In a strange land

23 responses so far ↓

• Chris // Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 11:03 am

  Do people really have Anansi Boys and Lolita sitting on their shelves to make themselves look smart?

  War and Peace is currently fulfilling that important role on my shelf…

• violet // Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 4:29 pm

  I doubt that the presence of any book by Dan Brown would make anyone look intelligent.

• Nick // Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 6:01 pm

  You’ve read a lot more of the list than I have, but, even worse, I find that I can remember virtually nothing about a lot of the ones I know I’ve read.

  I could give only an ok-ish plot synopsis of 1984, which I’ve read at least three times, and I have a sneaking suspicion that my memories of Emma have more to do with the last version that came on TV, than with the book. And I claim to like Jane Austen!

  My self-esteem is not completely in tatters, because I’ve at least read the Aeneid in Latin, some books more than once (and I did book 9 of the Oddysey in Greek at varsity, though not very well). But I’m waiting for a TV version of the former — starring Brad Pitt again I hope — on which to base my memories of the plot.

• donnasoowho // Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 7:09 pm

  I just said the EXACT same thing as Violet (although next I wondered why they picked Angels and Demons instead of the Da Vinci Code…).

  Might have a twirl at this on Don Foo. If only so Ray can stand looking over my shoulder going ‘read that, read that’.

• malcolm // Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 7:25 pm

  Well I got up to the low twenties. But does seeing the movie count? Or what about books which I haven’t read, but still have a strong opinion on …. ?

  Mind you, I have read 7 that Deborah hasn’t.

• donnasoowho // Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 7:35 pm

  Malcolm you’re as bad as bloody Ray who has been standing here looking over my shoulder going ‘..oh I’VE read that…’ when I mark it as haven’t read yet…

• Nick // Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 8:42 pm

  I have read the first chapter of Angels and Demons. Usually my literary and cinematic tastes are the lowest common denominator, and I can take any amount of bollocks, if there is a pacy plot. Angels and Demons is the first book I have ever felt insulted by. I actually threw it across the room, and don’t think I’ve ever done that with a book before.

  So I, too, wonder why the original compiler of this list thought anyone would be impressed by its appearance on your bookshelf.

• Deborah // Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 9:40 pm

  I’m, ah, proud to say that I didn’t even recognise Angels and Demons, let alone manage to link it to the DaVinci thing-a-ma-watty.

  But I have to say, Nick, that so far you are leading in the over-educated stakes. Reading something in Latin is just too much!

  As for Brad Pitt in a skirt…. a few weeks ago in my singing lesson, our teacher was recounting the story of the seige of Troy, brought on on Paris’ abduction of Helen. But who was Paris’ heroic brother? He couldn’t remember the name, and neither could I… racking my brain, trying, trying, trying to remember, until eventually I said, “Eric Bana!” And all the women of a certain age in my class, including me, snickered….

  Such a lovely line-up in Troy. Eric Bana, Sean Bean, and Brad Pitt in short skirts, with Orlando Bloom as a bit of fluff on the side.

• Deborah // Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 9:42 pm

  And of course, that would be Hector, as played by Eric Bana.

• Deborah // Wednesday 14 May 2008 at 9:52 pm

  It couldn’t be Brad Pitt again - he died! Or at least, Achilles died. It would have to be Orlando Bloom, as Paris, who escapes the sack of Troy… not nearly so much, well, fun.

• Nick // Thursday 15 May 2008 at 12:32 am

  I’m not sure I want to cast Orloondo Bland in my Aeneid blockbuster.

  However, if Brad Pitt is prepared to drape himself decoratively in the background in a *very* little skirt (perhaps as Achilles’ ghost) I might grudgingly accept Orlando’s repertoire of two facial expressions (puzzled and faintly startled) in the foreground.

  And Angelina Jolie certainly won’t get the part of Dido if she insists on a reprise of the that weird Transylvanian snake charmer routine she did in Alexander.

• donnasoowho // Thursday 15 May 2008 at 6:30 am

  You know I was thinking about the Angels and Demons thing last night (at 3am as you do) and I’m wondering if it’s less about supposedly intellectual books (there are a few I’d question in that category) and more about the fact that maybe you read the Da Vinci Code and thought it was a bit of a ripper read, and so you bought Angels and Demons but then realised that Dan Brown is actually kind of crap and so never got around to reading it? Not that that’s what happened to me… (although I did read the Da Vinci Code and thought it was not a bad holiday read but then got sick of everyone talking about it).

• Julie // Thursday 15 May 2008 at 6:35 am

  I’ve read and finished 30, started or read bits of another 7 . I’m surprised at some of the contemporary books that are allegedly there to show how smart you are. Angels & Demons has already been mentioned (and I have read and finished it, it’s as bad as you think), but I was wondering about Neverwhere and The Mists of Avalon. All hail the great Neil Gaiman, but Neverwhere isn’t the kind of book I would think you would have to show off the size of your brain (and actually it was quite hard to get here in NZ when I was looking for it). Perhaps this reflects the US bias of the list - any author with a British accent must be clever?

  As for Mists, I enjoyed it, but my positive memories of it are almost completely blotted out by that AWFUL series that MZB wrote with Julian May and Andre Norton.

  On the issue of Homeric (and Virgilic) epic sagas, I’m not sure my poor heart could take another Troy-esque interpretation. A war that took over a decade reduced to three days? And where was Cassandra (my favourite character)? Grump. Although I could up my smartie points by admitting that I have read some bits of the Aenied in Latin, but I couldn’t do it now.

• Julie // Thursday 15 May 2008 at 6:40 am

  Donna, that theory particularly makes sense given that A&D is about an implausible set of events that happens to the same guy, before TDVC. I read the Code because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Someone gave us A&D, as my partner is into art history, and so I read it.

  When I was travelling around Europe in 2006 I inadvertently went to a lot of the places mentioned in these books. I did deliberately visit the Roslyn Chapel though, as Brown’s writing introduced me to its great beauty and it sounded pretty cool. Several hundred thousand other people have had the same idea and what was a sleepy little church slowly mouldering away is now inundated with so many tourists that it is hard to move sometimes. It will certainly help with funding the major roof work needed to save it.

• Melika // Thursday 15 May 2008 at 8:38 am

  I’ve read 35 but some of them were in the dim and distant past.

  I’ve recently finished the Odyssey and become completely absorbed in it……..and am now eyeing up the Iliad……….Robert Fagles translation, not in Greek.

  And I wouldn’t touch Dan Brown with a barge pole!

• Stephen // Thursday 15 May 2008 at 11:42 am

  To my surprise I have read 45 of these (and abandoned several others part-way through). I question whether many of the selections on this list “make you look smart” and in fact several are positive disqualifications in my view, or at least, I would think less of someone who claimed they were improving works.

  For example, two books by Ayn Rand are two too many, and they certainly won’t be standing for all time with, say, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. And while I love Gaiman and Neal Stephenson, they are lightweight compilers of the picaresque - I doubt whether anyone will be reading them in 100 years. My opinion of your cleverness won’t be moved one way or another by your having read them.

  The picture I get of someone who thinks all these works are all impressive (as opposed to entertaining) is of a young male rightwing libertarian, probably something of a nerd, who fancies himself as educated but reads the odd novel in the hopes it will impress a girl.

• Unmana // Thursday 15 May 2008 at 4:23 pm

  I am so doing this!

• Paul // Friday 16 May 2008 at 4:04 am

  I got to twenty. It is not the books on the shelf in the lounge that count but the ones on the floor of the toilet because at least these ones are genuinely read. War and Peace took me two years in short installments in the upstairs toilet when I was in my early teens.

  I don’t think seeing the film should count Malcolm, due to the artistic licence of film makers. I saw Pearl Harbour and came away with the impression that the Americans won the day!!!

• Julie // Friday 16 May 2008 at 3:34 pm

  Melika, I have just finished Kate Camp’s book Kate’s Klassics and she rates the Fagles’ translation highly too so I think I may give that a go at some point.

  And Paul that’s a great idea about the toilet, I’ll have to try it. Do people look at you funny when they come out?

• Paul // Saturday 17 May 2008 at 12:45 pm

  Hi Julie, No people don’t look at you funny but some take a long time and look sheepish then ask to borrow whatever it may be.

• Daleaway // Sunday 18 May 2008 at 11:26 am

  I’ve read 42. What a coincidence.

  But then I’m old, and so are most of the titles I’ve identified.

  Others on the list, like The Mists of Avalon, were given to me (”You’ll love this…” ) and were abandoned for committing the author’s ultimate offence - failing to hold my attention.

  I did read some of the books of the Aeneid in Latin, but it was in 1961 and 62 and it’s dollars to doughnuts that I could no longer retell much of the story. Love Chaucer though.

  Incidentally, what really looks like you’re desperate to impress is keeping every book you’ve ever owned. Winnow them, edit your collection - give them to book fairs, the Sallies, even your local prison library. Don’t let them clutter up the place till they feel like dandruff.

• innercitygarden // Tuesday 20 May 2008 at 8:52 pm

  I’ve read through this list at a few blogs now and (possibly because I’ve just finished reading Affluenza) it strikes me as a great example of our times.

  Growing up, in a reasonably well off middle class home, my mother read and re-read a very small collection of books. She read a few others from the library over and over too. Then she grew up, and mostly read books from the library, or books that were gifts, and she only bought herself books for uni or special occasions. She used to buy my brother and I a book for each school holiday, so we had more than she’d had, but still not that many. Now I suspect Mum hasn’t been to the local library in several years, because she has the cash to take a risk on buying a book she mightn’t like that much. Her friends have more cash too, and they buy each other books. Her friends also share books, and Mum is a finisher, but the number purchased rather than borrowed has certainly grown. I was horrified a few weeks ago to sort through my shelves to acknowledge how many books I own that I have not read. Some were ill-conceived presents, but many were bought by me, and now I don’t know why.

  I’ve got them in a box ready for the second hand dealer.

  (While we’re trading Book Snob points though: I read Dante’s Inferno in old Italian)

• Unmana // Wednesday 21 May 2008 at 1:57 pm

  I did it! Come and look.

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