If only because it's less french oriented, but also maybe because it starts with one of my favorite.
keiferski 4 minutes ago [-]
What would be interesting is to cross reference this list with an Anglophone one and pull out the writers that are big in France but almost unknown amongst the public in America. Céline is definitely one such example, I think.
onli 2 hours ago [-]
What a strange list. Many books I'd never expect to be listed, others I'd expect to be listed are missing. So I looked up the background and indeed it's based on strange methodology, citing wikipedia: "Starting from a preliminary list of 200 titles created by bookshops and journalists, 17,000 French participants responded to the question, "Which books have stuck in your mind?" (Quels livres sont restés dans votre mémoire?"
Makes more sense like that.
kergonath 39 minutes ago [-]
> Many books I'd never expect to be listed, others I'd expect to be listed are missing
Most of them make sense to me. I don’t know some of them but then I don’t know everything. The methodology can be discussed (and indeed, a pre-selection of 200 books is at the same time a lot and not that much), but none of these lists can be perfect.
Out of curiosity, which one would you remove from the list, and which ones would you add?
keiferski 9 minutes ago [-]
How is this strange? It’s pretty much what I’d expect from francophone readers. What were you expecting?
jdsnape 2 hours ago [-]
Out of interest, why does that seem a strange methodology?
onli 2 hours ago [-]
When reading "Books of the Century" I expected a list of the most important, most influential or just best books. Skewed towards the french perspective, given Le Monde as a source. But this was never the goal, just a "what stuck in your mind" question.
For example, 1984 is missing, and Louis Begley Wartime Lies. And I wouldn't have expected Ulysses in there given the french source, for me it was incomprehensible gibberish and I thought only the US ranks it high. But that gibberishness makes it certainly memorable, so given the question it fits.
rorytbyrne 8 minutes ago [-]
Ulysses was first published in Paris during the 20 years that Joyce lived there.
>I thought only the US ranks it high
Joyce never even set foot in the United States... You could say this about The Great Gatsby, which US sources might rank in the top 5 compared to 46 in this list.
Guestmodinfo 15 minutes ago [-]
James Joyce wearing his bottle bottom glasses (thick glasses) would like to have a word with you. You can call him genius, dirty, knowledgeable in many languages but certainly not gibberish. He used to hold long book club style readings of his books among the prominent literateur in his times to exactly impinge in their minds that what he writes is clever and not gibberish. In our book club we often discuss for hours what he was trying to say on a page. Sometimes he says things in 3 different dimensions by writing a single sentence.
keiferski 7 minutes ago [-]
1984 is listed at number 22 under its actual title, written out.
mmooss 4 minutes ago [-]
Ulysses was written in Paris, where James Joyce lived, and was published in Paris by the now legendary Shakespeare & Co. The US and UK banned it for being obscene.
When I don't know, I ask and don't judge (and lacking omniscience, I don't judge anyway).
jkingsbery 1 hours ago [-]
1984 is 22 on the list.
onli 1 hours ago [-]
Upps. Searching for 1984 didn't turn it up.
Karuma 1 hours ago [-]
1984 is N°22 on that list...
hammock 51 minutes ago [-]
Starting with only 200 titles in the survey, for a final list of 100, seems off to me for starters. Every book surveyed has a 50% chance of making “book of the century”
tstenner 3 minutes ago [-]
That makes it sound like 50 shades of grey would have had a 50/50 chance of getting into the top 100 if it only was included in the wider selection
If only because it's less french oriented, but also maybe because it starts with one of my favorite.
Makes more sense like that.
Most of them make sense to me. I don’t know some of them but then I don’t know everything. The methodology can be discussed (and indeed, a pre-selection of 200 books is at the same time a lot and not that much), but none of these lists can be perfect.
Out of curiosity, which one would you remove from the list, and which ones would you add?
For example, 1984 is missing, and Louis Begley Wartime Lies. And I wouldn't have expected Ulysses in there given the french source, for me it was incomprehensible gibberish and I thought only the US ranks it high. But that gibberishness makes it certainly memorable, so given the question it fits.
>I thought only the US ranks it high
Joyce never even set foot in the United States... You could say this about The Great Gatsby, which US sources might rank in the top 5 compared to 46 in this list.
When I don't know, I ask and don't judge (and lacking omniscience, I don't judge anyway).