An Introduction

Hi, all, and welcome to The List.

My name is Sean and I live in China. So as I noted in the other half of the The Awesomeosity Project (TAP)—Blogworthy, if you are ever reading an entry where I seem like I’m not trading in the same cultural currency you are, then it’s because I’m not.

For me, The List is an especially bold undertaking, since I’m going to have a hell of a time getting the books I need for it—reading material on-demand in China is out of the question at this point, so I have to rely on a planned trip home in May, meaning that I’ll be far behind on the novels. In the meantime, I’ve started tackling the only fiction that’s on The List for Year 1: Tolstoy’s War & Peace, so you can expect some posts on that soon, and Mariel has been generously sending me the essays as she obtains them, so I can also keep up there.

In the meantime, for me, The List is not so much about a sense of accomplishment as it is about the absolute drive to know everything. Of course I don’t expect to obtain omniscience, but if you were to look at my Facebook profile under interests, you would find the intentionally ubiquitous word “everything.” And it’s true. So as far as my minor contributions to the literary content of The List goes (I’ll probably have a lot more to say once we start working out the Music and Movies part), I’m much more interested in literature that operates as a mirror of the human experience and a repository of collective knowledge and the simple necessities, such as The Odyssey. Music and Movies will also reflect that interest as well, I hope.

And that’s my biography pertaining to my participation here. I hope you all join in, and if you’d like to contribute, either to the blog or a view on some media that should be added to The List itself, please contact us at our addresses listed on the side.

I’ll post again by Tuesday with something resembling my Booklust 2008. ‘Til then, happy reading!

-S

The Case for Literature

As noted, The List is definitely a work in progress.

First example: The Case for Literature, a truly excellent collection of essays by Gao Xianjian, translated by Mabel Lee. When I included The Case for Literature, I thought it was a book-length dissertation on why literature is important to read and understand. And while I was incorrect in this assumption, I wasn't disappointed. However, I have removed the book from The List, and instead listed selected essays ("The Case for Literature,"Author's Preface to "Without Isms," "Without Isms," and Literature as Testimony: The Search for Truth").

All of Xianjiang's essays are beautifully written, and his explorations of the impact of the Chinese language on the possibilities of thought and story-telling make me wish I had the time (and gumption, frankly) to learn.

Of these essays, I have to say that Xingjian's Preface to "Without Isms" is actually my favorites. One of the difficulties of reading a collection of someone's speeches and essays is that they often have common themes and after a while, they all start to sound the same. The Preface is the second essay included (after the Introduction) so its subject matter (expanded in "Without Isms," the fifth essay) was still fresh and new.

This essay actually affected me pretty deeply, to the exclusion of the other essays - I honestly can't remember what the others say nearly as well, altho I do know they are excellent. In fact, I'm basing a post on my blog, the Everyday Idealist, on the Preface (and once I have the post up at the EI, I'll link it). So I think I'll keep this post short, and just wait for Sean's comments (which I'm sure he'll make even tho he doesn't the essays yet.

For now though, I'll say that this is definitely a collection to add to mine and I will definitely have to include Soul Mountain on my reading list in the future.



- M

War and Peace, Entry No. 1

This is going to take a while.

After I picked War and Peace up from the library, I let it sit on my shelf for a few days, just staring at me. It's an intimidating book - 1200 pages, one of the greatest books of all time, written by one of the greatest authors of all time (inspiring a philosopher no less than Isaiah Berlin to ponder his motivations,). It was precisely for these reasons that we included it in the beginning year of The List, rather than later on with his contemporaries - as Sean insisted, what better way to start off an exploration of human thought, history and literature than by reading W&P. So here we are. And this is going to take a while.

I'm intentionally taking my time with it, spreading it throughout the first year of this gedankenexperiment. Actually, as of this writing, I'm already off target, since my goal is to read 100 pages a month, and I'm only just now hitting that mark in February. It didn't help that it took me 60 (large, dense) pages to get into the story. Any book of this length, (including The Discoverers, which I love) is bound to be intimidating. But when it appears that the book will be nothing but reading reports of conversations (half in French, which, while I can read it without the translation, I'm still unsure of the point) between over-privileged Russian elites in their over-stuffed salons, even my interest flags (not that I would ever not finish the book - I am a completionist, and besides, this is The List, and War and freaking Peace!).

After the 60th page or so, something changed. I'm not sure if it was me, if it was Tolstoy, or what, but it captured me. Most of the *action* still takes place in drawing rooms and hallways, but each of the characters, however briefly noted, are complex actors. Each is fully human - not simply a caricature or type inserted for fill. Tolstoy is evidently fascinated by these individuals and their lives, the choices they make, the actions they take, the circumstances that shape them. After a while, it's infectious.

Some of that credit must be placed with the translators, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Being desperately out of practice with my own Russian language skills (and never having reached Tolstoy's level anyway), I really can't know for certain how true they are to the original text. The reader has to place tremendous faith in the work of the translators, the best of which rise to the level of interpreters - not merely transposing the original words, but actively reimagining the work - writing as the author would have, if s/he had written in the second language. While not a substitute for a reading in the native tongue, the best translations capture the spirit and render the thinking of the original. Given what I've heard about W&P from those who read it in Russian, Pevear and Volokhonsky have done a worthy job

So, this is going to take a while, but I'm looking forward to it. I'm also hoping that by writing every 100 pages or so, and interspersing my reading of this with other selections from The List, I will be able to observe my own thinking grow and evolve over the course of the year. I'm also looking forward to the inevitable debates with Sean about these books (since we rarely agree on any interpretation). All in all, it should be a very interesting year.

- M

Book Lust; Mariel's Version

Everything else I'm reading this year (for now)
* italicized denotes already read

Non-Fiction
The Bestiary - Nicholas Christopher
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver
Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language - Seth Lerer
Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote
Housekeeping Vs. the Dirt - Hornby
Songbook - Hornby
Super Crunchers - Ayres
Trivium - Joseph
Foreign Aid - Lancaster
Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humors - Noga Arikha
Inventing Human Rights - Lynn Hunt
Long Road Home - Martha Raddatz
Walking on Water - Jensen
Discover Your Inner Economist - Cowen
Logic of Life - Harford
Politics of Freedom
Tipping Point - Gladwell
Walking on Water - L’Engle

Fiction
Last Cavalier - Dumas, trans. Lauren Yoder
Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano, trans. Natasha Wimmer
Lost City Radio - Daniel Alarcon
Mr Sebastian and the Negro Magician - Daniel Wallace
Uncommon Reader - Bennett
Not Enough Indians - Harry Shearer
Q & A - Swarup
Slam - Hornby
Everything Is Illuminated

- M

The List

The List is a shared reading list encompassing the entirety of human civilizations in 20 years. The idea of The List came developed over a year’s time (2007) after Mariel mentioned to Sean that as part of organizing her massive reading list (over 40 pages), she intended to compress 50 000 years of human history and literature into a 15-20 year reading project. Sean, being who he is, insisted she actually do it, and that she share. Eventually they (meaning Mariel) sorted through The List, which is posted by year. This year, 2008, is the first year of The List.

This is a work in progress. While The List is organized in a (mostly) logical manner, neither of us have read these books. Many are included simply because they were recommended, or looked interesting, and so were sorted into their respective years. With this in mind, expect that The List will grow and evolve over time, as we actually begin reading the books, and deciding if they are truly worthy of inclusion.

Enjoy.

The List
* italicized implies that a book is recommended, but optional


Year 1: How to Use the List: Theories and Thought Exercises

The Philosophical: The Broader Concepts
Apollo’s Fire- Michael Sims
The Discoverers- Boorstin
The Elegant Universe
A Sideways Look at Time
Study of History- Toynbee

The Philosophical: The Human Mind
I Am a Strange Loop- Douglas Hofstadter
The Head Trip- Jeff Warren

[added 2.13.08: History of a Disturbance - Steven Millhauser. Published in The New Yorker on 3.5.07]

The Practical Aspects: How to Use the List
Biography: A Brief History- Nigel Hamilton
The Well-Educated Mind- Bauer
How to Read a Book- Mortimer Adler
The Rhetoric of Fiction
How We Think- Dewey
How to Read and Why- Bloom
How to Read Literature Like a Professor- Foster

[edited 2.13.08: The Case for Literature, to:
‘The Case for Literature’
Author’s ‘Preface to Without Isms’
‘Without Isms’
‘Literature as Testimony: The Search for Truth’
(all from The Case for Literature- Gao Xingjian, trans. Mabel Lee)]


. . . . . .
Year 2: Roots of Society, Culture and Faith
[tentative]

Evolution and Natural History
Man Makes Himself- Childe
The Blind Watchmaker
Story of Us Humans, from Atoms to Today’s Civilization- Robert Dalling
World History- McNeill

Human Society
Stuff of Thought- Steven Pinker
Guns Germs and Steel
Collapse
Wisdom of Crowds

Religion and Philosophy
The History of God- Armstrong
Perennial Philosophy- Huxley
Religions of Man- Smith
Varieties of Religious Experience- James
World as Will and Idea- Schopenhauer
Ten Geographic Ideas that Changed the World
The Golden Bough- Frazer

Welcome

Welcome to The List.

The List is both our shared reading list and a place to discuss the included books and essays. The idea of The List came developed over a year’s time (2007) after Mariel mentioned to Sean that as part of organizing her massive reading list (over 40 pages), she intended to compress 50 000 years of human history and literature into a 15-20 year reading project. Sean, being who he is, insisted she actually do it, and that she share. Eventually they (meaning Mariel) sorted through The List, which is posted by year. This year, 2008, is the first year of The List.

This is a work in progress. While The List is organized in a (mostly) logical manner, neither of us have read these books. Many are included simply because they were recommended, or looked interesting, and so were sorted into their respective years. With this in mind, expect that The List will grow and evolve over time, as we actually begin reading the books, and deciding if they are truly worthy of inclusion.

Additionally, The List is only one part of a much larger project to categorize everything we and our friends find interesting and important. This project is broken down into two smaller parts: Awesomeosity and Blogworthy. If The List is everything you need to know to be human, Awesomeosity is everything you need to know to be in the know, and Blogworthy is everything else worthwhile you might have missed in your daily life. Eventually, we’ll actually build a webpage and start sharing our knowledge and thoughts with the rest of the world.

Until then, enjoy.