time.
4. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
More plot than Joyce or Miller, which is saying little. Three parts, the middle being the shortest and containing all of the significant events. I don’t love Hemingway’s sparse prose but it’s ambrosia compared to Woolf’s.
3. Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence
Another utterly pointless book, also banned or criticized for obscenity. The introduction to the edition of Tropic of Cancer that I read argues that Miller is the only author to write properly about sex, saying that Lawrence and James Joyce had “too much religion in their veins.” I have to say I found neither depiction of sex all that compelling, but at least Lawrence has the tension that arises from a set of externally-imposed sexual mores coming into contact with the physical and emotional nature of sex. Miller wrote about sex as a bodily function; getting laid was like taking a dump, more reminiscent of the random sex of Jonathan Swift’s Houyhnhnms than anything approaching erotica. Anyway, Women in Love is primarily notable for nothing much of anything happening until someone dies in a skiing accident, after which the book mercifully ends.
2. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller.
Suck. QED.
1. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
If this is the Great American Novel, everyone should just put away their typewriters and go home. They chase a whale that may or may not exist. There are extended passages that seem to be straight out of a 19th century whaleopedia. They chase some more. That’s pretty much the book, and the prose is maddeningly slow. Yet it was #5 on the Novel 100 and will come up in any discussion of great novels in the English language. My wife was an English major but never read the book for any class; she asked one of her college professors if she should read it, knowing it was considered a classic, and he gave an emphatic, “No.” He was probably later denied tenure for literary apostasy.
That list includes four books on the Novel 100 and five on the TIME 100, so even those rankings haven’t been fully reliable as my reading lists.
Next up: The City and the Mountains
I usually get weird looks from other well-read people when I say that I hated Moby Dick. At least I know now that I’m not alone in my opinions.
Very off topic, but I was at the game last night and tried finding you behind home plate about 5 times and couldn’t spot you. Do you look a lot different in person? If you were wearing a hat that doesn’t help, unless it was pink of course.
Only read 2 from the list; I’m one of those who enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, but hated To the Lighthouse – I think it’s the only book I read in high school that I never finished (got a few pages into the last reading assignment and said screw it). It would be #2 on my list; #1 would be Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (the only thing I’ve read by her), which I found stylistically derivative of Faulkner, unnecessarily difficult to read, and simply repugnant at various points. I don’t think I could go beyond 2, though – I generally don’t have the patience to read all that much of something I don’t enjoy. Atlas Shrugged is a weird one – I got about 700 pages through (and was enjoying it), then hit a 50 page speech. Seriously, how can anyone think that’s a good choice as an author? Didn’t we all learn about show, not tell, in creative writing? Anyway, I got through 10 pages of it, then never picked up the book again.
Sorry for the mini-rant, but it does feel good to bash on these books you’re “supposed to like” every once in awhile.
I only disagree with your assessment of A Death in the Family; it holds up for me. Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridien accomplishes everything that Melville tried and failed to to do with Moby Dick. Melville was certainly capable of great writing (see Bartleby the Scrivener), but he was given far too much credit for his scope and not enough criticism for his execution with Moby Dick.
I was introduced to Moby Dick through an abridged version when I was 9. This edition skipped through all of the dull parts and symbolism and cut to the literal chase. When I finally picked up the full novel about 15 years later I wondered who had replaced the great short story I remembered with a dull novel.
Out of curiosity, if you could remove these 10 and add ten that did not make the lists what would they be?
Joe, if you mean SDSU, I was there, and two other readers spotted me. I always wear a hat when scouting – it’s been a blue hat that says “UFO HEFEWEIZEN” across the front for at least the last year and a half.
Will: Two books I cut from this list were ones I read as a child and haven’t re-read, so I thought it unfair to kill them – The Scarlet Letter and Catcher in the Rye.
Make room on your list for The Grapes of Wrath.
I think Will means that, if you were to remove these 10 books from your various lists, what 10 books (not already on the Time 100, Novel 100, etc) would you choose to replace them?
As to Joyce–I know you intend to read Ulysses because it’s on all your lists, but as someone who has read, literally, the totality of Joyce’s work, let me advise you against it. I like Portrait and Ulysses, and even have a certain admiration for Finnegans Wake. But if you didn’t like Portrait, you will almost certainly be unable to withstand the considerably longer, more abstract, more bizarre later works of Joyce. If, however, you do wish to give Joyce a second chance, let me implore you: read Dubliners. It’s Joyce’s short story collection, published at the outset of his career. Some of the stories are a bit bizarre (“An Encounter”), but others are so shockingly interesting and/or beautiful (see “Araby” and, most especially, “The Dead”), you’ll wonder why Joyce started writing all this brutal stuff.
Joyce has four major works: Dubliners, Portrait, Ulysses, Finnegans Wake. That’s the order they were written in, and that’s the order in which they are readable also. Each book is progressively less enjoyable (albeit, in some ways, more interesting) than the ones previous. Finnegans Wake is unreadable, unendurable, impossible. Ulysses is only partly so. Portrait is a chore. And Dubliners? Dubliners is beautiful, I promise.
Good to know. I got excited to meet you, but the ushers kept clearing the aisles so I never had more than a minute to scan the section. Next time I guess. I’m looking forward to reading your full report, but just from a casual perspective that game was ridiculous.
I saw Keith there, I was going to say hi, but I didnt know if we were allowed down in the scouts section. By the way Keith, did you hit the San Diego traffic, I saw you almost sprinting to your seat.
Hey Keith, whatever happened to Rosencrantz and Guilderstern? Thumbs up, thumbs down? Not going to mention it because it isn’t prose? I love Tom Stoppard and everything he does, personally, I’m just curious for more opinions that aren’t as blindly supportive.
Andrew, Keith mentioned it in a comment for another post – he said he probably won’t do a post on it:
“It didn’t make any strong impressions on me. It’s brief and thin, with some funny slapstick moments and a couple of quotable lines. And I’m sure it loses a lot when it’s not seen live.”
Personally, I’m not sure how much seeing it live adds – I recall, several years ago, preferring reading the play to watching Stoppard’s own film version of it. But of course that’s just my own remembrance of things past (nor was it a live performance, strictly speaking).
And I’ll echo TC on Dubliners – it’s the only Joyce I’ve read or plan to read, because I don’t see myself enjoying anything of novel length in his style, but in smaller doses his prose can really shine. I recall loving Araby and being blown away by the last couple pages of The Dead.
What the hell is this “BBWAA”?
The BBWAA is the Baseball Writers Association of America, the sportswriters association that votes on the Hall of Fame, Cy Young, MVP, etc.
I could not disagree more on Moby Dick. The worst I have read is clearly the aforementioned Ulysses. I will not deny that Moby Dick has its dull moments (the middle of the book is quite a chore), but the story is a beautiful allegory. Could Melville have used a better editor? Sure. But over-all the book is a masterpiece, and it’s certainly hard to argue that it is the worst classic of all time, and it will take more than saying that it’s a whaleopedia to convince me.
I must say that when I listened to “The Curious Incident..” on a plane I was fully aware that I formed a better opinion of that book than I would have if I read it…. I didn’t regret listening but I didn’t hate it.
i can’t believe i saw somebody mention bartleby the scrivener as a testament to brilliant writing.
I could have sworn the initialism for the baseball writers’ org had an “R” in there somewhere …
Jeter starting over Rollins at SS with Rollins in the lineup at DH again! AGAIN? I know he barely managed the PR game, but did he even watch it? …sorry /rant
Preston, thanks. I missed that.
As for drama pieces, I think it’s important to remember that most of them aren’t meant to just be read – they’re meant to be seen and experienced in a theater.
Paul,
I know it’s atrocious, but it’s not just the Jeter-Rollins decision that is perplexing: look at the rest of the way he chose to fill out the field. This might just be the worst defense he could field with the players he has been given.
if casey martin could use a golf cart for PGA events, then why can’t jeter use his rascal?
James: I’m not out to convince anyone of anything, but Moby Dick as masterpiece? It was borderline unreadable. If the best thing a book has going for it is allegory, there’s probably a problem with the plot. The story and/or characters should be compelling, and any allegory or metaphor should simply add to the book’s value. Having allegory as the main selling point for a novel strikes me as the tail wagging the dog.
I guess my difference would be that I do find Captain Ahab to be a compelling character. What the story asks is how far one is willing/able to go to pursue an obsession.
I cannot call Moby Dick (I wish I knew how to use italics on this like you….) unreadable. There are certainly parts of it that, as I have said, would probably be edited out in a perfect world, but they also serve to allow the reader to understand the setting in which the characters are operating. But unreadable? Not at all. Unreadable is Joyce in Ulysess, which I tried to read on three separate occasions this past year and failed every time.
Anyway, thanks for responding to my post. Enjoyable as always, even when I disagree.
It appears as though there is a distinction that needs to be made between “a great book” and a “great readable book”.
I loathe Shakespeare as I cannot stand the language but certainly do not dismiss it as a bad book because it stikes me as boring. If we dismiss a book due to its readability one would therefore dismiss Chaucer or Milton or Dante. That is unfortunate.
If there is no place for complex thoughts in a novel, where are we to encounter them?
Yes, Moby Dick is not full of thirty second sound bites that line up with each other to tell a ‘pretty’ narrative.
While chapters like “the whiteness of the whale” and “cetology” are certainly not accessible, why should they be?
Perhaps Moby Dick does not come off very well when someone is simply trying ‘to get through it.’ I think you’ll find that if read in an academic setting, where one can really analyze and expound upon the historical and philosophical aspects of the work it is much more enjoyable.
For example, Chapter 47, “the mat-maker” seemingly has nothing to do with anything. (http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/moby/moby_047.html). Read it again, it’s genius.
brian, I think there are different definitions of “readability”. I think that Keith is referring to the actual enjoyment that comes from the reading of the book. You seem to be referring to the difficulty in comprehending the text. These are very different criteria. Some books are very hard to get to, but still thoroughly enjoyable, and worth the effort. Some are just boring.
FWIW, Keith, is it fair to assume that your list of “worst books” is really about the value you determine for them relative to their perceived value? I’m sure Stone Cold Steve Austin’s autobiography is far worse than Moby Dick, but I don’t think anyone consider it a masterpiece (at least north of the Mason Dixon).
If there is no place for complex thoughts in a novel, where are we to encounter them?
Yes, Moby Dick is not full of thirty second sound bites that line up with each other to tell a ‘pretty’ narrative.
The Sound and the Fury is #31 on the Klaw 100. Absalom, Absalom is #7. The Master and Margarita is #1.
Yeah, I’m the sort of reader who abhors complex thoughts and goes for thirty second sound bites.
Two minutes of research on this site would have kept your foot out of your mouth, Ryan.
BSK- Have you actually read Ulysses or Finnegans Wake? no disrespect but the “readability” of these novels isn’t exactly “novice”. Much of the point of Ulysses isn’t the plot or the story but the prose itself. The entire final chapter is one sentence…one 40 page sentence. Readable it is not, brilliant…perhaps.
@Keith
I think what prompted my response was:
“By will betheboy on Mar 21, 2009
I was introduced to Moby Dick through an abridged version when I was 9. This edition skipped through all of the dull parts and symbolism and cut to the literal chase. When I finally picked up the full novel about 15 years later I wondered who had replaced the great short story I remembered with a dull novel. ”
Applying my soundbite analogy to the above seems appropriate, sorry for the misunderstanding
Ryan: Thanks. Usually non-directed comments here are directed at me, and you were (inadvertently?) attacking my major criticisms of the book too. Which is fine if you’re not attacking me at the same time, which is what I thought you were doing.
I get that the heavy metaphor works for some people. I dig metaphorical works – e.g., Absalom, Absalom is, for me, the rise and fall of the American South – but there has to be more to it. Great prose works, and Faulkner provides that (although others, including my wife, find him unreadable). Great stories work as well. Moby Dick does not have a great story (so little happens from start to finish … I was dying for Long John Silver to show up or something), and the prose is leaden.
Beloved is another “heavy metaphor” work that also has sparkling prose and a compelling story. That’s what I want – the whole shebang.
brian, I don’t think you got my point. And now I know I didn’t get yours. Are you saying that something can be a difficult read but brilliant? I agree completely. However, you are using readability in one context. I think that Keith is using it in a very different one. And now I have no idea what you are talking about.
bsk- you’re right, the point made wasn’t clear- sorry. let me try again. often times a book is great because it does one thing well. sometimes a novel will do one thing very well giving it a ‘greatness’ title. even though it does one thing well it may be a pretty terrible read. that doesn’t mean the book should be skipped or slandered unfairly because it isn’t a fun read. my example above is shakespeare however another example to stay on topic might be ulysses. anyone who reads ulysses will note it is hard and frankly very unbearable to read at points because tense, narrator and topic changes without any notice. it is a pure academic read and anything less is being unfair to the book- hence the daunting tag associated with the book. now ulysses isn’t fun to read and the plot could be called thin (not much happens and it is all one pretty regular day) but it is pretty brilliant. this book shouldn’t be dismissed because it isn’t a great fun read. sometimes that one great thing about a book will carry it…like the scathing point of the scarlet letter. awful read but a damn fine discussion piece. I hope that is clear and again the above explanation was poor and apologies.
Klaw hitting back hard… for a second there before everything got cleared up I thought that “Ryan” got dunked on by Patrick Chewing! What’s up Ryan?
@Keith
As I Lay Dying is the only Faulkner work I’ve read, and I enjoyed it. I should probably give The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom a go, but the stream of consciousness seems to take me a while to wade through.
I enjoyed the ‘whaling in the 19th century encyclopedia’ aspect of Moby Dick, and perhaps this is where we differ. It’s such a large aspect of the work – if one found it uninteresting, I could see that casting a pall over the narrative chapters that are interspersed.
Moby Dick did inspire Wrath of Khan, it can’t be that bad.
@Greg
Went to the Mizzou baseball game on Tuesday – that was depressing. It was cold, AND they blew a 2 run lead in the eighth.
The basketball game tonight will be rough, methinks.
Greg-
THAT was one of the greatest commenter posts ever. That Patrick Chewing commercial is great.
brian-
This reminds me of a similar conversation we had on here a while back regarding movies and on whether to judge them for their entertainment value or artistic value. As you mentioned, there are many criteria upon which to judge a novel. I think what is important is that you define the criteria you are using to assess it and then keep your assessments in line with this. You also need to look at the artist’s purpose and how well they achieve this end. You may disagree with that being the ultimate goal of the work, but some credit should be given if an author achieves his goal, and sometimes this must be the criteria for judging (Roger Ebert is great at doing this with movies).
that sounds like the old subjective vs objective- descarte vs heidegger- post modern vs modern debate. that sort of boils down to dogmatics. I’m still more interested in looking at the great books canon and giving them the benefit of the doubt. the moby dicks, brothers k, ulysses, king lear etc have earned the right to be read and appreciated for their contributions. a simple dismissal of the books seems wrong to me. i think this would be a modern agrument haha and perhaps I’m wrong.
@ Ryan -Just getting back to this post several days after commenting earlier and I have to say that you are right, the novel is the best medium for delivering complex thought but Moby Dick delivers more tedium than complexity and that opinion has nothing to do with a need for sound bytes just my need for something readable. I realize that many people find Moby Dick to be a masterpiece but I am not among them.
brian-
I suppose I would respond to that by saying that faulting a book does not mean completely devaluing it. I don’t think Keith is simply dismissing these books. At the same time, we need to get away from the idea that classic books are classic because they have always been classics. Some traditions are valuable inherently; some traditions are valued because they always have been. Tradition for tradition sakes is foolish.
Do the books you mentioned offer contributions to the literary world? Absolutely. It is possible to get those same contributions from books that people may find more enjoyable? Absolutely. If you enjoy Moby Dick, by all means read it. But to indicate that it has something that no book written before or since possesses is narrow-minded. And I think, judging by the selections Keith listed, he is not trying to throw out the entire old literary guard. His selections cover a range of the spectrum, and simply indicate his feelings on specific books who’s value he thinks is overstated or he simply didn’t enjoy reading.
BSK – “I suppose I would respond to that by saying that faulting a book does not mean completely devaluing it” We completely agree. That was my entire point. Just because a book isn’t terribly fun to read it shouldn’t be dismissed. The books above case in point.
According to your example, a Judy Bloom or a Danielle Steele novel would offer simliar value as Ulysses or Moby Dick. Is this what you’re arguing? I’m sure most would disagree. Lets not dismiss a canon because it is in a tradition. Lets dismiss a tradition when warranted. If this is the argument that is posited then lets discuss.
BTW I think this is interesting and apologize for being a jerk earlier.
brian-
I don’t think a Judy Bloom or Danielle Steele novel is of similar value to the books you mentioned. Not those specific authors. I’m not sure where in my point I indicated such, but my point was more related to authors who offer something as valuable as Moby Dick or Ulysses but have not been elevated to “classic” status. I don’t think that Bloom or Steele are those authors.
But I definitely think there are untapped or underutilized sources that can contribute new things to the literary world or contribute already-existing things in new or different ways. I’ve taken literature courses that completely ignore black writers or female writers, because all of the “classics” were written by old white guys. Completely ridiculous, but I don’t think that is an uncommon experience with the way some people approach literature.
I agree that we shouldn’t dismiss something just because it is tradition. That is as foolish as valuing something just because it was previously valued. Things need to be constantly evaluated and re-evaluated and looked at critically to determine its best use and value.
There certainly is value to books that goes beyond enjoyability. But how much one enjoys a book can influence how they are able to access the other things a work has to offer. And I simply can’t believe that any individual work offers something so unique that it can’t be found elsewhere, therefor giving people more options to access that offering and ideally able to do so with a work that they do enjoy reading.
No need to apologize.
BSK – a couple of points
1. So because someone is an “old white guy” the work is not as worthwhile as a “young black girl”? That’s crazy. This isn’t a vacuum as most previous generations great authors were old and white. I never understood the argument to dismiss a book based on race or age. The better question is: Is the literature worth while?
2. I think books are not created equal, just like baseball players. Canon’s of classic books are essentially low hanging fruit. They are books we know are good (qualification of good notwithstanding). There is no argument about Brothers K, King Lear, Ulysses, Moby Dick, so lets read those books. Can new books be added to that canon? YES! Would you put a Mitch Albom book (Tuesday’s with Morrie)on the “classic” canon? It was sure a popular read and I thought it thoughtful. Classic? Perhaps this is debatable (I vote no) but this leaves the door open – wherefore Judy Bloome and Danielle Steele are allowed to enter the discussion.
3. Enjoyment I think is overrated when discussing literature value. Reading a law text book is not enjoyable, or fun, but valuable: yes. Playing video games: fun yes. valuable – no. Perhaps this is all too academic but sometimes working hard can produce great dividends. I am learning how to play the piano, frusterating as hell, makes me storm around the house because a Lion King song is kicking my butt, but when a song is mastered, it is great. My wife is sick of “It’s a small world” because when I mastered it after much frusteration, it was very enjoyable to play. Just like having an intelligent converstion regarding Moby Dick (read it ten years ago and also thought it was boring as hell which was surprising because Oomo and Typee were so good) or Ulysses is rewarding. That much work into a book and getting so much out of it is rewarding. It’s like we as a culture dismiss anything hard and then toss it aside and say it’s lame and not worth while. That’s crazy.
brian-
1.) My point was not that old white guys couldn’t write great books. Clearly they have written many fantastic books. But there are some who have a very narrow definition of “classic” that is essentially predicated upon a book already being considered a classic. These “classics” were defined long ago, when females and writers of color were largely ignored. The scope of what makes something classic is ridiculously limited in most circles and I think that inherently draws the works included in it into question. Inherent in the concept of “classic” is that something is old; I know literary people who consider Song of Solomon or Invisible Man as good works, but not classics, because they are “too modern”. Many people use the term “classic” not to refer to quality, but to refer to more external characteristics of the book and its author.
2.) I don’t think I get your point here. I never said that all books were created equal. Should Steele and Bloom not even be allowed in the conversation? Is that your point? Certainly they should be, but they likely would be quickly dismissed (as they should be). You seem to be implying that the canons of good literature are a closed system and that we should not be adding to it, for fear of maybe adding something that is not worthwhile. If you adhere to that idea, than “classic” and “good” literature no longer refers to quality, but to time period, since that is the only thing that qualifies inclusion in that category.
3.) I do not disagree with the value of struggle and success; as a teacher, I know that it is often the best way to learn. Yet, you seem to continue to imply that certain works offer such unique gifts that there is no other way to get at what they have to offer. I simply cannot accept that. And I think it is ideas like that that limit conversations about great works.
We need to get away from the idea that older works are inherently better than more modern works. It’s the same way people romanticize old baseball players and think that modern players simply can’t compare. In many ways, you’d have to believe that contemporary writers are more likely to produce great works because they have the benefit of experiencing and learning from the great works of the past. To think that everything that can be added to the literary world was already added by the turn of the 20th century is just mind-boggling to me! And to imply that a difficult read is inherently more valuable than an easy read (outside of the experience of perseverance) decontextualizes the experience and implied that the reader is a passive recipient of the book’s gifts. Hardly.
BSK –
1. I didn’t know Classic was being defined so narrowly in this dialogue. I didn’t set that standard but rather tried to imply that there is a crop of books that stands up above many others and has stood the test of time. I would think Plath, Shelley, Wharton, Harper Lee, Austen, Angelou, Morrison etc etc etc would fit this description nicely. Whether or not someone defines the Invisible Man as a classic seems to me as a rather rigid decision process, but the fact remains that book along with Song of Solomon deserves to be read as it happened to be in the converstation. Classic doesn’t need to be a tight tiered structure but rather an open field of books that have held up over time. Again…low hanging fruit.
2. Yes the great book canon should be left open – that’s the point. That’s why Steele or Bloom enter the debate, because it is all open. Not sure why anyone would consider the concept of classic books as a closed system. The “classic canon” grouping of books should be based on quality. Often time is a judge of that but ceratinly not the only judge. Great books, classic books are always being written. At some point, long ago the Crito was new. Perhaps the my question above wasn’t clear: “Can new books be added to that canon? YES!”
3. I do think books offer unique gifts. I never made this point but okay. Those unique gifts are called differentiation. Do you have a favorite book? Or a favorite sports team? Have you ever heard someone ask, “who would you compare player X to in the major leagues?” Well player X doesn’t compare to anyone becuase player X is unique. Just like books. To say that Jane Austen and Edith Wharton offer simliar value in they are both women and wrote in the same era is absurd. Anything else assumes uniformity amongst literature. That is why we create lists in the first place, becuase there is a difference between Being and Consciousness and The Age of Reason. They make the same point but would they be considered equal? no. This is such a line in the sand debate I am curious as to how this isn’t the case.
The last portion suggests that the canon isn’t open (please see above). A difficult read sometimes is valuable. Sometimes not. There seems to be a lot of jump to absolutes in your response. Please note that I said: “Enjoyment I think is overrated when discussing literature value.” To make the jump that enjoyment of something is often given too much weight to your implied argument of: difficult texts are better texts is unfair and a little disingenious. I’m sure I got more out of Aesops fables than I did out of Atlas Shrugged.
Keith – I find your Bottom 10 to be a pretty good list. I personally have never been able to make it through Moby Dick, and you really don’t really fire me up to do so! I think the glaring omission on your list has to be On the Road by Kerouac. Stink-a-roosky!
Keith,
Just found this blog through your Twitter feed. I know I’m late to the party on this one–and you probably already have seen what I’m about to quote–but this post gives me an opportunity to quote one of my favorite judicial opinions.
Tropic of Cancer was the subject of obscenity suits. Justice Musmanno, dissenting from the finding the book was entitled to protection, didn’t hold back in his opinions of the book or Miller:
“‘Cancer’ is not a book. It is a cesspool, an open sewer, a pit of putrefaction, a slimy gathering of all that is rotten in the debris of human depravity. And in the center of all this waste and stench, besmearing himself with its foulest defilement, splashes, leaps, cavorts and wallows a bifurcated specimen that responds to the name of Henry Miller. One wonders how the human species could have produced so lecherous, blasphemous, disgusting and amoral a human being as Henry Miller. One wonders why he is received in polite society.
…
To say that ‘Cancer’ is worthless trash is to pay it a compliment. ‘Cancer’ is the sweepings of the Augean stables, the stagnant bilge of the slimiest mudscow, the putrescent corruption of the most noisome dump pile, the dreggiest filth in the deepest morass of putrefaction.”
I should add that Justice Musmanno was a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice, not United States Supreme Court.
It is an artist novel… it succeeds very well at that. It is crude, very true. But how can you overlook passages such as the following:
“Let us have a world of men and women with dynamos between their legs, a world of natural fury, of passion, drama, dreams, madness, a world that produces ecstasy and not dry farts. I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it: we must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and soul” (257).
Try rereading it while drinking a glass of red wine. You might like it better.
I know it’s weird to be commenting on a post this old, but I am so glad to see that I am not the only person to have hated “Portrait of an Artist…” this much.
As for “Tropic of Cancer,” I put it down after 70 pages, figuring I got the point.