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Comment by crims0n | Hacker News Reader

I am about a quarter of the way through Modern Library’s top 100 and it has been a worthwhile journey. It is “just” literary fiction but it is among the best humanity has produced. I have learned so much about the human condition, my ability to articulate ideas has improved tremendously, and I feel like my mind has been “freed from the tyranny of the present” (to quote Cicero).

https://sites.prh.com/modern-library-top-100

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Anyone who puts "Ulysses" at the top of a best books list is suffering from expertitis. Ulysses has a massive user experience problem. It's hard. Dense, convoluted, absurd. If your friend asks you for a good book, you don't recommend it. The only time you do is when your college English major, or advanced highschooler, who is bored with the tropes of even very good novels wants to stretch themselves. Then you hand them this book.

I agree, and in fact I did not start with Ulysses and do not recommend people do. I read 2-10 on the list, then Hamlet, then Ulysses - which I feel mostly prepared me for it. I did love it, but it is not an easy read, and took me the better part of a month to get through.

Why are you conflating "best" with "what you would recommend a friend"?

Many of the best things in life are hard. And you wouldn't necessarily recommend them to a friend.

When you consider specific domains, often the best instances of X tend to be harder versions of X. Or, when people become familiar with many instances of X they seek out the "best" instances of X. Its natural that those best instances would be difficult for people unfamiliar with the domain.

"Many of the best things in life are hard. And you wouldn't necessarily recommend them to a friend."

Yup.

How did you find Ulysses, was it a good read for you?

>Or, when people become familiar with many instances of X they seek out the "best" instances of X

I think you're saying the same thing as the GP? Ulysses is a book for lit nerds, which I suppose the Modern Library board were.

Looking at the list, there's hardly any books from after mid 20th century. That makes me think that the board comprised primarily old lit nerds, who stopped reading long before voting. The list is also super ethno centric, which makes me more dubious still about the claims for "best" anything.

According to the NYT[1], between 1950 and 2018 95% of published English-language fiction authors were white. That Top 100 Novel list contains at least 3 black authors, Ellison, Wright, and Baldwin. Considering that the percentage of black authors for the period 1900-2000 was probably even less than for 1950-2000, and that there are actually only 75 unique authors in that list, on its face I don't see the bias by the voters. The bias is in the disproportionate share of published white authors.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/11/opinion/cultu...

Yes, this list reads like one a Midwestern high schooler would go through to impress his failed literature teacher, who will write him a nice recommendation letter for the ultra-conformist university of his dreams, dooming him to 25 years of debt and a miserable life working as a consultant

Yes, but now tell us how you really feel.

> Ulysses has a massive user experience problem

Seems this book is not intended for you then!

> It's hard. Dense, convoluted, absurd.

These are a few of my favorite things!

Exactly. This is extremely boring piece of writing.

There's definitely some of that going on.

I've gotten the same feeling watching old movies a second time.

I would watch a movie when I was young, and it just came out. It would be "modern", maybe state of the art, and it would have an impact on me. But I was young, and easily impressed by the cliche or trite.

And then I would watch the same movie decades later. Times changed, the art has changed, casting, pacing, effects have all advanced to support the storytelling. And I am older, a different person, and maybe more aware of what is "timeless" with a little more experience under my belt.

It might be a historical deep dive, but compared to the available material our present has, some older media should drop off the list.

Expertitis is not a thing and your criticism is based merely on public perception of the book and not the book itself. In case it wasn’t clear, I disagree completely: Ulysses is very worthy of the honor. It is as approachable as it is lofty.

I have never heard that book described as approachable.

It’s not, really. If you try to read it you will fail miserably with a completely unenjoyable experience. It’s kind of like The Bible or The Odyssey, anyone who recommends it is out of touch.

If you think Ulysses is dense, convoluted and absurd, try Finnegans Wake.

I prefer The Ginger Man to both. Glad to see it make the cut.

I've read more than half of those, and every time I see that list, I really wish that almost every book would be paired w/ one which enhances/comments on either the book or that same theme.

e.g., _Kim_ by Rudyard Kipling should be paired w/ Robert Heinlein's _Citizen of the Galaxy_, or _The Grapes of Wrath_, which was cribbed from Sanora Babb's notes w/o permission should be paired w/ her _Whose Names Are Unknown_:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1197158.Whose_Names_Are_...

I really like this idea. I didn't even know about Whose Names Are Unknown... added it to the queue.

Previous discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42133491

I’m not a literary scholar, but this seems like a great use case for ChatGPT. I’ve used it for music explorations and found it surprisingly good at providing context and interesting suggestions. I tried your idea with The Grapes of Wrath and it surfaced Whose Names Are Unknown, with a thoughtful explanation. Obviously it’s qualitative, but you can shape the prompt to reflect your taste and still get some worthwhile discoveries.

[1] https://chatgpt.com/share/68150654-bebc-8010-ad4b-050f5b39d4...

I would also suggest the childrens books Cheaper by the Dozen, The Musicians of Brennan, Morris' Disappearing Bag and The Red Badge of Courage.

I'd maybe throw in some of the little house on the prairie books as well, especially the one where they all almost froze to death.

I think being able to appreciate books as an adult is pretty contingent on being exposed to good books as a youth.

That's a dreadful list in my opinion. Absurdly Anglocentric (esp. Americo-centric). I'm not saying they're bad books but a really far cry from "among the best humanity has produced". Not a single south-american novel? Not a single romance language book as a matter of fact? I highly recommend you diversify your reading choices.

Open to suggestions.

Elsethread, I suggested Nobel Prize Winners --- just start at the beginning, see what is in your local library which interests you, and skip over the authors who have ceased to be relevant enough to be in the stacks.

One notable highlight, which I'm pretty sure was the first work by a Nobel Laureate I read is Herman Hesse --- I'd recommend his _Magister Ludi_ (also published as _The Glass Bead Game_)

would have loved to see some non native English speaking authors on the list. (instead of listing some authors twice - as great as they are). There were 2 Russians that stood out but no Camus, Feuchtwanger, Remarque, Musil, Borges, ...

Yes, it's kind of a strange slice - we get Faulkner three times and we get Joseph Conrad no fewer than four times(!), but not a single book from Dostoevsky or Tolstoy? No Bulgakov, no Turgenev? No Flaubert?

Lermontov's 'Hero of Our Time' is probably my favorite Russian novel, and I say that as someone who absolutely adores Dostoevsky. It still feels relevant and modern.

FWIW, I would argue that Tolstoy is extremely overrated as a writer (but agree with your other suggestions).

English was Joseph Conrad's third language.

Or just rename the list "Top 100 Novels in the English Language".

I don't think this is a very good list that should call itself top 100. Maybe anglophone top 100, but even then I'd question some of the choices. I completely ignores a ton of more important works in non-English languages.

The Modern Library is a publishing imprint of Random House so it’s pretty much focused on works in English.

Seeing that I am on HN and can unleash unrestrained pedantry I wish to ask where Cicero actually writes that because I cannot find it?

The full quote is allegedly "The purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of the present." ...I picked it up in Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, but he didn't cite which work it came from. Goodreads attributes it to "Selected Works".

The Roman version of "trust me bro"

I thought Mark Twain said that. /ducks

I dodn't think it's a quote; more a paraphrase of: https://www.loebclassics.com/view/marcus_tullius_cicero-orat...

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

That’s a very … liberal interpretation.

I find it fascinating how many interesting quotes turn out to be fabrications of unknown origin.

I suspect what happened here (and possibly in other similar cases) is that some author glossed a body of work in a way that made sense in context, and others mistook it as a quotation. It's as if I remarked that Isaac Asimov said a lot of prescient things about robots, and people saw that and started quoting it:

> A lot of prescient things about robots.

> -- Issac Asimov

This list is kind of strange. Firstly, it is very "anglo-saxon" oriented. It is a mixture of "Big Literature", interesting for someone who is literature student, like ULYSSES (which is at the same time a great novel and a boring as hell novel) with true gems, like Orwell or Joseph Conrad-Korzeniowski with additions like Robert Graves writing, which has mostly entertainment value equal to average pseudo-documentaries from Netflix and pop stuff like Vonnegut' books (which are, at least, not boring).

Still, a lot of interesting stuff, Orwell, unfortunately, never gets old, pity Ray Bradbury was omitted, as Fahrenheit 451 is getting more and more up-to-date.

You inspired me to do the same. I just ordered the first five, and will continue down the list.

Out of the list, I read 8 books so far, but all of them in Czech.

Enjoy your journey!

Really wish they had that list in order of difficulty - if you start with Ulysses, you're gonna have a bad time.

The first flaw with any cannon: It nearly excludes women. I looked through the first half of the list. I only saw two books written by women.

I’ve read 53 of the fiction, 10 of the non-fiction (which tracks with my being an English major).

What an awful list!

And I say that as a Modern Literature major who has read a lot on that list. FAULKNER IS A TERRIBLE WRITER! And while James Joyce and some of the others are good writers, they don't deserve multiple entries in the top 100.

It's clear this list is really "5 librarians personal favorites."

It was from a list of 440 books (possibly what Random House then had in stock) and voted on by the board members --- it's been widely criticized/commented on, see the Wikipedia article for some further links on this.

Can you recommend a better one? I picked it at random when I wanted to explore literature, but it seemed to be cited often enough.

One that does not omit Dostoevsky or García Marquez over mediocre books in the English language would be a good start.

Again, this list is from Random House, a major American English-language book publisher.

My suggestion would be to start with the authors nominated for a Nobel prize for literature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Lit...

Filtering by those available in readily available English translations should yield a workable list.

The sentence "FAULKNER IS A TERRIBLE WRITER" is one of the most incredible sets of words I've ever had the misfortune to lay my eyes upon.

The Sound and the Fury is an incredible piece of art with a beautifully structured narrative, in my reading of it. Why do you say he's a terrible writer in your opinion? Who would you rank higher?

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