Smackdown?: James Joyce vs Ayn Rand
For a good laugh, check out The 100 Greatest Novels lists at Random House
(the experts' top 10:
(Note that the presence of the amateurish To Kill a Mockingbird and the dated 1984 among the top 10 may be accounted for by the fact that for decades they were force-fed in high school, apparently the last time many people encountered anything that passably resembles literature.)
(Not that "the people" are afraid of big books: Mission Earth has got to be 4x the length of Ulysses.)
Speaking of Ulysses, it may be not only the greatest novel ever written (it is a masterpiece, though I'd plump for The Great Gatsby as near-perfect), but also the greatest dirty novel every written, so if you are allowed only one book on that desert island...
If you want to reread Ulysses, download it to your computer for free here (there's a hypertext version here). If you don't ever intend to read it, but you still want to pick up dates at Barnes & Noble, there's a quick overview of the book here and a really quick version (almost no words at all) here. Should you want to suffer the book in its entirety without actually reading it yourself, you can have it read to you here (it's only 32 hours long, perfect if you happen to be driving to Los Angeles, say, from Chicago).
(the experts' top 10:
- ULYSSES by James Joyce
- THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
- LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
- BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
- THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
- CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
- DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
- SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
- THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
- ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
- THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
- BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
- THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
- TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
- 1984 by George Orwell
- ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
- WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
- MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
- FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard
(Note that the presence of the amateurish To Kill a Mockingbird and the dated 1984 among the top 10 may be accounted for by the fact that for decades they were force-fed in high school, apparently the last time many people encountered anything that passably resembles literature.)
(Not that "the people" are afraid of big books: Mission Earth has got to be 4x the length of Ulysses.)
Speaking of Ulysses, it may be not only the greatest novel ever written (it is a masterpiece, though I'd plump for The Great Gatsby as near-perfect), but also the greatest dirty novel every written, so if you are allowed only one book on that desert island...
If you want to reread Ulysses, download it to your computer for free here (there's a hypertext version here). If you don't ever intend to read it, but you still want to pick up dates at Barnes & Noble, there's a quick overview of the book here and a really quick version (almost no words at all) here. Should you want to suffer the book in its entirety without actually reading it yourself, you can have it read to you here (it's only 32 hours long, perfect if you happen to be driving to Los Angeles, say, from Chicago).
Labels: American Civilization, books, cultural literacy, reading
posted by John Gabree at 6/24/2007
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