Read LotR before you die!

[Iris Alantiel]

Child of the Seventh Age, you’re scaring me. I am also about to start training to be a librarian, and my boyfriend is entering law school. Spooky.

Actually, I’m in my last year of my undergrads right now, and I’m taking an English course on Fantasy. The professor is a little bit . . . interesting, and he has a few sort of frightening ideas about Tolkien (especially concerning his intentions regarding Shelob), but he did say a few things about fantasy in academia that, based on my observations, seemed dead-on. He noted that, when you ask academics to name the most important book of the twentieth century, they say James Joyce’s Ulysses . . . but when you ask the general public, they choose The Lord of the Rings. That’s starting to change, but change is slow. And with some of the things they tried to teach me this year, I can’t say I’m sorry. I’ve learned miles more about Tolkien from you fine folk than from that crazy prof (whom I was actually correcting in front of the class when he misspoke on Tolkien, so I fear he doesn’t like me all that much). I’m starting to think that maybe our dear Professor Tolkien should be left to the people who love him.

But still, it is encouraging to see The Lord of the Rings on this list. I suppose you could see the story as “saying something”, but personally, I don’t see what’s so wrong with it if it isn’t. I think some of the most valuable, most enriching works I’ve ever read are those that don’t have any major political or social agendas, but just say something about our archetypal emotions and what it means to be human, to struggle with the issues of life and death, good and evil, and what all those things mean – questions we all ask. Just my thoughts, of course . . . but I believe those are the books we should read before we die, because I think those are the questions we all want to be able to answer by that time.

[JennyHallu]

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee -- X
The Bible -- X
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien -- X
1984 by George Orwell -- X
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens -- X
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte -- X
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen -- X
All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman -- X
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding -- X
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy -- X
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne -- X
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham -- X
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell -- X
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens -- X
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Middlemarch by George Eliot -- X
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

X's mean I've read them...but I'm afraid there are many on this list that I simply cannot see as important enough to be on a must-read list, and as much as I love it, LotR falls within that category. Where are Crime and Punishment, Vanity Fair, Tom Sawyer, The Iliad, The Good Earth, Catch-22, and so many TRUE classics?

And yet His Dark Materials is a must read? I know that book was very popular, but it was published what? 5-6 years ago? An interesting list...but I feel it is a sad comment on our society that some of these are on the list.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by JennyHallu

I'm afraid there are many on this list that I simply cannot see as important enough to be on a must-read list, and as much as I love it, LotR falls within that category. Where are Crime and Punishment, Vanity Fair, Tom Sawyer, The Iliad, The Good Earth, Catch-22, and so many TRUE classics?

I agree with your list of "why aren't these in the list?" - but not with your opinion of LotR. Why do you think it should NOT be on a cultural must-read list (assuming that such lists are worth making)?

[Legolas]

Why does Lord of the Rings not fall in this category, Jenny?

I agree that some epic poetry should be read before death - Paradise Lost, The Faerie Queene, The Divine Comedy, The Aeneid, The Iliad, The Odyssey - but I wouldn't expect that they were eligible for this list (or poetry, or drama) since it was World Book Day (not World Work of Literature Day), and they can be difficult reading.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by JennyHallu

And yet His Dark Materials is a must read? I know that book was very popular, but it was published what? 5-6 years ago? An interesting list...but I feel it is a sad comment on our society that some of these are on the list.

At least seven of the books listed were published within the last ten years, some are very recent works. It is inevitable that lists of "the best..." or "the greatest..." will always include some contemporary work as it will be fresh in the mind of those choosing or voting. What is really interesting to see is how such lists change over the years, and whether certain works still make the list.

How do we know if a book will still be incredibly popular in decades to come? I remember Bob Geldof being very nasty about Madonna back in the early 90s, when she was amongst those voted "most influential musicians" - he stated she was a 'has-been'. Bet he had to eat his words in order to get her to appear at Live8.

This is a list compiled by librarians too, who will be used to recommending 'good reads' to all kinds of people; this would explain why more difficult works might not have been included, though few of these are 'easy' reads!