Apologia

[tigermouse88]

I write this in response to a comment on my last entry, which can be read here:

Protests soundly welcomed - I was, in fact, hoping that bringing the Great Books concept into discussion would stimulate some debate! A few words in response: On your first point, I completely agree with Mr. Adler about passive reading. I have, myself, been unable and

Comments

[tigermouse88]

Firstly, I'm not quite sure why you're investing so much energy in analyzing a point system whose sole purpose is procrastination. Can we just agree the whole thing is arbitrary and drop the subject?

You point out the role of a thousand years of editing in shaping the Bible. I concur that it has indeed been edited - edited, in part, with the view of making it a more coherent whole (with varied results, of course). Shakespeare's plays, on the other hand, were written - and not edited - as standalone works, with no implicit assumption that the reader or viewer had foreknowledge of any of Shakespeare's other works.

I think it's a bit rich to cast doubt on Adler & co's having read Njála, let alone any of the other sagas, merely on the basis of its being an odd one out on this list. Together with Das Nibelungenlied, The Canterbury Tales, and La Chanson de Roland, it does make a broad, if small, selection of medieval European literature.

Also, why single this list out as a product of American intellectual tastes? The tastes here are Western European, to be sure, and Anglo-American, more or less, but I don't really see much on this list that's so specifically American that it would not have been of interest to English intellectuals of the same time period.

I'd like to level my own critique at your book-choosing strategy. I wonder at your unwillingness to read anything that you don't think will "be popular for centuries to come". I hope you have a better intuition for the enduring quality of the books whose covers you see in stores than most human beings in history, because such things can be surprisingly unpredictable. And anyway, where's your sense of adventure? Nobody thought much of Franz Kafka when his prose collection Betrachtung was published, but little did they know!

Lastly, please refrain from blatantly sexist metaphors like the one you chose for your surveying techniques in your library, at least on my blog.

[tigermouse88]

I apologize, because I feel that I have been misunderstood, and not to my benefit. Such is not unusual, for persons rarely understand one another until after at least a few years of familiarity, and so I imagine that I have misunderstood you in turn.

Discussing the point-system, as I understood it, was a way to discuss inter-textuality. It was not any sort of a criticism, nor was it a waste of energy, but rather a way for me to 'gear down' after more serious activities. I apologize if I have made it less relaxing for you. It was for me only a discussion of how we read persons such as Shakespeare, or the books of the bible.

You are right, the list can not be specified as strictly American by count of books, nor could we say of any list of books that it belongs strictly to one country or nation. I admit it was inaccurate to suggest otherwise, but what I wanted to point out is that this conception of 'Western' seems more in line with what Americans might feel, than Swedish persons for instance. It is similar to discussing what exactly is Europe, or where precisely 'central Europe' is.

No plan is without fault, and my own approach towards reading is no exception. I understand well that I might miss the most amazing books. What I hope to do, however, is to miss books like those by Dan Brown, and instead catch books that most of my/our peers never hear of, such as The Conference of Birds by Attar. And besides, I hope that I will live for at least twenty more years, giving me some time to read old books, and then to reconsider and start reading newer ones.

It is interesting that you should have seen my description as sexist. I was not as such making a statement, but rather finding a historical reference to be accurately descriptive. It was not my intention to be racist either, although that could as such equally be read from the statement. You have done me a great favor, for you have reminded me that one should stick to comparisons to animals, as they are most neutral today.

Satt að segja vildi ég heldur að þú hefðir ekki spurt, en nú er svo komið að ég er knúinn (fyrir kurteisis sakir) til einhvers svars. Vil ég heldur hyljast nafnleynd en að nefnast, og hverfa svo að því loknu, en þú þekkir mig lítið og ekki nema af illu einu. Ég biðst innilega afsökunar ef þetta vekur með þér meiri forvitni eða áhuga, en sú er alls ekki ætlunin. Vildi ég ekki valda nokkri báru.

[tigermouse88]

Þetta er frjáls heimur og opið blogg, svo ég get enga kröfu gert um að þú hverfir héðan á braut vegna nafnleyndar einnar saman. Þú gerir bara eins og þér sýnist, og ég held þá þeim rétti að gera eins og mér sýnist á móti, hvort heldur sem er að svara eða þegja þunnu hljóði.

Á grundvelli orða þinna um að við þekkumst "ekki nema af illu einu" vakna hjá mér ákveðnar grunsemdir um samhengi okkar fyrri kynna og jafnvel um deili á þér. Ég ætla þó að láta ógert að leiðast út í getgátur um það á opinberum vettvangi. Hins vegar tel ég mig geta sagt með nokkurri vissu, að líklegasta orsök þessa leynimakks hjá þér sé sektarkennd. Ég vil því taka fram að ég er ekki langrækin manneskja, og það eru allar líkur á því að ég sé löngu búin að fyrirgefa þér hvaðeina sem þú kannt að hafa gert á minn hlut fyrir áratug síðan, hver svo sem þú ert. Hins vegar er það annað og erfiðara verkefni að fyrirgefa sjálfum sér, og þar átt þú einn hlut að máli.