Van Gogh's Favorite Books | Hacker News Reader

Van Gogh's Favorite Books

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48 pointsthe-enemy12 comments

I think this article tells more about the author than about the artist. Out of hundreds of books in four languages, the author chose 6. Why not a statistical analysis of the whole set? Why not a distribution plot? Selecting your favorites tells us about … your favorites.

I agree with this list being of questionable value, at least to myself. I must add though that I have learned that it is important to not fill in what people's intentions are. I have not mastered this skill though and perhaps it remains a life-long battle against the impulses.

The author says:

" I have chosen six that can tell us something about a “new” Vincent, the real man behind the often-exploited scenes of his life. This Vincent is a far-cry from the impulsive artist he has frequently been depicted as."

So if we take this at face value, which I have no reason not to as I am unfamiliar with the website and author, the intention does not seem to simply provide a list of the author's favourites.

Nevertheless, they are necessarily chosen by the author's goals and biases. At the very least the list is colored by the author's notions.

Again, had it been possible to show the set of books in toto, that might have told us more.

Of course whatever information we get is biased and it is valid to discuss this, but I just meant that filling in the author's intentions is not something we should do. It makes it seem like this article used van Gogh's list of favourite books in bad faith just to gain attention to the author's own favourite books, which I think is unfair.

Nah. Never attribute to maliciousness, what mere incompetence will cover.

But should we attribute malice to?

At least they should have put in the full list, that would have said something about Van Gough.

A more informative list is found here: https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/vincent-van-gogh-life-and-wo...

I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Firstly, who has the ability, will, and time to go through such a list, and draw conclusions from it?

Also, a statistical analysis or distribution plot likely needs labels assigned to those works. That, too, likely would mean making subjective choices. Even a simple fiction/non-fiction distortion could be problematic in cases where a book is partly both, or where a work was thought to be fiction in van Gogh’s time, while it was later discovered to be autobiographical, or vice versa (for example, are Marco Polo’s works fiction? When does “based on a true story” become fiction?)

So, you would have to trust the author to make good choices for making those plots. Why not trust her to make a good choice for these 6, too?

Also, this is (kind of) an advertorial for a book. Its goal is to sell that book, not to be the end on van Gogh’s reading habits.

Ah. Well, I'm glad I didn't finish it then.

Of the books listed, I think I'd probably be most interested in reading Maupassant's Bel Ami, followed closely by Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

For some reason I thought Vincent Van Gogh was further from us in time than the late 1800s. I wish he could have lived longer.

Great books, i can't describe how much I love his paintings

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