I made a quick list of books that I need/want to read in order to consider myself 'well read'. Clearly, I'm stuck in the Western canon, and the list has a huge lack of female writers (among other lacks). Still, it's a start...

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Capital Vol. 1 by Karl Marx
Ulysses by James Joyce
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
History of Sexuality (all three volumes?) by Michel Foucault
2666 by Roberto Bolano
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Minima Moralia by Theodor Adorno
Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson
Cantos by Ezra Pound

Message edited by its author, Jun 26, 2009, 12:20pm.

I've only read Moby Dick, The Trial, and Crime and Punishment. Kill me.

What makes you think you arent well read already? If I can paraphrase Flaubert, What a scholar you would be if you knew just half a dozen books.

If someone read your listed books and didnt understand them, would she still count as being well read?

And although I enthusiastically endorse some of your selections (and dont see the point in others), couldnt we come up with an almost infinite amount of equally compelling lists?

I would include The Bible.

All Quiet on the Western Front by EM Remarque.

As much of the Greeks as you can stand, especially the standards: Plato, Aristotle, (a compare and contrast exercise between teacher and pupil would be a very interesting book. Actually, there is such a thing. It's called Western Philosophy.) Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and most especially Thucydides.

The Romans are a pale imitation of the Greeks, read them or not, if you know the Greeks, the Romans are superfluous.

The Laocoon by GE Lessing

Shakespeare, as much as possible.

Tristram Shandy by Sterne.

The Golden Bowl by H. James.

Our Mutual Friend by Dickens.

The Octopus by F. Norris.

The log from the Sea of Cortez by J. Steinbeck

The Snopes Trilogy by W. Faulkner

All of Flannery O'Connor's short stories.

Gosh, I think I'll stop there, there are so many. Between this and the OP there are several years of heavy reading.

Okay, the following is somewhat OT.

I would advise staying away from the pomo stuff, though. Their agenda is flawed. Leads to such as Ayn Rand and Republicans. Reminds me of that old Mickey Rooney line, "Hey, kids! Let's create an imaginary world and then go live in it. We can make everyone else live in it, too if we just close our eyes, click our heels three times, and repeat, 'Perception is everything!' ". Although, I must admit, that line of pomo thinking hasn't really worked out so well for them.

>4 - Forgive me, but what does 'pomo' mean?

#1: inaudible

Why not leave out some of the pretentious tripe and have some important books, such as

Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (or one of his other major works)
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems by Kurt Gödel
Consciousness Explained by Daniel C. Dennett

I would advise staying away from the pomo stuff, though. Their agenda is flawed. Leads to such as Ayn Rand and Republicans. Reminds me of that old Mickey Rooney line, "Hey, kids! Let's create an imaginary world and then go live in it. We can make everyone else live in it, too if we just close our eyes, click our heels three times, and repeat, 'Perception is everything!' ". Although, I must admit, that line of pomo thinking hasn't really worked out so well for them.

Gene, what you wrote is simply incoherent.

This is a personal list, a bar I've set for myself ('well read' is relative). Of course we could come up with an infinite number of lists, but this is the one I came up with. If you made a similar list for yourself, what would it be?

#8: inaudible

You're right, you did say it was a personal list. My list of what I think I should have read would probably have some, but not much, overlap with yours.

like i might actually understand Godel!

Personally i'd stay away from allegory.

http://www.stjohnscollege.edu/academic/S...
Start w/ the Iliad and end w/ Mrs Dalloway.

This post is totally off topic to creating the well-read individual. It is in response to Irieisa's question about pomo. I apologize for OT nature of it.

Iri, (may I call you Iri?) pomo is short for post-modern, a despicable and cynical attempt to ignore reality and create for oneself a world that acts according to one's wishes rather than as reality dictates. It's a disease on the body of Western Philosophy. The Republicans and their friends, the Neocons, are great proponents of building imaginary worlds and calling them real. "Perception is reality" was the guiding mantra of the Bush Presidency. It's science fiction style world building on the fly.

It stems from the philosophical notion that the reality we perceive from our senses is not "real" but a construct built up over millenia of social interactions. It's a cart and horse argument. does reality dictate social interaction or do social interactions dictate reality. It's a much more involved argument than that, but if you keep everything in my first paragraph close to your heart, you will be able to navigate the problem quite nicely.

The idea of "spinning" the news comes from this belief. Something happens, rather than acknowledge that it is the result of something else happening, which may be embarrassing. An imaginary context for the event is created and the event is defined in the new context. A current day example might be when you hear people talk about Obama's deficit. Or pretty much anything Sarah Palin does. In politics it's referred to as re-framing an issue. Remove the issue from the real world (its appropriate frame) and place it in an imaginary world (a new frame) and address it as if the imaginary frame is the real one. This is, in the real world, called lying, and it becomes the worst kind of a lie, lying to oneself. The most dangerous part of it is that it valorizes cynicism. When the cynics take over you get Stalin.

While it is incredibly frustrating to watch, the Republicans are so bad at it it's funny. Quite often they rail loudly and vociferously against something while engaging in exactly the behavior they are railing against, thus, Mark Sanford. Or Mark Foley.

If it wasn''t so dead serious, it would be hilarious.

#7, I reread what I wrote in #4 and it makes perfect sense to me. If you wish, drop me a private msg and I'll help you out with it.

ETA: I wish to apologize to all about the off topic nature of this post and do not wish to discuss it here. If someone does wish to discuss it, please start a new thread.

Let's work on creating the well-read person.

I would recommend Language and Symbolic Power by P. Bourdieu and Simulacra and Simulation by J. Baudrillard.

Pomo philosophy was almost single-handedly invented by the French. Another irony of the modern Republican Party. They slavishly follow a French philosophy while hating the French. Remember freedom fries? It's what you get when you are suspicious of literacy. Stupidity amped up to high gear.

Message edited by its author, Jun 26, 2009, 5:01pm.

It's hilarious that you denounce postmodernism and then recommend Baudrillard.

I'm by no means a defender of postmodernism, but I think your description is too narrow. I also disagree about the intellectual trajectory you map out (postmodernism to neoconservatism). I think the major neoconservative "theorists" had roots in Trotskyism, not postmodernism.

Pomo also had its academic xenith well before the high point in neocon popularity in Washington. I think pomo only really stuck around in literary criticism, media studies, gender/queer studies, and critical race theory. Who are the major postmodern thinkers today?

(It is also worth noting that conservatives in academia and elsewhere have been some of the most vocally anti-pomo...)

Neoconservatism is fascism for the historically short-sighted; just as Randism (aka free-market fundamentalism) is economic Wahhabism for the functionally retarded with a predilection for forming survivalist communes that engage in the occasional bout of rough sex. (I wish I was being sarcastic.) Like the fascists, a majority of neoconservative "thinkers" -- I'll wait for you to stop laughing -- were former socialists of various stripes.

The critical question is: What type of fascism is neoconservatism? It is Italian corporatism? (Halliburton, Blackwater, Enron, the secret energy meeting Cheney had, etc.) Or Prussian expansionism? (The blitzkrieg into Iraq, defending Isreal's crimes against humanity, etc.) Or some bat-shit apocalyptic variation (see Arrow Cross and Iron Guard movements)? Taking the Book of Revelation as their guide to foreign policy; treating their nitwit aristocratic scion as some depraved cross between Julius Caesar and Kim Jong-Il, packing the Supreme Court with Catholic conservative nutjobs who are Opus Dei fanboys (If Francisco Franco liked it, it's gotta be good!)

The only major postmodern thinker I can think of is Camille Paglia -- although she seems like a neoclassical revivalist -- except when she talks about politics on Salon.com, where she comes across as a certifiable lunatic.

>11 - Yes, you may call me Iri. Thank you for the explanation; you also seem to have started up a debate, unintentionally, of course. I think someone will have to start up another discussion.

Message edited by its author, Jun 26, 2009, 6:18pm.

Briefly, I recommend Baudrillard as an arrow in the quiver of anti-pomo. His whole thing on simulacra is key to understanding the entire framing issue.

Someone sees John Wayne hawking beer without realizing John Wayne had been dead ten years when the commercial was made, creates a false reality in the viewer. That's fine for commercials, but when you start mixing and matching like that to create a political reality, you are just asking for trouble. If you don't understand it you won't get it. thus, Baudrillard.

Communism is a post modern economic philosophy. They may not think of themselves as such, but... It relies on manipulating reality, proceeding as if the real were not. It requires dexterity at forcing square pegs into round holes.

13> I think neoconservatism is quite different from fascism. It arose from a completely different historical situation and is not really comparable. For example, fascism involves 'disciplining' the ruling class, while neoconservatism obviously did not mean this at all. Perhaps you mean "fascist" in the (annoying)non-literal hyperbolic metaphor sense?

15> But Baurdrillard is a favorite theorist for postmodernists...

I don't mean to be rude gene, but I don't think you know what you're talking about here.

Am I wrong, or was Post Modern originally meant to be applied to various kinds of art? It seems to me that the problem doesn't stem from mixing pomo with politics, but using any terminology associated with art (largely concerned with FICTION) in conjunction with politics (largely concerned with real people's lives).

As for being well read, if we're looking for more eastern examples, I'm slogging through The Tale of Genji right now, a psychological novel from a thousand years ago. Pretty snob worthy, I'd say.

Message edited by its author, Jun 26, 2009, 7:37pm.

Key to being well-read: keep reading.

It's also interesting that some of the major postmodern thinkers took a political/ethical/theological turn in the 1980's/90's (see Derrida's Spectres of Marx and The Politics of Friendship, for example), but this turn was definitely not towards the Republican party or neoconservatism. Quite the opposite.

Postmodern theology is kind of interesting - Marion's God Without Being and all that. I say interesting only as an intellectually curious atheist.

I think the important thing is the RANGE of one's reading. Eclectic tastes are best and keep a good reader from falling into genre ruts. Everything from Herodotus to Houellebecq. History features many disparate talents. There's never enough time to read them all. Ten lifetimes and you'd still be in arrears...

11: pomo is short for post-modern, a despicable and cynical attempt to ignore reality and create for oneself a world that acts according to one's wishes rather than as reality dictates. It's a disease on the body of Western Philosophy.

I dont think there is any consensus about what post-modernism is. But because it is ready to hand I'll criticize your definition.

1. What is this dictating reality that you say the post-modernist ignores? If you mean that the world itself, some non-human reality, is telling us humans what we should believe about it, then I find the concept archaic. While the world causes humans to have beliefs, it does not dictate to humans which beliefs to have.

2. I interpret "To create for oneself, a world that acts according to our wishes" as a goal of science and inquiry: to allow humans ever greater ability to predict what can happen and control the world (both human and non-human) for our uses. I see that as a good thing, and not despicable and cynical.

3. Maybe "Western Philosophy" is something that has run its course.

4. I grant you that Republicans and neoconservatives are despicable, but whatever connection you are trying to make between them and post-modernism (whatever that is) escapes me. I dont think a private message from you is going to straighten me out.

Message edited by its author, Jun 27, 2009, 2:58am.

10: Start w/ the Iliad and end w/ Mrs Dalloway.

It's a good thing nothing has happened since 1925.

Books you should read to call yourself well-read... The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell, A Maggot, John Fowles... no wait - they're postmodern...

ummm..if you looked at the syllabus it was for illustrative purposes of a curriculum built around the "western great books" tradition. I think St. Johns' assumes that given the background they've given their students, they'll be ready for whatever they choose to take on next.

They're not denying that nothing happened post 1925 - but they do create one of the last cohorts of true liberal arts students still extant in NAmerica.

That syllabus gives every reading for every class for every week. I just thought some might find it interesting, since there isn't anything else remotely like it available. Esp. as the students are expected to read sig. amounts of the greek and latin texts in greek and latin.

Hardly for everybody - and even w/ a very self selected small student body only about 60% finish. But i've had professors at the grad school level tell me that St John's students, though they need to do catch up work in details of their grad school specialties, almost always are much better at thinking through/ reasoning out problems than typical grad students. (i rather wish i had done that regime, William and Mary, VPI&SU and UNC-Chapel Hill were all good for me, but we're talking about "general literacy" and a background that would enable one to absorb suchlike.

16: Not all fascist parties and philosophies were for disciplining the ruling classes. German Nazis had internal dissension between the more "socialist" SA and the wannabe aristocrats like Goering. Luckily the Night of the Long Knives got rid of the SA and the Nazis could look to corporations and conservative aristocrats for support and funding. And like any political party, they said one thing to appeal to the lower class rubes and another thing to appeal to the upper class rubes.

By disciplining the ruling class I meant heavy state involvement in the economy.

Don't no-bid Halliburton contracts fit into that? Or what about Saudi Arabia's state-run economy?

We've had a corporate state for the last 8 years. We should rename the USA to the United Enron Emirates.

If you are interested in the history of fascism, check out "The History of Fascism: 1914 - 1945" by Stanley Payne I had him as a teacher at UW-Madison and was impressed. A bit on the wonky academic side, it is a fascinating exploration of the varieties of fascist governance.

>1 You may want to include the KJV Bible, Homer's Iliad and Odysseus, and some of Shakespeare's plays. Dr. Eliot had a pretty good selection which is available at: http://bartleby.com/hc/

What about non-fiction?

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
The various anthologies of Stephen Jay Gould
The nature writing of David Quammen

How about these?

The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort
The Kama Sutra
The Perfumed Garden

And for those who want some darker stuff:

Justine by DAF Sade
Also Sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
Artaud Anthology by Antonin Artaud, Intro by Susan Sontag
The Order of Things by Michel Foucault
Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
Turner Diaries by Andrew MacDonald

I want to get in on the "pomo" thing, too! Doesn't "a despicable and cynical attempt to ignore reality and create for oneself a world that acts according to one's wishes rather than as reality dictates" pretty much cover any work of fiction?

27> If you think domestic economic policy in the United States under Bush is the same as domestic economic policy by fascist governments in Italy or German in the 1930's and 40's, I'm not sure what to tell you.

There are several non-fiction works on my list.

29: Help me out, Karl. Why are you recommending Hitler? I suppose this emphasis works as well: Why are you recommending Hitler?

Should we expect you to recommend The Protocols of the Elders of Zion any time soon?

Message edited by its author, Jun 27, 2009, 6:07pm.

You want to be well-read, don't you? Recommending Hitler is not the same as endorsing Hitler's philosophy. Inaudible recommended Capital Vol. 1 by Marx and no one ragged on about Gulags, Stalin, etc. A little consistency, kids, if you so please.

Recommending Hitler is not the same as endorsing Hitler's philosophy.

I guess so, Karl; but that doesnt explain why you are recommending we read a psychopath.

Oh please, honey, enough with the melodrama. Hitler was a masterful orator, a diplomatic genius, and a wannabe artist who treated Europe like some sort of depraved performance artist.

If you don't want to read about psychopaths, I suggest skipping the Old Testament in the Bible, since Jehovah acted like a petulant child who enjoyed knocking over his blocks and whining to his servile followers like a trucker on a meth jag.

Since when do sane, normal people produce any literature worth bothering with?

35: Thanks for your take on who you think Hitler was. However, I am still waiting to find out why you recommend we read him. Your answers, as far as I can make them out, are flip and unconvincing. One was equating reading Hitler with being well read, the other was we read other psychopaths so why not Hitler.

Skipping the psychopathic parts of the Old Testament seems like a worthy suggestion.

Since when do sane, normal people produce any literature worth bothering with?

You seem like you're just popping off now. You really believe that?

>34

I have to say semckibbin, I'm with Karl on this one. If you disqualify authors due to mental instability, then you remove many great works of literature from consideration.

If you wanted to object to message 33, then you might have pointed out that Marx was not responsible for the gulags or Stalin. In fact Marx didn't talk about gulags at all, while Hitler did discuss the "Jewish problem" and "liebensraum".

Just as JD Salinger wasn't responsible for Chapman killing Lennon, so too Marx can't be held accountable for the misinterpretation of his works by later generations of readers.

That said, I still agree with Karl, that Mein Kampf is an important, while not essential, work.

eta: While I was writing this #36 appeared. I think the reasons for reading Mein Kampf are compelling. Distasteful as we may (should) find the ideas the book contains, it lays out the groundwork for the justifications used in Germany for the Second World War and the Holocaust. I think that any book that assists understanding of that tragic period, deserves to be read. My two cents...now I'll step out of the way before I catch a right cross.

Message edited by its author, Jun 27, 2009, 7:29pm.

33> Neither the gulags nor Stalin existed in Marx's lifetime, nor would it be possible for one to claim that Capital - a critique of political economy and not a blueprint for statecraft - was at all prescriptive of gulags or Stalin.

Many of the works mentioned in this thread strike me as a recipe for a lifetime of boredom or perhaps just pretentiousness. Just read the complete works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, and enjoy yourself! Life is too short. (You can finish all of that while you're deciding if you want to read Proust).

For works more traditionally accepted as serious:

The Iliad - an incredible page turner
The Golden Ass (Robert Graves translation)
The Brothers Karamazov (nothing like I expected it to be - a very wry sense of humor runs throughout, though I think you need to be Russian to fully appreciate this one)
The Trial (liked this one, but have started The Castle a couple of times and never got through it)

And if you haven't read Borges' Ficciones, don't miss it. He can create a sense of wonder and mind expansion in 6 pages that most novelists couldn't do in a 1000. Oh, and go ahead and read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.

Message edited by its author, Jun 27, 2009, 7:50pm.

Ouch, I've only read about three of the books mentioned so far, and have about four on my to-read list. I agree about Borges though, he is not an author that should be dismissed, there is no excuse for not reading his works, he isn't difficult in the same way Joyce is, and he can't possibly be percieved as boring like some of the other authors mentioned could be.
I disagree with the Origin of Species being on mentioned. Darwin was a boring writer, anyone wanting to find out about evolution should just read Dawkins, his watchmaker or selfish gene, he writes far more clearly, and is much more entertaining. Origin was an important book, but there is little reason to read it nowadays.

Message edited by its author, Jun 27, 2009, 8:29pm.

Yes, I think Borges ought to be on my list. I enjoyed Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi immensely.

well, having read both a fair bit of Marx and Mein Kampf - I'd say that Marx is often fascinating while Mein Kampf is incredibly banal and badly written. Which takes you back to Hannah Arendt.

Personally, I have little interest in the products of the cult(s) of Romanticism that started more or less w/ the petulant lordling byron and mutated into Wagner, and later a group of rather unpleasant suite of solipsistic hedonists around the end of the 19th C and together provided a worldview that helped make the uber-romanticism of a Hitler possible. (Even the very sane and sober Goethe inadvertently possibly made suicide rather fashionable w/ Werther.)

37: I think the reasons for reading Mein Kampf are compelling. Distasteful as we may (should) find the ideas the book contains, it lays out the groundwork for the justifications used in Germany for the Second World War and the Holocaust. I think that any book that assists understanding of that tragic period, deserves to be read.

Hi, beardo. I didnt think it was impossible to come up with a reason, and I accept your 'understanding history' reason. Although I imagine it would be more instructive to read a history of the period that discussed the Junkers, Prussian militarism, the treatment of Jews and Slavs in Central Europe, etc.---in short, all the social forces that were in play. And given that context a two page summary of Hitler's book is all that would be needed.

I am not sure that kswolf had the historical reason on his mind, though. I suspect his reason is hidden in his "for people who want some darker stuff" heading to #29.

If you disqualify authors due to mental instability, then you remove many great works of literature from consideration.

I never said disqualify authors. And I wasnt talking of a general "mental instability". I was specifically talking about psychopaths and their ravings and what are the good practical reasons why I should read a particular one that's been dead for 64 years.

(I can make a case to read psychopaths. For example, if there is a psychopath out in the world, say Kim Jong-il, and he writes something, it would not make sense to ignore him, what makes sense is to read him and take him at his word. And there are other examples as well.)

I am interested in who you consider to be psychopathic authors that produced great literature. And if you agree with kswolf's specific claim that normal, sane people (dont) produce literature worth bothering with

Message edited by its author, Jun 28, 2009, 12:28am.

>43

Hi Semckibbin,

I absolutely agree that more comprehensive and nuanced histories are better places than Mein Kampf to begin understanding the lead up to, and justifications for, the Second World War with its many horrors. Yet Mein Kampf still speaks to the sense of injustice felt by Germans after WWI, as well as illustrating, without the filter of historians and academic prose, the flavour of the society's Antisemitism.

Yes, indeed you were talking specifically about psychopaths rather than "mental instability". On the one hand, psychopaths may be mentally unstable, but not all people who are mentally unstable are psychopaths. Yet on the other, psychopaths are mentally ill, and there have been many mentally ill authors. My error lay in conflating the two equations.

I personally can't think of any psychopaths that produced good literature, and, of course, am able to think of many normal and sane people who have produced quality literature.

When you referred to "good practical reasons" were you alluding to a utilitarian standard - excluding the aesthetic as "not practical" - by which books should be judged? Or, rather, were you asking what reason could exist for reading a book so lacking in literary merit?

I assume it's the second of these, but am just checking.

Message edited by its author, Jun 28, 2009, 2:15am.

I'm slightly boggled by the mention of "liebensraum" in #37. I make that "love room".

"boggled"? That was easy.

I guess you missed the context of the conversation and didn't realize I added an "i" by mistake.

Sorry for confusing you.

Speeling misteaks shore kan bee a paine.

Nope. Too subtle for me...

#46: beardo

Of course we know that you added the i by mistake, it's just a typo, no big deal. But I found it to be an highly entertaining typo, due I suppose to the enormous incongruity.

Is it possible to be well read without being widely read?

I think much of what can be gleaned through hard work and earnest thought with regard to Mein Kampf and probably The turner Diaries to boot is laid out ready to be digested in Eric Hoffer's classic work The True Believer. Therein lie the lessons of the social problems created by Fascism and Communism.

#48

Fair enough - I suspect I'd find it as entertaining as you did if I hadn't been the one who made it.

Cheers

Have you ever read Marx? The German Ideology might be the greatest polemic ever written, just on literary grounds alone. One would be hard pressed to read Marx and come away with the crude Marxism of the 2nd and 3rd internationales (Social Democracy followed by Leninism and Stalinism), unless you read him with those horrid politics already in your head. Marx was not a prophet, but his work is an immense intellectual achievement. The same cannot be said of Hitler's screeds.

If someone wants to study the Nazis they would be better off reading Hans Mommsen, Moishe Postone, Gotz Aly, or the fiction of Imre Kertesz.

#52 - totally agree. NO one is a prophet, but some, like Marx, can brilliantly analyze a "situation."

Sometimes being totally wrong is almost irrelevant, if, like Freud, one's works start people thinking differently - bringing into the intellectual discourse concepts that had been embedded in literature/art for millennia but excluded from "rational" conversation. Marx, Freud and Darwin began the conversations that frame an awful huge proportion of "modern thought."

BTW - agree in re the problems w/ reading Darwin. He had some great sentences, but i've never completed even the Origin of Species - but that doesn't deny his importance.

#53: bobmcconnaughey "Sometimes being totally wrong is almost irrelevant"

Thanks Bob, that's an insight I'm going to need to think about.

"Darwin. He had some great sentences, but I've never completed even the Origin of Species - but that doesn't deny his importance."

I find Darwin generally very readable. Not only Origin, but especially Voyage of the Beagle. Surely Origin is as readable as much of the stuff that had been suggested before my proposal? As a foundational text of a significant branch of knowledge that is one of the most significant determinants of modern human existence, it is remarkably accessible.

Before one tackles Capital, one should first read The Communist Manifesto. 18 Brumaire is also lively and entertaining. Marx is wonderful as a political polemicist. "Capital" was written when he was a failed revolutionary, becoming more introspective and analytical.

#42 bobmcconnauhey: "I'd say that Marx is often fascinating while Mein Kampf is incredibly banal and badly written. Which takes you back to Hannah Arendt." Care to elaborate? Not sure if you are endorsing Arendt or doing the opposite.

I think it's just a reference to Arendt's 'banality of evil' line.

#57 - exactly. Her series in the New Yorker, "Eichmann in Jerusalem" (?) was required reading in our household, growing up. I wasn't endorsing her in that statement, but i'll happily do so now.

I'll have to try Darwin again - we still have several of his books (my mom did her graduate work in the philosophy/history of science on Darwin back in the dawn of time) - and she was a huge fan - somewhere i hope i still have the draft of her text on social Darwinism. As best i know she got one paper out of it and then had kids - back when it was far too often an either/or choice for an "intellectual" woman between family/academia.

Yeah..the NYorker series ended up being titled Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. When your almost 60 its easier to remember stuff from when you were 13 than 53. Sigh. Makes rereading easier though. Thanks google and wikipedia!

I dissent from your idea that "...if you know the Greeks, the Romans are superfluous?
Vergil sic superfluous? Metamorphoses of Ovid superfluous? (Itʻs probably the greatest book-length thing ever written about mythology.) Ciceroʻs "On Divination" and "On the Nature of the Gods" superfluous?* Or Lucretiusʻs "On hte Nature of Things"? Where would Shakespeare have been without the (partly execrable, Iʻll admit) tragedies of Seneca? Donʻt overlook the Lyrics of Catullus and the Satires, as well as hte Odes of Horace?

But I zealously second, among others, your "Log..." by Steinbeck and "Snopes" by Faulkner.

*On Ciceroʻs 2 religious works: Would Rolandperkins have translated anything "superfluous"?

--Rolandperkins
* would Rolandperkins have tranlsated something "superfluous"?

Good short evaluation of K. Marx, ks Wolff. A point a lot of people miss, in tackling Marx, I think, is that his expertise was in capitalism, not in socialism or anarchism. And it was an expertise that didnʻt come naturally to him, but was attained by hard work. He was a scholar in the strict sense of the word.

"Failed revolutionary" by the time he wrote "Capital"? I donʻt have the biographical or even the historical data to confirm or deny that. You would probably get a lot of arguments against it.

Rolandperkins

datrappert (m.39), I also have started "The Castle" several times, and never gotten through it. Im not sure just what makes it much less readable than "The Trial" which I think is tremendous. ("The Metamorphosis" Iʻm inclilned to think, is over-rated. By the way, "over-rated" and "mediocre" are to me not synonyms of no good". In fact, an author has to be good to BE over-rated.

53: Sometimes being totally wrong is almost irrelevant, if, like Freud, one's works start people thinking differently - bringing into the intellectual discourse concepts that had been embedded in literature/art for millennia but excluded from "rational" conversation. Marx, Freud and Darwin began the conversations that frame an awful huge proportion of "modern thought."

Darwin (and Mendel) gave us a mechanistic view of biology to go with our Copernican mechanistic view of the universe. Freud's unconscious is still with us.

But here we are 20 years after 1989 and my question is (at the risk of being accused of being naive): What in Marx is still alive and worth saving? I imagine there is something.

(By analogy, Nietzsche and Hegel were appropriated by National Socialism, but that didnt mean they were all bad; there are ideas they had that are useful to us today.)

well, to be trite in re Marx: the conversation he started is what's worth saving. A point of view. Not a philosophy, not a "system" but, for lack of a better word, the first, truly "sociological" perspective on the relationship between the individual, family and political economy. And a voice with which political and economic and social thought have had to converse with, wittingly or not, ever since. I happen to think he was very much correct in much of his analysis of the social problems of his time - much of which has stayed with us - the idea of the person being alienated from his work, his analysis of the place of women in family and society, the fetishism of "capital" - but whether he was right or wrong, he helped frame the discussions on these and related subjects in a fashion that forced response-initially on his terms.

So, again, i'd submit that between them Darwin/Freud/Marx created the intellectual force field that created "the modern mind." The "modern psyche" is different as i was reminded, correctly, in a related discussion, and there's far to much i haven't read to begin to think who were the "souls" responsible for the beings that flounder through the slough of despond/hope that we are in today. Kafka+ Dostoevsky+Freud? I wouldn't hazard a guess. The modern soul is likely both simpler and far more complex than the intellectual sea in which it swims (or flounders) joke...ha ha, as Eeyore would have said.

#63: bobmcconnaughey "joke...ha ha, as Eeyore would have said."

Another book every well-read person should have read!

#64: Once asked someone whether he had read Winnie-the-Pooh as a child, which I just assumed everyone had. His response: "I don't like Disney stuff." Wanted to punch him square in the jaw...

That's like the guy who referred to the Beatles as Paul McCartney's first backup band.

>65 - I haven't ever read Winnie-the-Pooh, to be honest...

I'll get around to it.

>67--And Wind in the Willows, if you haven't. The problem is that some books only work if you read them at the right time. Lord Jim works much less well if you pick it up at 40 instead of 21.

The key to becoming well-read is having a set of judgment criteria. This is probably the main real difference between the schooled and the autodidact: school teaches you where to put everything, and how to figure out for yourself whether you should put it somewhere in the first place, with much less hassle.
I'd try Bloom's Western Canon for ideas. Before anyone gets in a snit, Bloom's major criterion for inclusion on his list was demonstrated literary influence on conceptions of Western literature. Good books are not always influential; many popular books have little or no influence. But if you're trying to be "well-read," measuring influence is one of the only justifiable ways to even try to tackle the problem.
After you are well-read, it becomes much easier to seek out the weird, the unusual, the guilty pleasure.
Judging by this, I'd say the Bolano (too new), the Adorno and Thompson (too specialized) and the Pound (too specialized/dependent on prior knowledge) should be taken off the OP's list. The Pynchon should probably be replaced with Crying of Lot 49, as there's a slowly-growing consensus that it's the one with more legs. The Foucault strikes me as less influential than it believes it is, and definitely less ultimately influential than it believes it will be. But it sneaks in. Good books, yes. Necessary to "well-read," no, at least not to start.

>68 - Yes, I'll need to read The Wind in the Willows, too.

Should a book or author really be disqualified straight-out due to "new"ness?

68> Having already read Crying of Lot 49 I did not put it on my list.

My list is definitely a personal one, thus the specialized titles.

To OP, I guess for me it would help if I read some non western books/subjects. I'll have to think about what I'd like to read. Maybe my boyfriend can help me compile a list.

> 69 - I don't think that you need to read Wind in the Willows, but then I hated it passionately both as a child and as an adult. It reminded me of a boring professor trying to teach Sunday school. Tedious, pedantic, moralizing, and (worst of all) not interesting to children. I am sure that others have a different point of view, however. The Secret Garden and Charlotte's Web would be my recommendations for children, although, they are girl friendly.

Regarding Freud, as someone who works in a mental health related profession, I feel no obligation to read that unscientific nonsense. It might be good to know the basics so that you can understand references, but as far as I can tell, most of the progress in the field has taken place despite Freud and his followers, not because of him. I think that his treatment of the subject of mental illness is largely the current stigma and lack of parity in mental health coverage (in the U.S.). By that I mean that he did not treat mental illness as a disease of the brain and his ideas for treatment involve years of completely useless style therapy. Also, I don't think that he respected women much, which might have been a product of the time...

um, sorry about the soapbox thing...

1 & 70: inaudible, I'm interested in the idiosyncratic parts of your list, namely: What has led you to Foucault and Adorno? And, for that matter, what has led you to Pound?

72: Regarding Freud, as someone who works in a mental health related profession, I feel no obligation to read that unscientific nonsense.... as far as I can tell, most of the progress in the field has taken place despite Freud and his followers.... he did not treat mental illness as a disease of the brain and his ideas for treatment involve years of completely useless style therapy.

How does the mental health field approach irrationality---things like why we act based on wishful thinking or other premises we know to be incorrect. It seems Freud's ideas about the unconscious could be of help there, but perhaps I'm mistaken.

>72 - I've read The Secret Garden and Charlotte's Web before; I liked the first, and the second I wanted to dislike since they had us read it in school, but alas, I liked it.

I'll still read The Wind in the Willows, though; enjoy it for what it's worth, and all that.

74 - the field of mental health is about illness not (usually) normal behavior. Irrationality, to a point is normal. Normal behavior is covered by psychology and ethology, the science of human and animal behavior respectively. But Freud's stuff, even in the realm of normal behavior is still philosophy, not science. I think a study of the brain is more useful.

All books-to-read lists should include 'Uncle Wiggly Goes to Connecticut'.

Well, there is that other Uncle, Uncle Remus. This is an interesting book for several reasons, not the least of which is its overtly racist background, however the racism is firmly and completely founded in place and time.

The Fables are wonderful. Ever wonder what a tar baby is?

Is this necessary to be well-read? Probably not. Are there useful life lessons? Yes.

Message edited by its author, Jun 30, 2009, 10:08am.

My grandfather read me the story of the tar baby when I was very young, so yes I know what it is. I seem to be in the minority in this however, as when I use it to describe something from which it is difficult to extricate oneself, people take offense and assume it is a racial slur. Because...of the color of tar? I guess? Is that them being racist? I don't know. I don't use it anymore.

>79 - Everything is being racist. Everything.

Guess why I don't like being around other races? It isn't that I dislike them, but I don't want to bother with the... racial tension. It's a pain. Not that I like being around my own race much more.

Message edited by its author, Jun 30, 2009, 10:38am.

>79 - I've often wondered at the antipathy to the story of Little Black Sambo, which has always seemed to me to be a story of family affection and quick thinking under pressure. I assume it's the name and that there would be no objection to the story of Little Someothername.

73> I love Pound's poetry but have never read the Cantos. They are daunting and would require a lot of time and discipline that I'm not ready to devote to them at the moment. But someday!

I'm attracted to Adorno because Walter Benjamin is one of my intellectual heroes, and I know that Adorno was a huge influence on his ideas (the correspondence between the two is incredible). The Frankfurt School in general is an interest of mine.

Foucault because I consider him one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, even if I tend to disagree with the approaches of his followers. The social history of those books is also intriguing; they were probably the most read books by ACT UP! activists in the 1980's and are a major work in the history of lgbt politics and culture.

>80: I'm a little shocked at that. Then again, if you're a misanthrope, be one fully, I say.

>83 - What's shocking?

>81 - Yeah, Sambo actually IS a racial slur: specifically it refers to a stock character who is slothful, gluttonous, and irresponsible. And, you know...black.

> I know the name is a racial slur, but the little boy in the story embodies none of the stock characteristics you name. The version I was told of as a child was of a clever boy who escapes from the tigers by his wits. I admit I've never seen it written down.

Message edited by its author, Jun 30, 2009, 5:44pm.

84> Irieisa, your admitting your discomfort in interracial meetings is not p.c. despite that most people of all races can be uncomfortable in that tension. Generally people who try entirely to ignore racial differences get all bottled up, whereas people who admit to it get by it. Eventually life will present you too many interracial experiences for you to treat them dismissively. I would hope that you'd be able to find in yourself the humanity of the other people and get by comfortably with them.

Robert

Message edited by its author, Jun 30, 2009, 7:03pm.

>87 - Don't get me wrong, most of my friends have been of other races. I'm just saying it's pretty awkward (at first, at least), and I tend to dislike those initial meetings for that reason. I don't have a personal dislike for other races.

As a side note, I'm not politically correct in general. I don't like how everything has to be politically correct.

I agree with you. There are most often awkward feelings. We are expected by the they not to admit to it. I am suggesting that your admitting to it without overemphasis on it is a good thing, but may get the they on your case.

Robert

>89 - Ah, I'm sorry I misunderstood. Thank you. I don't actually say my opinion on the matter in person unless I really trust the person, because otherwise it can become a mess.

60 yrs ago a Jew marrying a WASP was borderline miscenegation. All surviving grandparents were utterly dismayed when my uber-WASP dad married my uber-Jewish mom. I'm told that my paternal grandmother took to her bed for a month (w/ the vapors, i guess) after learning that her son was marrying a Jewess princess. (For true wackiness, on my dad's side, look up Samuel Gorton, founder of the not so long lived Gortonite schism in wikipedia).

82: I tried reading Dialectic of Enlightenment almost 20 years ago, but my mind wasnt developed enough to understand what he and Horkheimer were saying. The same goes for Foucault, I simply had not done enough reading 20 years ago to be able to put him into context and decipher him.

I'm only vaguely aware of Benjamin, some ideas about art ("the authentic work of art is based in ritual, and mass reproduction freed it from this parasitical dependence") which I came across in reading Gaddis's Agape Agape. To give Benjamin a real try means I would have to take Marx seriously. Dont know if Im ready for that. I have something he wrote on Proust, maybe I'll start with that.

What about Benjamin inspires you?

And thanks for the response.

To go back to the original post: I think this is a great question for a thread because there would never, ever be agreement on an answer. It could go on for ever. I've been a pretty omnivorous and intensive reader for over fifty years and it seems to me that the greater the number of 'important' (can't think of a better word, offhand) works I've read, the greater grows the list of 'important' works that I haven’t read. Even now I'm not sure if I could call myself well-read (and there are a number of works in this thread of which I've never heard). One thing I am sure of is that if you do call yourself well-read the nearest fellow-bibliophile will certainly disagree with you once you get down to discussing the matter. I suspect that the reality is that written culture has become too large and diffuse for one mind to encompass, even sticking to outlines and basics.

#93 Paul, could you please nominate a dozen or so books? Books you enjoyed or didn't enjoy but thought important.

What do I need to have read in order to consider myself well-read?

Something the person I'm talking to *hasn't.*

Since this thread has taken an interesting cultural theory twist, I wonder if some of you would like to list your top five or ten cultural theory tomes.

In addition, what do you folks think of Dick Hebdige (or the Birmingham school in general)?

92> I think Benjamin's Arcades Project was the greatest intellectual project of the 20th century. There is enough there to study for a lifetime. Benjamin actually came to Marx pretty late in his life and still kept one foot in metaphysics, so I think you can read him without a serious background in Marx.

The New York Review of Books Classics series printed Gershom Scholem's memoir about his friendship with Benjamin, and I recommend it highly. Scholem argues against Benjamin being pigeonholed as a Marxist.

Message edited by its author, Jul 1, 2009, 4:05pm.

#94 snickersnee, I knew the word 'important' would come back to bite me - I was thinking as I wrote that I couldn't define it. I suppose that at back is the idea of a canon of highly-regarded works that one needs to have read in order to engage with a certain intelligentzia (at heart, we all want to belong to a gang). The trouble with that is that I suspect that both the canon and the intelligentzia are different for each individual. I don’t think logic or reason has a lot to do with it; I think that what we regard as canonical is a product of cultural influences of which we’re not fully aware. It follows that I’d think my own little ‘canon’ pretty worthless, quite apart from the fact that it’s going to change if I think too hard about it, but I’ll give you some titles. These don’t reflect my personal likes, and, as I said, I don’t really know what particular complex of influences got each regarded as canonical in my mind.
The works of Marx and Freud - but I haven’t read them, always having meant to do so ‘someday’; the works of Shakespeare, the King James Bible; the Qu’ran – haven’t read it yet; Origin of Species; Russell’s History of Western Philosophy; of the classics, the Aeneid, the Odyssey and the Iliad - I suspect this is because in my childhood we were fed tales from Homer and Vergil, not from Plato or Aristotle; a whole raft of ‘classic’ novels - Far From the Madding Crowd, Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations, and others I’ve forgotten for the moment.
That’s more than twelve – cease, desist! It’s the nature of it that once I’ve posted I’m going to think, “Why didn’t I include ... ?”
By the way, can anyone explain how to get italics into these threads, please?

Message edited by its author, Jul 1, 2009, 4:06pm.

italics then remove the spaces.

italics

Have fun,

Robert

#99 Thanks Robert.

I don't know about 'Have fun', though - this idea of 'being well read' has been niggling away at my brain for upwards of seven hours and has quite disrupted my day. And that's in spite of my considering it a hopelessly subjective concept. I've obviously spent a lifetime in pursuit of it (why otherwise did I flog through all the books that were heavy going?), yet, astonishingly, I don't remember that I've ever given any serious thought to it before, even during studies where I dealt with the idea of canons. At the moment I feel like I'm trying to build sandcastles out of bone-dry sand.

88: I'm uncomfortable around certain religions, especially Evangelicals, especially if they're all uppity and homophobic .. and they ask to blow them and refuse to tip me. Skinflint hatemongers! Boo hiss!

97: inaudible wrote: Benjamin actually came to Marx pretty late in his life and still kept one foot in metaphysics, so I think you can read him without a serious background in Marx.

Yikes! I am even more suspicious of metaphysics than I am of Marx.

Still because he has impressed you I will still give Benjamin a shot---probably something about art.

I recommend beginning with the essay 'The Storyteller'.

>104 That was what I was under the impression of, that being well read is focusing on things/genres/eras that you may be less familiar with to broaden your horizons but maybe the OP can clarify. :)

Just don't go by this list:

http://shopping.aol.com/books/best-selle...

>106 - Some of those are good, some okay, and some plain horrifying. Amazing.

I guess if you're only going to read ten books before you die, those might as well be the ones. You'll never know what you're missing anyway.

Message edited by its author, Jul 13, 2009, 10:32am.

I think they're more likely ten books that would make you kill yourself.

To Kill a Mockingbird is the only book on that list (#106) that I would spend time reading, maybe Gone with the Wind for its look at the Civil War and after as seen from Atlanta Georgia. I actually lived a half block from the road between Scarlett's home in Atlanta (not Tara) and her sawmill, the road she was on when she was attacked. At another time I lived about three miles from Tara. I had some friends who lived in the house where GWTW was written. In the sixties it was something of a hippie flop house. I don't know if it is still there, now. So there was considerable local interest for me when I read it, and, I thought it was a very good book. !!!Spoiler Alert!!! Scarlett's a real bitch and deserves pretty much everything she gets. !!!End Spoiler Alert!!! Actually, if you have not read GWTW, do it. It's a very worthwhile read.

Beyond those two, there is not enough time available to me, even though I still have seventy-three years left before I reach 137 and die, to read any of the others. In one way I wish I could recoup the time spent with Atlas Shrugged and LOTR, but then I think how amazed I am at the success of these two boat anchors.

What really pisses me off is someone, somewhere got paid real money to come up with that list. They could have paid me half as much and I would have given them ten real books to read.

Off the top of my head:

The Holy Bible
Lazarillo de Tormes
Don Quixote
The Brothers Karamazov
Moby Dick
The Golden Bowl
Labyrinths
Grapes of Wrath
Death of a Salesman
Lolita

Keep in mind, this is off the top of my head. It is impossible to create a top ten list worth its salt on short notice. As someone here says quite regularly: mileage may vary.

Several people have mentioned the Bible (well two at least). I think one needs to be more specific. Personally, I think the King James is the only English version worth reading and the only one worthy of being on any 'list'.

Personally, I think the New Jerusalem Bible is a Godsend.

Robert

112: And the reason for it being a Godsend is....what?

I remember reading somewhere that Shakespeare may have had a hand in the KJV. True or myth?

well he wasn't part of the committee that put it together under James' auspices. The whole thing was done in pieces by subcommittees of learned members of the Church of England. But they did appropriate a good deal from the Tyndale (sic) bible. God's secretaries: the making of the King James Bible. by Adam Nicolson is a fascinating history of the whole process. (evidently Power and Glory:Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible is the UK edition which came up as the touchstone. Our library, not surprisingly, had the N.American edition.

#113 That's the premise of a short story by Anthony Burgess in The Devil's Mode.

>112 Is that intentional irony? In any case I'm rolling here.

I have not read the holly bibble (and have no intention of doing so) and I consider myself to be well read. Others who know me also consider me to be well read.

Beat me now.

i read the Oxford Annotated BIBLE with the Apocrypha for one of my history of religion courses. Nice, hardbound copy, lots of notes, maps...$8.50 at the W&Mary college bookstore ~ 1969. Of course my Chinese Religions text was $2.45 and a v. nice hardcover of the Advaita Vedanta was $6.50.

Marx Das Kapital Penguin Classics $7.41

>116

I'm neither a Christian nor a theist, but c'mon.

The influence of the King James version of the Bible on poetry, drama and novels is so profound that self-congratulatory pronouncements of ignorance are rather embarrassing.

Oh yes, I agree, its influence has been profound, and the King James Version is one of the glories of the language. I can spot references and echoes of it in other books all the time, and of course I know all the stories (and other bullshit) it contains, but does that I mean I have to sit down and read the whole damn thing from cover to cover to be considered well read?

c'mon.

Everyone should read at least one book by James Patterson ... then promptly burn it.

Everyone should read at least one book by Ayn Rand ... then promptly give it to a hippy.

Everyone should read at least one book by L. Ron Hubbard ... then give it to their good friend to rid them of their 3 million year old dead volcano space ghosts, er, OT Level VIII friends, er, something about evil Lord Xenu ... prank caller! Prank caller!

Everyone should give their homophobic conservative Christian acquaintance a book of Tom of Finland illustrations.

It's like the concept of pay it forward, except with literature and chaos theory. Mazel tov, y'all!

Everyone should give their homophobic conservative Christian acquaintance a book of Tom of Finland illustrations.

HAHA!! I'm off to Amazon now to order some copies.

#121- Everyone should read at least one book by Ayn Rand ... then promptly give it to a hippy.

Just seeing her NAME makes me make choking gestures with my hands.

Anyway, I think I'll consider myself well-read when it starts getting hard for me to find new things to read that interest me.

Yeah, a straight response....I can't think of anything witty to say today.

>120

Why say that you've never read the Bible then?

If you know the stories, references and general tone of the book, then you've obviously opened the Bible once or twice - especially if you refer to the KJV as one of the "glories of the language".

I took your comments at #116 to imply you weren't familiar with the Bible. After all, if you haven't read a book, how can you be conversant with it?

Of course you don't have to sit down and "read the damn thing from cover to cover" - as with all books there's no obligation to finish - but that's generally how I read books.

Of course, to each their own.

While I'm not a member of the fandom, I have read major portions of the Bible. Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and the vicious blathering of "Saint" Paul get a little tiresome, but I'm still of the opinion that one should read the Bible and Shakespeare. Having an understanding and an appreciation -- rather than a philistine pig-ignorance of a "true believer" (who aren't well-read anyway) -- is key to unlocking references and allusions in the Western Canon.

But regarding the Bible, be careful which translation (or intention mistranslation) you choose. The Five Books of Moses by Robert Alter and the Song of Songs by Ariel and Chana Bloch are good places to start, since they offer the reader ample literary apparatus (appendices, footnotes, etc.).

The KJV is a monument to Jacobean literary style, but the KJV translation of the Song of Songs is terrible, terrible, terrible.

And I haven't even broached the topic of different denominational versions (Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, etc.). Since each denomination cherry picks which books to include and throw out. In addition, there are Christian Gnostic writers and the whole controversy over the Book of Judas translation.

Avoid the NIV translation, since it removes all the contradictions in the original prose and is a terrible read anyway. Just my recommendation. You'd be better served with an Anchor translation or the Catholic New Jerusalem Bible

If you're feeling ambitious, also check out The Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrine and Covenants, and other related LDS scripture. Once you get past the imitation KJV-ness of the Book of Mormon, there's some pretty interesting and humorous stuff in there.

If you don't understand the LDS Church, how will you understand Angels in America and South Park episodes?

>126

Absolutely! I'm kicking myself for forgetting Robert Alter. His translation of and commentary on Genesis is wonderful.

I agree wholeheartedly with your take on the NIV. I know some practicing Christians who quite like it, but if one is only reading the Bible for its literary references and cultural allusions, then avoid at all costs.

>124
After all, if you haven't read a book, how can you be conversant with it?

On the contrary: this is standard academic procedure. And with a text as central to Western Culture it's quite possible to be familiar with it through a process of general cultural assimilation. In the same way it's quite possible to be very familiar indeed with the basic concepts of political economy without actually having read The Wealth of Nations, for example.

I am deeply read in Christian and Catholic history, and have read some biblical scholarship as part of a wider reading in literary criticism, art criticism, philosophy and musicology (blah blah blah) but have not read the bible from cover to cover. Like KSWolf, I have read sections of it before violent vomiting necessitated that I desist. So for this fatal omission does that mean I am not well read?

You asked me why I mentioned that I had not read it. Because I'm trying to argue that one can still be well read without having read the whole thing from cover to cover. I stand by that.

We are only allowed 10 books, for heaven's sake. one can't obviously read everything, and perhaps it would be possible to argue that the bible is the one book one doesn't need to read at all because its influence is anyway going to be assimilated through everything else one reads.

Message edited by its author, Jul 18, 2009, 11:55am.

In the same way it's quite possible to be very familiar indeed with the basic concepts of political economy without actually having read The Wealth of Nations, for example.

Unfortunately those dim bulbs and amoral nitwits who call themselves "conservative economists" are more conversant in the rough-sex-utopianism of Atlas Shrugged than Wealth of Nations, since even Adam Smith was for taxation and redistribution of wealth.

>128

I was taking you seriously until "violent vomiting".

It's too bad all that deep reading you're so proud of hasn't taught you to avoid silly hyperbole.

If you're going to proudly claim to have not read the "holly bibble", and have no future plans to ever do so, in one post - And then proudly claim to be "deeply read in Christian and Catholic history, and have read some biblical scholarship" when asked to defend your initial boasts of ignorance - you'll forgive us for not taking either seriously.

Reading secondary scholarship on a work is a poor substitute for the original.

For heaven's sake, you don't have to do any reading. I wouldn't force you to read one of the most influential and widely alluded to works in all of English literature at all. Of course you've just made a delightfully unintentional case for Cliff notes. Why read anything, when you can get the general ideas and feel for the syntax without actually having to do any of the reading?

As I've stated before, I'm neither a Christian nor a theist, but it's a constant source of amazement and embarrassment to me that many of those who claim to be educated, politically progressive or having sophisticated literary sensibilities, are so quick to label those who are are religious as unintelligent, simplistic and uneducated.

I wonder if some people here actually believe that all members of this group are exactly like them, thus appreciating their hyperbole and insults.

Message edited by its author, Jul 18, 2009, 5:19pm.

oh for heaven's sake...
*Murr roles his eyes*

oh for heaven's sake...
*Murr roles his eyes*

You role yours, I'll roll mine.
*beardo chuckles*

As I've stated before, I'm neither a Christian nor a theist, but it's a constant source of amazement and embarrassment to me that many of those who claim to be educated, politically progressive or having sophisticated literary sensibilities, are so quick to label those who are are religious as unintelligent, simplistic and uneducated.

1. Creationism.
2. Blowing up abortion clinics.
3. Blowing up gay bars.
4. Shooting abortion doctors.
5. Bombing night clubs in Bali.
6. Bombing hotels in India.
7. Shooting women in soccer stadiums.
8. Bankrolling anti-gay marriage legislation.
9. Aerial urban planning on Manhattan skyscrapers with hijacked jumbo jets.
10. Killing the other guy because he believes in the wrong god.
11. Killing the other guy because he believes in the same god you believe in, but disagrees on some tedious theological matter that is totally irrelevant.
12. Buying those Left Behind books.
13. Buying those Twilight books.
14. Obeying an ethics that can distilled into the catchphrase: "I was just following orders."
15. Not eating pork.
16. Not eating beef.
17. Not eating meat on Fridays.
18. Creating an erotic repertoire that involves the missionary position for four minutes ... with the lights turned off!
19. Being against dancing.
20. Being against gambling.
21. Being against recreational drug use.
22. Being against medicinal drug use.
23. Being against assisted suicide.
24. Being against abortion.
25. Being against fathering girls.
26. Being against teaching girls.
27. Being against teaching girls to read.
28. Being against thinking for yourself.
29. Thomas Kinkade.
30. Being for George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.

Yep, I think that about covers it.

Quite.

*Murr chuckles and leaves to go catch rats.*

>130,

Two points:
1. I think Murr was using hyperbole when he used the phrase "violent vomiting." This phrase is part of his online persona. A well-read person recognizes the distinction between this sort of online verbal jousting and one that might take place within the halls of academe.

2. I have read multiple versions of the Bible - a necessity for teaching 17th-century English literature. However, I do not think reading the Bible means very much at all unless one understands a great deal about biblical redaction, Hebrew philosophy and linguistics, the cultural construction of the Bible plus many other items too numerous to mention here. Without this background knowledge, one simply misreads the majority of what is written there or one misses the way one's understanding of this text has been shaped. Murr is better informed about the Bible than someone who has read this text in isolation, no matter how many other "Great Books" that person has read. As for "Great Books," I would have to write an entire book about canon formation, which itself has been shaped by politics, gender, the visicitudes of history, etc., to critique this concept.

Well, first I am glad that Bolano got a mention at the very top. 2666 is a masterpiece and I am currently learning Spanish so I can read it in its original, which I hear is even better.

Working in a bookstore the biggest complaint I get most of the time with the classics is that they are boring or not relevant, which I believe is important. You need to connect in some way and I think some of the older books may not be culturally relevant. Its just nice to see newer books and newer areas of the globe being brought up as being well read.

Of course the books I believe everyone should read are: 1984, Shadow of the Wind, In Cold Blood.

>133

Thanks for making my case. Yes, every religious person engages in these behaviours. How very astute of you.

>135

1. I agree. That's why I called it hyperbole.

2."I do not think reading the Bible means very much at all unless one understands a great deal about biblical redaction, Hebrew philosophy and linguistics, the cultural construction of the Bible plus many other items too numerous to mention here"

Really? You need to read all of this to recognize when Hardy or Elliot alludes to the Bible?

"Without this background knowledge, one simply misreads the majority of what is written there or one misses the way one's understanding of this text has been shaped."

Once again, you seem hung up on the Bible as some guide for life vs. familiarity with the Bible to facilitate understanding of literary allusion.

I'm not advocating reading the Bible as a religious text, but as a step to understanding the references and allusions in much of literature.

"Murr is better informed about the Bible than someone who has read this text in isolation,"

So Murr having never read the " Holly Bibble" (see post 116 uranai1) is better informed about the text than someone who has read it, because he's read some secondary commentary on it? He may be better informed about the debate surrounding the formation of the Bible, but that's certainly not the case when it comes to the actual text.

I know I'd view with some suspicion an individual who'd never bothered to read Paradise Lost, yet told me what it was about - Or Hamlet, or Canterbury Tales. Regardless of how many journal articles one reads, sometimes there's no substitute for actually reading the book.

Message edited by its author, Jul 19, 2009, 12:48pm.

What books would I have to have read in order to consider myself well-read?

Crime and Punishment
The Brother Karamazov
War and Peace
Lolita
Don Quixote
Pride and Prejudice
Atlas Shrugged
As I Lay Dying
A Farewell to Arms
The Grapes of Wrath
Mrs Dalloway
Faust
Nausea
The Stranger
On the Genealogy of Morality
Critique of Pure Reason
The Ego and the Id
Midnight's Children
The Satanic Verses
A Tale of Two Cities
Dutchman and the Slave
To Kill a Mockingbird
My Name is Red
The Known World (Thanks for the correction)
Dreams from My Father

And things I could stand to read again... at an older age:

The Wretched of the Earth by Fanon
Invisible Man by Ellison
The Price of the Ticket by Baldwin
Things Fall Apart by Achebe
Song of Solomon by Morrison
The Color Purple by Walker
Black Boy by Wright
Collected works of Langston Hughes by Hughes
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Haley
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Angelou
If They Come in the Morning: by Davis

There are a few other James, Joyce, Proust, Hegel, Heidegger, Husserl, ... but if I could get through the above list first... I reckon I would consider myself well-read.

Message edited by its author, Jul 20, 2009, 7:06am.

>133

Thanks for making my case. Yes, every religious person engages in these behaviours. How very astute of you.

Glad you caught my subtle allusions and abstruse references ;)

>140

Ahhh, I get it now. All of your simplistic anti-religious rants up to now have been a subtle performance piece leading to today's reveal.

Well done, sir.

I was reading through this thread and the quote that, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" kept coming to mind. I guess in a round about way I could say that, "You can't judge a book by it's cover." or that it's one's personal preference as to what one wants to read or is drawn to read.

As a child I remember the books that were on my grandparents shelves. There was Charles Dickens, O'Henry , Agatha Christie, Thomas B. Costain, and many others. My parents shelves were whatever was on the Double Day Best Sellers Book Club list. I was introduced to many books and it's genre. I read all the classics in comic book form, one long and boring summer...lol, but I'll never forget reading The Last of the Mohicans, White Fang, Call of the Wild, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Frankenstein, and many others.

I still try to read one classic book a year. Some of them were books that I was assigned when I was in school, but I always managed to avoid them like the plague, go figure. I read them now as I am older and am glad I did because I don't think that I could understand them as well as I do now if I was younger.

While I do think it's a good thing to read some of the classics, I don't think that it is a pre-requisite to life in general. I've enjoyed and probably taken in the value of a classic by being able to read them at my leisure through life. My book shelves now are ever changing from one subject matter to another. After I've absorbed all the information that I could possibly hold, I pass the books on when I've latched on to another subject matter and that could be in either in fiction or non-fiction.

So if "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" then the beauty in my eyes change like the books on my bookshelf.

DCMerkle

138: Did you mean Jones's book The Known World?

Why do you recommend both Kant and Nietzsche?

142: I dont really care about the American Christian's faith in God and Jesus, just his politics. And a political discussion is off to a bad start when we charge the other person is a hysteric and insane.

141: LOL!

Wouldn't reading both Kant and Nietzsche cause your brain to melt? I love Nietzsche -- go fig? -- but I find reading Kant is like reading stereo instructions.

What American Christian are we talking about? The one in favor of gay rights and who volunteers at the homeless shelter, or the one advocating anti-gay rights legislation while getting BJs in the Minneapolis Airport bathroom? The term "American Christian" covers the spectrum, unfortunately the latter have dominated the political discussion following the Crowning Moment of Awesome aka September 11th.

Pre-emptive beardo warning: Yes, this post has sarcasm, satire, and pop culture references. If you can't deal with it, back off.

It's hard to defend a faith or following that you believe in, and know personally many practitioners that are sane, intelligent, and kind, when the absolute nutjobs are the ones that make the news. Then again, I'm also one for separation of church and state and "my rights and opinions end where your body begins", soooooo... it kind of sucks that usually intelligent people start to think they should condescend to you because they infer that every Christian believes the exact same thing (i.e. "I believe in God and Jesus Christ, therefore I hate evolution and just wish Obama would reveal himself as the Antichrist already")

Even if you don't care for the Bible and don't believe in it, it's a rich mythic tradition AT LEAST, which a huge percentage of authors have taken and incorporated into their work. Being at least conversant with the ideas and stories told within certainly helps you understand a lot of literature written in the English language.

Of course, that also goes for Bulfinch's/Hamilton's Mythology...

146 ... it kind of sucks that usually intelligent people start to think they should condescend to you because they infer that every Christian believes the exact same thing...

That would suck. And I agree people who do that are condescending. I just dont see how a person's belief in a non-human authority/power naturally leads to any particular brand of politics or any particular political position on concrete issues.

Aw shucks Karl,

I'm just glad you've finally accepted that there is a spectrum of religious belief and practice.

Never too late to embrace nuance.

Beardo, why do you put that last bit in: it's never too late to embrace nuance? Coz, you know, I'm really curious why you like to be so unpleasant and snide all the time? seems like you really like to get people's backs up and have the last word, like it's really important to you for some reason. Something in your childhood perhaps?, a small penis maybe? just guessing here along the usual Freudian lines, you know, no offence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol5Dfs7jq...

Message edited by its author, Jul 20, 2009, 6:54am.

I read the bible quite frequently... but, I have yet to read the entire thing. I'm certain I've read all of the new testiment... but there are whole books in the old testiment which I have not even begun.

And, I suppose the truth is... I hate the way most philosophers write. Philosophers aren't trained to care about style, and in fact, most train against it.

I think this is the primary reason why I throw up my hands and say, 'to hell with philosophy!'

...but somehow I always find myself creeping back to discover ideas that cannot always be uncovered in fiction.

A close friend of mine fell in love with Hamilton's Mythology when we were in high school. I just started reading it this year. I love it. Don't ask me what took so long...

Coz, you know, I'm really curious why you like to be so unpleasant and snide all the time?

Beardo tends to be "unpleasant and snide" to those that he thinks tend to be, well, unpleasant and snide all the time. I tend to sympathize with him more often than not.

I think some of the posters in this group don't understand or care that the general tone here often comes off as unreasonably harsh. Not to mention that--as I think perhaps semckibbin has pointed out before?--there's a sort of broken-record aspect to many of the threads & posts here. Beardo has led a general crusade against these things and occasionally, surprisingly, it seems to net some results that I find positive. I ain't the Niceness Police and I'm not dictating behavior, but I do think it'd be lovely if I didn't always have to change into my thickest skin before venturing into this group.

I will be donating these two cents to my local feline charity.

Yes, Medellia, you are right. I feel suitably chastened by your words. I apologise to all for posting while under the influence of vodka and wrath.

The local feline charity gratefully accepts your donation, I'm sure.

150: I hate the way most philosophers write. Philosophers aren't trained to care about style, and in fact, most train against it.

I don't know; the Anglophone philosophers I am familiar with (Putnam, Davidson, Rorty, McDowell, Kuhn, and Quine) all write very clearly; mainly because they are not all that abstract and dont try to sell paradoxes.

151: Not to mention that--as I think perhaps semckibbin has pointed out before?--there's a sort of broken-record aspect to many of the threads & posts here.

Nope, that was beardo, too. My only goal is to somehow get past the picket line of invective and have conversations.

153: "I don't know; the Anglophone philosophers I am familiar with (Putnam, Davidson, Rorty, McDowell, Kuhn, and Quine) all write very clearly; mainly because they are not all that abstract and dont try to sell paradoxes."

I've always thought Wittgenstein's stuff was awfully pretty. I mean, you have to be able to stomach some serious set theory, but once you clear that hurdle, there's something poetic about his writing.

155: Set theory? Yikes. That must have been in the Tractatus; I've read only Philosophical Investigations which mocks his own previous attempt at philosophy. How does set theory inform Wittgenstein?

>149

Don't worry. No offense taken.

Message edited by its author, Jul 20, 2009, 4:44pm.

Very much agree with "Anna" (Tolstoy), Moby Dick (Melville), "Eng. Working Class" (Thompson)
--and, even though I havenʻt read it yet "100 Years" (Garcia Marquez).

A list like this tends toward being just another "Favorites" list, rather than a list of works you could depend on to make you (or anyone) "well read". I wouldnʻt really feel less well read, if I had never read a Canto of Pound, and even if I had not read (aloud at that!) all of Ulysses. I love Ulysses, undergo spots of admiration for parts of "The Cantos", but donʻt really see them as part of what the title is talking about.

Every time I think I'm reasonably well-read I come across an author who somehow slipped under my radar and come to a fresh realization that I'll NEVER read all the books I should and I'd better become resigned to that fact or go off my nut.

(Groups like this are HELLISH because smart folk are always dropping references to works or authors I've never heard of--at times it can be quite demoralizing...)

159: Since joining Library Thing, I've found out the existence of so many authors and books that absolutely need to get read - this is the only point in my life (I am turning 41 next week) in which I have more books I want to read than time to read them. Right now I have Bolano, Borges, Bulgakov, Fitzgerald, LeClezio all sitting on my bookshelf and don't know when I will get around to reading them. That in addition to the nonfiction I am trying to get read and books given to me by friends/relatives that I feel I must read in appreciation. I've pretty much sworn off the genre fiction and I still have no time!

Cliff, Anna--I couldn't agree more. Bulgakov and Bolano are sitting on my shelf, too, along with Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʾo, whom I had never heard of prior to joining Librarything. As to genre fiction, no time and less interest than usual.

148: You wear your disingenuousness like a 1970s pimp suit.

Honestly, you're snide comments are either a failed attempt at humor or the onset of profound dickishness. Either way, it's bordering on tedium.

I believe there is a wide spectrum of beliefs. Hell, isn't the field of psychology around to sift and winnow the nuances of crazy? Some people think they are Napoleon, some people think they are the Son of God. Who am I to judge? Insanity is just a matter of perspective anyway. It's all dependent on the assumption that the psychologists aren't self-serving powermongers.

In summary, there's a wide range of belief, but my 30 points are also true. If they aren't, may God strike me down.

Message edited by its author, Jul 21, 2009, 6:17pm.

everything i've read, duh. Nah - i read far too much genre fiction. But i'm reasonably well read in English language poetry - that, and literary fantasy are the only areas i could come within hailing distance of being "well read," after reading more or less constantly for 50+ yrs.

Message edited by its author, Jul 21, 2009, 6:35pm.

>162

Well Karl, I thought you'd taken posts 146, 147 and 151 to heart (Who did you think they referred to?) I was wrong. Apparently, I'm not the only one tired of your tantrums. Why don't you just follow Murr's lead, act like an adult, and apologize for your boorishness?

Regarding your odd decision to stand by your thirty comments - a few "Christians" bombing an abortion clinic, or a few "Muslims" engaging in terrorism, is not an indictment against Christianity or Islam. That you fail to understand this is puzzling to find in a college graduate.

Let's take your logic and apply it elsewhere - Jeffrey Dhamer was gay. Jeffrey Dhamer was a serial killer. Therefore homosexuality and serial murder are causally linked. Not only untrue, but completely ludicrous. Like your list.

Murr thinks I have a little dick, you think I'm a big dick. Why don't you two get together and come to a consensus.

When your position begins to look untenable, just resort to name calling and invective. You're a class act, Karl.

Once again, I'll give you the last word. Although it may benefit the group in the long run, I'm tired of beating my head against this particular brick wall.

Message edited by its author, Jul 21, 2009, 8:34pm.

...nd apologize for your boorishness? no no no I was not apologising for my boorishness: I was not boorish: I am a cat, cats don't do boorishness. I was apologising for posting while under the influence.

164: I didn't think my list needed citations? You really should read more ;)

I'll be on the porch having a drink since beardo is the cross.

Mazel tov.

Message edited by its author, Jul 21, 2009, 9:44pm.

>165

Yes. Sorry. I was referring to you as acting like an adult and apologizing.

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Is no one going to mention the Nazis? Damn. All that and I don't get to call Godwin's Law...

>168

Why don't you just leave and go hang out on Youtube. You won't be asked to defend your statements, and your fondness for hyperbole and crudity will be appreciated, allowing you to find a more age appropriate audience.

Message edited by its author, Jul 22, 2009, 11:42am.

In order to consider myself well-read, I found these two books of etiquette to be invaluable:
What do you say, dear? and What do you do, dear?...
Perhaps we could also benefit from Emily Post around here....

Message edited by its author, Jul 22, 2009, 2:40pm.

#171: Clearly, you are the worst person in the world. Worse than Hitler, in fact. Probably you're a member of the Religious Right, also worse than Hitler. Oh, and the size of your unmentionables is a factor in this discussion as well.

See, I can play as well as the boys.

Anna has unmentionables? Oh dear.

First, I'd like to urge members to respect each other and the Terms of Use (http://www.librarything.com/privacy#term...). These terms forbid personal attacks. There were a number of those here, including at least one absolutely clear case.

In general, we do not suspend members for one violation of the TOS. And that member has not been suspended. We all slip.

Another member, however, has been suspended in relation to this. The user, a real user with real books and a clear interest in LibraryThing's features and community, stepped way over the line, waging a coordinated campaign of "sock-puppeting," creating multiple fake accounts to de-flag the offending message.

This is not the first time the user has abused multiple accounts, and there have been other TOS violations as well, subverting the forum system, the book-covers system and the work system as well. Abby and I have wasted valuable time dealing with this individual, asking for explanations, weighing responses, and even writing new code to deal with it, and we shall do it no more.

The user and his eight (!) sock-puppet accounts have all been suspended. They will remain suspended for two weeks (until August 5). Any attempt to subvert this decision, by creating new accounts and etc. will result in the permanent expulsion and deletion of the user from the system. After that, the user is free and clear, but will be expected not to engage in similar action, at the risk of swifter and more severe penalties.

After the guy who threatened to kill me, this is the most serious case we've had in the last four years. It is, I think, only our third member suspension. In general, I hate this stuff. But at some point the integrity of the system must be maintained, and I will make sure it is.

Message edited by its author, Jul 22, 2009, 2:06pm.

Oops!

Ah, Tim: sorry to hear about all of this.

Folks can get passionate and behave poorly. In my 2+ years on LibraryThing I've undoubtedly been guilty of a few infractions and said things I regret in the heat of the moment.

The "sock-puppeting" is a whole other matter. That shows some kinda weird pathology. And as for the guy who threatened to kill you...Good God...

174, 176...

What a strange world we live in...

I would like to apologize to everyone for my part in this. I have deleted my post 142 and in the future I will more carefully consider what I say before posting.

Message edited by its author, Jul 26, 2009, 8:28pm.

178: Your heart was in the right place. That said, the Internet is the Devil.

The whole notion of "well-read" depends on the idea of consensus. One is well-read if one reads Hamlet, Moby Dick, etc. What about more obscure works? Like The Urantia Book, Isis Unveiled, and The Book of Mormon -- lots of people trash the LDS church for its scriptures. But has any non-Mormon ever gotten through them? Mark Twain describing the Book of Mormon as "chloroform in print" wasn't doing it any favors. Is it any worse than the excessive violence, endless genealogies, and moral viciousness of The Bible? Reading 1 Chronicles isn't going to keep anyone awake.

And if a person likes the more obscure stuff, would they be accused of "being a hipster"? Everyone was doesn't live in a cave has heard at least one song by Led Zeppelin, not so much with Neutral Milk Hotel or the later work of Can

Just some random thoughts. When you get right down to it, isn't being well-read ... at least by the standards of the Western Canon ... a bit tedious?

>178

Thanks. No need for apologies. Post 179 has it right. In a lot of these things, the internet is to blame.

>179 - If I've heard a song by Led Zeppelin, I don't realise it. I am a cave-dweller.

Neutral Milk Hotel, on the other hand...

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179: What about more obscure works? (Mentions three religious texts)

What about them? You sure didnt do a good job selling me on them. Was your point simply to criticize the Old Testament?

When you get right down to it, isn't being well-read ... at least by the standards of the Western Canon ... a bit tedious?

Rorty had a good line about this which I have to paraphrase: You read the books of the tradition so you dont write them yourself.

"When you get right down to it, isnʻt being well-read...at least by the standards of the Western Canon...a bit tedious" -- kswolff

This reminds me of a Boswell anecdote abou Samuel Johnson. (Hope I remember the adjective the king used in the anecdote; i donʻt remember Johnson reply, if any.)

In an informal conversation with Johnson (r as informal as it ever gets with royalty), King George III asked,
"Isnʻt Shakespeare a bit silly at times?"

(Oh well, "silly" beats "tedious".)

We've drawn some interesting posts lately--see #182, for example.

Must be this strange summer weather....

Pulseczar, if you wouldn't read any of this stuff, what would you read? What do you read? Anything? Nothing? Come on, don't throw out a provocative (need help with that word? It's in the dictionary. Look it up!) post and just walk away covered with flags. Join in!

>179 - I've ploughed through the Mormon Scriptures while studying 19thC folk religion and yes, they are much, much worse than anything you can possibly imagine (when addressed as literature). Not only are they tedious beyond belief, (there are no memorable characters, no memorable stories, and no women), they also contain no discernible religious insight, just huge 19thCentury sermons. Most of the names and place names can be traced to localities in Joseph Smith's area, huge chunks are plagiarised from the King James Bible, and the over-use of cod-jacobean English and especially one phrase ("It came to pass") drives one insane after a couple of chapters

One book (Abraham) is a cod translation of some papyri, untranslated when Joe found 'em and since translated as common funeral documents. One book (Doctrines and Covenants) contains Joe's attempt to blackmail his wife into consenting to his polygamy but threatening her with the wrath of the Almighty.

The whole dim, tin-eared pile of 'em should be circulated like the Eye of Argon with sarky comments interpolated for the mockery of the world.

How he got away with it, I shall never know.

As I recall from a New Yorker article the papyrus thing is really serious, particularly as it was a fairly recent discovery and is so iron-clad. It's as if someone were to find bones in a box labelled "Jesus Christ." Yet it's hardly produced an exodus from the faith. Does anyone know how Mormons deal with the issue?

going back to December on this board:

Patty was entering "the book of Mormon" yesterday which we picked up from some hotel room whilst visiting colleges w/ our son iirc (but none were west of the Mississippi???) and she came across a rather wonderful LT review that begins:
"1. And it came to pass that I, TANSTAAFL, having been born of Mormon parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; which included the Book of Mormon, and having seen many afflictions and cognitive dissonance in the course of my days because of the fact that I was raised in the Mormon religion and having read the Book of Mormon nigh unto twenty times, nevertheless, yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mischievousness of Loki, therefore I make a book review of the Book of Moron. "

http://www.librarything.com/work/30693/r...
4th review down

Anything written from Plato to Hawking meaning you would have gone from Nothing to Black holes and back again lifes eternal recurence discussed in the books of Nietzsche, Joyce and Philip K Dick along with the diamond sutra is eclectic enough for me.

Reading Maketh The Man.
Francis Bacon

Message edited by its author, Jul 27, 2009, 3:16pm.

>188. Most Mormons ignore the issue. The Book of Abraham isn't part of the Book of Mormon, isn't part of the scriptures they're encouraged to read, and few Mormons actually read the bits they're supposed to read.

Those who do know about the issue and investigate it further seem to be following one of three paths.

1. Apostasy.
2. Say that all the papyrus hasn't been found (ignore the fact that there are drawings of the most damning bits in the scriptures) and that the missing bits hold all the stuff Joseph translated or
3. Say that Joe never said he was translating (he did) he was just er.... inspired by the papyrus to write something which bears no relationship to it.

I'm reading the posts above as thumbs down on The Book of Mormon being added to the list of what you need to be well read.

For what it is worth, Bloom thought Joseph Smith was an "authentic religious genius". He calls Sections 127-132 of the Doctrines and Covenants (baptism off the dead, resurrection of the body, the tangibility of the Father and Son's bodies, everlasting marriage, plural marriage) "extraordinary". Smith lays out a path to becoming God yourself, which Bloom tells us is a very American idea. Given these promises the authenticity of The Book of Mormon seems beside the point.

To Arten:

Does Joyce really "discuss" eternal recurrence?
Where? (Iʻm being curious, not pugnacious).

I would expect him to suggest it, or mention it in passing but not discuss it at length. (Because he mentioned in passing just about everything that came to mind, whether he was for it, against it, or indifferent to it.)

193: Well, the word "metempsychosis" keeps coming up, doesn't it?

> 192. There's no doubting that Smith was a religious genius or at least a conman of genius, he was just a truly dreadful author and an inveterate plagiarist. Most of the religious ideas seen as his were common amongst the various home-grown varieties of protestantism in that part of early 19thC America, so prone to religious enthusiasm it has come to be known as "The Burnt Over District".

Smith's true genius lay in combining other people's ideas and selling them to a populace hungry for exciting religious experience.

He was also a disgusting human being, the stories of some of the poor teenaged girls he targeted as "plural wives" are heartbreaking.

Message edited by its author, Jul 27, 2009, 7:00pm.

"Becoming God" aka exaltation in LDSese. A very American concept because Americans have a God complex when not having a "Global Policeman" complex, which are kind of the same, since the weak tend to obey whoever is holding the gun to their temple.

Speaking of disgusting human beings, how have we gotten this far without mentioning L. Ron Hubbard?

192
If you're referring to Bloom's discussion of Southern Baptists and Mormonism in the american religion, perhaps his main point is that both faiths are, within any prior spiritual tradition, heretical. SBaptists for idolatry - worshiping a book; Mormonism for..well, you take your pick.

* James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake is based on the idea of eternal return. The novel begins in mid-sentence, with the continuation of the book's unfinished final sentence, creating a circle whereby the novel has no true beginning or end. 11

* Joyce was influenced by Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), an Italian philosopher who proposed a theory of cyclical history in his major work, New Science. Joyce puns on his name many times in Finnegans Wake, including the "first" sentence: "by a commodius vicus of recirculation". Vico's theory involves the recurrence of three stages of history: the age of gods, the age of heroes, and the age of humans—after which the cycle repeats itself. See also Ages of Man and Greek mythology.

If you google for it you will find lots of links with info like the above. The whole Theme of Eternal Recurrence is what Joyce used for Finnigan's wake and I have not read the book yet but I have been researching Joyce and asked others where do you start with him. So I took their advice and am half way through Dubliners.

Message edited by its author, Jul 28, 2009, 9:37am.

Good fortune to you on your journey through Joyce. I would dispense with Stuart Gilbert's companion volume to ULYSSES, I found it more confusing than helpful. Read Ellmann's peerless bio and Peter Costello's JAMES JOYCE: THE YEARS OF GROWTH and you should be fine...

197:Hi, Bob. yes, I was quoting from The American Religion. It is a splendid book.

his main point is that both faiths are, within any prior spiritual tradition, heretical. SBaptists for idolatry - worshiping a book; Mormonism for..well, you take your pick.

That's an interesting observation. But Luther and Calvin were heretics in their day, so I dont think the book is simply about heresy.

I read Bloom's description of the American Religion as one of "orgiastical individualism", dogmatism, a one-on-one relation with Jesus (one divine relating to a divine self), a desire to bring on the millennium and save the world. He points out the obvious danger if these unconscious religious beliefs move from the private, personal domain into the political world.

The other thing that sticks with me is his image of the fundamentalist with the American flag in one hand and the fetus in the other.

I also admire Bloom's honesty when it comes to religion and politics soiling each other. I'm paraphrasing, but he asserts that you can't even run for town dog-catcher without asserting the divinity of Jesus Christ. Wish he was joking.

Maybe if the people on Wall Street and Washington read Adam Smith instead of Ayn Rand, the world wouldn't be economically up sh!t creek.

***

Another point regarding the concept of being "well-read" boils down to status. As a high schooler, I burned through my fair share of Western Canon material, latched on to the Beats and Hermann Hesse, and enjoyed my cultural cache. Then again, reading with guidance and appreciation is more meaningful than racking up points on the amount of books read. Now I should reread a lot of those works and take time to absorb them.

If you've read all those books that constitute being "well-read", so what? What do you do after you've climbed Everest and broke the sound barrier?

Is there more to it than being status whores?

Probably the main reason is just because books/authors talk to each other so much through time. Sometimes the background reading helps understanding current reading. Of course i'm reading so many comics in my dotage that all that background is pretty useless.

201: If you've read all those books that constitute being "well-read", so what?

If you read them and dont understand them or how to fit what is in them into your life, you simply wasted your time.

If you read them at the right time of your life and absorb just enough to fake out your profs you might have earned yourself a BA in English or Comparative Literature.

If you read them with intelligence and understanding, one of the books might have radically changed who you are or changed who you want to be.

And, despite your rhetorical questions, it is obvious you think that some of "those books that constitute being well-read" (whichever they are) contain something of value to you, since you propose re-reading them.

wha hoppen here? thread ends. months of silence. it was annoying but entertaining at the same time. 'wolff, you're a riot. 'kibbin, your moniker is a puzzle. beardo, you seem like a nice, well-read (!) person drawn into a quipfest that does not suit you.

well, off to another thread to talk about classics and to-read lists!

it was annoying but entertaining at the same time.

Uh, thanks. Market research says we should try to tone down the annoying part.