So, I've been putting off writing this column for weeks, though not out of any sense of nostalgia. I just haven't known what to say. At the end of 2007, I came up with a simple plan to carry me through 2008, "to read one “great” book a month for the entire year and write about them as I go." With the exception of August, I think I saw it through.
Staring up the slope of '09, I find myself pondering over what I've gained in following The Great Book Adventure. I think I understand greatness a little better. That was at the heart of this whole thing anyway, the feeling that I was missing some of the most important pieces of Western literature. There were titles and authors I'd always heard of, but knew next to nothing about. Don Quixote, Moby Dick, and Walden, were just a few. In reading through some of these high-recognition pieces, however, I came to realize that greatness is a fluid term that gets applied with far too much certainty, if you ask me.
Take Don Quixote, for instance. There are people out there, scholars and laymen alike, some of whom I respect, who absolutely love the book. They won't hesitate to call it the greatest piece of literature ever written. I don't care how many PhDs you have, say that and I think you're nuts. I was so bored through most of it that I began looking at dental surgery in a more positive light. Don't get me wrong, there were parts I thought were magnificent, but as a book, a novel, it was rubbish. I am totally at a loss as to why so many very intelligent people put so much stock in Cervantes's magnum opus doorstop. Were they seeing something I was not? Could I be seeing something they weren't? Well, come to think of it, yeah, both are probably true.
Greatness, I think, is a very personal term, which often changes as we change. It is only natural that my opinions of certain books would differ from the experts, but not because of the gulf in education or experience alone. We are different people, and so approach the books from different angles. We are looking for different things, expecting different results, often unconsciously, and so our understandings of greatness are bound to be disparate. I think greatness is an appellation that we give to things which move us emotionally at a particular time and place. Some things, certain books for example, will move us throughout our lives, while others we simply aren't ready for at that first reading.
Article comments
1 - C.T.
Too bad you've made up your mind about Ayn Rand. She tells magnificent stories involving passionate romances and complicated relationships. Very insightful and enlightening stuff.
2 - hopeinbrazil
"Greatness" cannot be based on personal opinion. There has to be something more than a gut feeling that makes a book a classic or not. Most modern day bestsellers will fall by the wayside because they fail to touch readers at a deeper level. The "Great Books" require more of their readers because of their rich language and depth of insight. Sadly, few are willing to devote the time needed to understand these books. As you noted, because of personality differences no one will enjoy them all equally, but at the same time we shouldn't discard the whole group because of a few "dud"s.