The Canons of Culture (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

Of course. https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2022/05/100-must-read-classic-books

[Grant]

90 - if you count the ones where I've seen the film or TV series. The ones I've actually read add up to a measly 19.

Those who voted for James Joyce are bullshitters.

[Mick Harper]

In that case I will count those that I've heard of. Which, once I have finished perusing the list, will now be one hundred per cent. Another clear victory for Mick "the City" Harper. I will report back when I have finished the sub-contest, the one about how 'well-read' one is.

On what has come to be known as The Joyce Question, I'll probably put a tick by the short one and a cross next to Ulysses. Unless that's the short one. I will assume reading the Molly Bloom (is it?) soliloquy doesn't count but I am going to tick Great Expectations, if it is on the list, because I was supposed to have read it at school and sort of did.

[Mick Harper]

Twenty-eight. There were a few 'can't remember, probably' and I didn't include Great Expectations in the end. I was surprised at how many 'accessible' books there were and how few of them I had read eg Willy Wonka. Of the rest, half were in the 'made a start with' category and half in the 'you must be joking' category. How you deal with 'I've read plenty of Wyndham but not that particular one', 'mum read it to me' and 'I listened to it in its entirety on the radio' are questions that entrants will have to judge for themselves.

Overall, it was clear the list was compiled by an Eng Lit graduate (and none the worse for that). I would think most well-read people i.e. someone who has spent their life reading books and has an IQ of 120 plus (by no means the same group) would have 'accidentally' read about the same number as me though I'm pretty sure another qualifying condition would be 'over fifty' since nobody younger than that has spent their life reading books, leastways not 'difficult' books.

I noted there was no Harry Potter though presumably because of the 'include one, include them all' factor rather than any sniffiness on the part of the compiler(s). However it was impossible to miss the general air of 'should have' that was ever-present but, I suppose, that is what we mean by a 'canon' anyway. It was definitely a 'good' list.

[Mick Harper]

Aldous Huxley and C S Lewis are on the list and E M Forster's Passage to India certainly should be (not that I've read it). I mention this because of a curious coincidence yesterday. In the morning. I read this on medium

[Wile E. Coyote]

I used to manage an English Lit graduate, whose previous job (unpaid intern) had been to read and summarise classics of English Lit for celebrities, mainly comics turned TV talking heads. It was so they could then present her ideas as their own on a TV countdown programme. You know the type, the "100 best novels ever".

"And at 33, we have a novel that explores themes including Catholicism and nostalgia for a bygone age of English aristocracy, set in a palatial mansion" (dramatic pause)....

Apparently they were unable, or couldn't be bothered, to read the novel for themselves, not even when they were getting paid to present.

[Mick Harper]

This is grotesquely unfair. If your job requires a familiarity with things that are, in essence, infinitely great, what else are you meant to do? Give up the day job, devote your life to learning it all, then re-applying for the job posthumously?

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

A correspondent points out that the list was not compiled by Eng Lit people but by readers. It amounts to the same thing because in these kinds of exercises people don't send their choices in with reference to, say, 'most enjoyable' but in terms of 'most prestigious' or some similar criterion. This is an important AE point. Like everyone thinking Beowulf, the Iliad, the Bible et al are brilliant, timeless, transcendent etc etc not because they think they are but because they've been told they are. It may be that people actually interpret them this way as they read them. Though of course they may be all these things.

The same person wondered whether Penguin books might get given special treatment but this was an unworthy thought.

[Wile E. Coyote]

You have two lists of saints, the official list of those saints who are actually canonised. The other is those saints that are not officially canonised, these have been turned down by officialdom despite often being popular, and some feeling that they should officially be declared saints.

If you ask the public for a popular saint, true, they will mostly go for one that has been canonised, and has the approval of officialdom.

[Mick Harper]

It is though a curious distinction given that they are all bogus (in terms of providing miracles). Some actually existed while others did not though that is a qualification the Vatican does not necessarily recognise when formulating their judgements. (Presumably the Orthodox Church has its list of 'officials' too.)

PS The idea of an unpopular saint is maybe worth exploring (though preferably not in this thread where canonical has a different meaning). It sounds a bit of a contradiction in terms but I suppose in an era of 'national' saints, one man's saint is another man's sworn enemy.

[Hatty]

[Mick Harper]

Surely all such lists are for show. Best-seller lists are objective measures of popularity but canonical lists are something different. In fact popularity is something of a contra-indicator. If the great unwashed are reading them they can't be much cop. This was why I was a bit surprised at how many I had read and not one whit abashed at the ones I had not. (Well, a twinge maybe.)

Compare that with an exercise I once did with some classical music buffs. I had set them the task of coming up with the fifty operas that are in the canon. 'In the repertoire', as they call it. Not only did they surprise me by coming to a fairly swift agreement about, maybe, forty-five of them, but they nodded sagely at one another with the few they did disagree about. But here's the thing. Not only are these operas in the canon, they are also the most popular. In fact everyone gets the right hump if an opera company puts on anything that's outside the top, say, hundred. "We're not subsidising you so you can perform Humpernoodle's The Bartered Pig to empty houses. There's a reason it hasn't been performed since 1876, it's a bunch of bollocks."

But there you have another problem. Who decided on the canon and how do they know the Bartered Pig is a turkey if no-one has seen it performed?

[Wile E. Coyote]

I actually managed an Italian probie so slyly (you are probably noticing a pattern) asked her what she thought of Calvino. She looked embarrassed. Not willing to give up, and to stop her blushing, I asked about Sciascia. Nowt. Primo Levi?........

She knew more about English Classics than I ever will.

Sadly we had nothing in common, except ignorance of our own national classics.