We Are Not Alone

I was browsing The Economist, and saw this fascinating little article. It's always exciting to encounter another list-er! Sometimes it's easy to feel like you are the only one out there.

I found many of his insights and musings to be spot on. He writes "There are pros and cons to these books, though it’s sometimes hard to know which is which: they’re not ranked, so readers have less guidance even as the publishes enjoy more freedom to include “essential” works that are interesting, rather than good; their size makes them unwieldy (but impressively aspirational!); and, of course, they’re subjective (four works by Dostoevsky crack the “1001 Books” list—“The Brothers Karamozov” is not among them). For all their flaws the “1001” series is, for my money, the paragon of lists: a perfect end-product of their fundamental appeal."

He then goes on to list why he loves lists like these, and I agreed with many of his points, particularly "They provide necessary middle- to highbrow intellectual fortitude for recalcitrant reading." So true, my friend. There's no other reason I made it through The Trick is to Keep Breathing. He also gave me some new things to think about in terms of this project, like the idea that "They [1001 lists] are fundamentally optimistic."

I was surprised, though, that he is tackling multiple lists (movies to see, albums to listen to, etc.), which suggests a devotion to lists, yes, but not the single-mindedness necessary to actually complete the list (which is my ultimate reading goal). Also, he argues that one should read the list in order from oldest to newest. I can see that it would be fascinating to do the project that way, would provide some useful insights, and would ground the works in context (to a certain extent; not every book is a response to previous books). At the same time, I could not do the project that way. I need to bounce around to stay sane (or what passes for sanity for me, anyway).

Also, I totally disagree with his thoughts on Pamela. As you may recall, dear reader, I really hated that book, and I don't think it's virtue rewarded at all.