I noticed that this list was made by Martin Seymour-Smith. He was an English poet and critic whose masterpiece was called Guide to Modern World Literature. It is a monster of a book that covers hundreds (thousands?) of writers, a tour de force that is nearly impossible to believe was put together by one person. I used to spend hours poring over it in the reference section of the library. For such an encyclopedia, it's remarkable how idiosyncratic and addictive it is. He makes no attempt to be balanced or standard about anything; he just gives his personal views—for example he pooh-poohs Eliot and says that the greatest poet of the 20th century was César Vallejo. So, unlike most reference works, it's wonderfully intimate. It's like having an uncle who knows everything and will happily tell you all about anyone you name.
Sometimes it's even perverse, as he loves nothing better than to champion the obscure and take the famous and well-established down a peg. So I suppose it's fitting that basically no one has heard of his work.
I discovered him years ago on a long bus trip with a layover in Salt Lake City, where I went to a used bookstore. His book--actually an earlier one called "Who's Who in 20th Century Literature", smaller but still massive--was on a shelf in the basement of the store. I looked someone up in it and thought "this is interesting", sat on the floor and looked someone else up, and then another and so on. Hours later I woke up and realized that I was sitting on the basement floor of a bookstore in a strange city. I remember I had to run to the bus station and barely made it. That book, and then later the astonishing one I described above, became my companions for years, the sort of thing where the author is your mentor and friend and you feel vividly that you know him. Thank you Martin Seymour-Smith!
"long bus trip ... Salt Lake City ... used bookstore ... on a shelf in the basement"
Probably Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore [0]. Three blocks from the bus station for the second half of the twentieth century, it occupied two stories of new books and a large basement full of used books always full of treasures. It moved two miles southeast to Trolley Square in 2011.
Gurdjieff was influential for some 20th century folks, but it seems a little ridiculous to put him anywhere near, say, Marx or Mao. I suspect Seymour-Smith was a fan, or at least his circles held a disproportionate number of them.
It's hard to compare ancient books whose influence is clearly enormous -- e.g. analects of confucious and the new testament -- to more recent books whose influence is hard to estimate, especially in the longer term, so it's necessarily a silly but interesting exercise. And, is a book influential for being famous or having an impact or simply acting as a standin for influence that clearly exists? E.g. I doubt Einstein's influence stems from his book on relativity.
But it would be easy to make a long, long list of other works and of important people who were influenced by the Analects or by the New Testament. Or indeed, by most of the books on this list. A list of works and people influenced by Gurdjieff would not be very long. I would be curious to see his reasoning here, because without an explanation it brands the whole list as personal opinion.
I found its inclusion incomprehensible. I purchased the book and got as far as the third chapter. I learned more from researching the book itself than I did from trying to actually read the thing.
Gurdjieff existed in a time before personal development really became a thing. He did not believe in books as an effective method for change. His technique was primarily interpersonal, he thought one needed a guru to tell them what to do, much as we would today hire a personal trainer to help us work out more effectively.
He survived a terrible automobile accident later on in life and turned his attention to his legacy. He wrote three books, Beelzebub was his first. The intention was to provide a 'textbook' of sorts. Because it was so hard to read, the seeker would be driven to seek out someone to interpret the work for them.
The actual content of the book, when you strip out the intricate allegory and dense terminology, is actually pretty simple. It basically states Gurdjieff's ideas concerning the human condition. The default status of man is waking sleep, one needs inner spiritual work to rouse themselves out of that state.
That's a good observation. Seymour-Smith was (I seem to recall) a fan, and he certainly would have been around lots of people who were into that work. On the other hand, from Seymour-Smith's perspective, which was literary- and 20th century-centric, Gurdjieff may well belong on the list. He really did have a surprising influence on literary and artistic circles. His movement was fascinating and I don't think it has been properly studied or understood; all the good writing about it is by followers. But yes, surely nowhere near Marx or Mao.
Well the site is just ripping off the list from one of Seymour-Smith's books, which would certainly have given reasons. I don't think respect for the original is a high priority there.
The specific rationale wouldn't be something one could really explain in less than a few pages for each of those.
The overarching reason is that each of these books had a huge effect on intellectual and cultural history across a long span of time. To demonstrate that, one would need quite a bit of space, and ultimately it would amount to giving someone an entire education in the intellectual history of most of the world over the last 2500 years.
It seems rather futile in any event. Pointing out the highlights of Plotinus' influence would involve referring to a large number of other authors and texts and movements that are even less well known, e.g. Marsilio Ficino, the Corpus Hermeticum, and Renaissance Neo-Platonism.
I am pretty sure that for most of the authors, however, a good Wikipedia entry will throw out a few sentences that give someone an idea.
The specific rationale wouldn't be something one could really explain in less than a few pages for each of those.
Sure, but something should be said as to the reason for inclusion, if only to direct people as to were to get a better understanding.
As it is it reminds of the many "best of" lists (movies of all time, etc.) where some suspect or opaque selection process is used and the results put out as if the veracity is just to assumed. Great for starting conversations at parties, perhaps.
I am pretty sure that for most of the authors, however, a good Wikipedia entry will throw out a few sentences that give someone an idea.
I have roughly zero confidence in anything on Wikipedia that is not a matter of hard science. I'd much prefer a comment from a single person who admits biases upfront than the subtly distorted content of Wikipedia.
Hugely surprised to see Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson by George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff on the list.
Gurdjieff is the modern father of mindfulness. Of course he borrowed it from the Buddha but in his time the Buddha wasn't much in vogue in the west. Shocked to see such an obscure yet such a marvelous thinker/doer on the list.
Agreed. Mein Kampf, Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead and Strike towards freedom deserve mentions too. Also the list shows a striking lack of science fiction. Neuromancer, Do androids dream of electric sheep, Lovecraft, Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, Dune, Foundation series by Asimov, Jules Vern's works, Time machine by H.G. Wells are some very influential titles.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged . One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
Then, of course, there is Catcher in the Rye, the most damaging book ever written. Completely ruined two generations at the least. Made effete and cynical cool and we've yet to recover the hard nosed optimism that infused us with greatness for a too short a while.
>...Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, Dune, Foundation series by Asimov...
It's the most influential books ever written, not a list of books the HN crowd is most likely to have read. I think there's an argument for HG wells, but Dune? really?
Dune has influenced or flat out inspired plethora of writers and their novels and films. The most popular, I'd say is Star Wars, which is arguably the most recognized film of all time. Dune, in one way or another, has touched majority of the people who are alive today. And that is leaving the techno-psychological, political, sociological and philosophical arguments in the novels aside.
HG2G does not belong to the list, I agree, dunno what I was thinking when including it.
And if you don't call Asimov's work influential, I don't know what else constitutes as such.*
* if we agree that when talking about sci-fi we should waive the test-of-time argument
It feels a little early to make this call. Dune has influenced a certain vision of the future, but it's influence has been limited to a specific genre of literature and art.
It also remains to be seen whether Dune is influential beyond the current cultural zeitgeist, since it hasn't even been around for a century yet. It's entirely possible another book or movie will come around that changes the entire aesthetic of speculative fiction, leaving Dune as a book that was popular for a particular culture as a particular time.
Its interesting to compare the Venn diagram of this list of influential books vs "old books you should actually read as opposed to know about to consider yourself educated". I've read Gibbon and Plutarch and Kafka and Orwell and Thucydides and Thoreau and quite a few of the others and enjoyed them immensely. I've read some of the others on the list and not enjoyed them so much. I've glanced at Principia and a couple others and Nope'd. Maxwell, no, not going to happen.
I self educated on what amounts to a great books curricula when I was a kid. Any teenage boy who claims not to like Anabasis or maybe Plutarch either has something wrong with him or is lying about having read it (or maybe got stuck with an awful translation). Some of it was tiresome, having to haul books from old fashioned public library or pay serious money in some cases. The modern tech world should be better but it isn't.
Anyway bringing it on topic for YC / HN we now have the technology to give everyone in the world a handheld device with not only "the" great books curriculum but any collection of great books curricula, although the whole "product" is not quite there... maybe only 99% of the way and terribly expensive. And that last 1% is going to be hard. I have no idea how a startup would fix that last little bit, but I'd love to see one try. Maybe a really good (free, or close to) ereader and study app containing various collections of curricula, some of which like the gutenberg editions require a bit of massaging and tidying up. Also needs some kind of markup language / links to wikipedia / merged with academic notes.
A little more education wouldn't be the end of the world.
Many of these are surprisingly very readable, particularly if you're willing to wade into their world. For example, I find it hilarious that, in The Republic, Glaucon (if I recall correctly) complains directly about Socrates using his method that has sometimes impressed all of us or been impressed upon us as the irrefutable voice of authority. He says, practically in so many words, "You're just being a smart aleck! You ask a bunch of leading questions and get smug when we don't have immediate criticisms for your supposedly inevitable answers! But all it really means is that they're different from suggestions that we've heard before!"
On the other hand, I had little success trudging through An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke.
So, I'd suggest that a reader who makes a patient attempt will find that many of them open up and become old friends. If not, I wouldn't bother to suffer through. There are plenty of books to try. You can always try one again in another decade or perhaps another lifetime.
That first one does not deserve to be there. As a book it didn't represent any original theory or 'higher' thought. Just the ramblings of a prisoner with too much time on his hands.
First Folio is on the list. Also I guess books which stand the test of time are more likely to be seen as influential so science fiction has a while to wait.
Another day, another American overestimating the relevance of Ayn Rand.
Outside of the US, barely anyone reads Ayn Rand or cares about her. It's considered to be 'capitalist bullshit' as much as Americans consider Marx 'commie bullshit'. Of course both are wrong, but in the final analysis, Marx actually offered profound insights and is still being read widely. Ayn Rand will be forgotten in a few dozen years.
Come on, almost all those novels are less than a hundred years old, and have only really been of influence to a small underworld of people - an underworld which is only now just starting to make a real impact on the world. Maybe in a thousand years those books will have shown their true influence, but right now, they're still far too fresh, and alternative.
The books on this list, however, are mostly centuries old (or even older) and were hugely influential to generations upon generations of humans - shaping untold thoughts, feelings, and actions - and laying the intellectual and emotional foundations of the modern world (foundations we take for granted, which is why we can take these books for granted).
Mao and Marx altered the course of nations. Freud and Weiner created fields which have had a major impact on medicine, education, social theory, and technology, and may of those impacts have trickled down into everyday life.
You can make an argument against The Trial and 1984, but I'm skeptical many people will agree that they were less influential than any of the books you listed.
I don't like comperative statements when talking about exceptional work. Can you say the Beatles are more popular/influential than Queen? How can you even decide something like that? The words themselves (exceptional,influential) do not have comparative/superlative forms.
Agreed on Mao and Marx.
I'd argue that HGW, Verne and Asimov created or helped significantly in shaping a literary genre which has a high impact on our psychological and cultural behavior and currently paves the way to our future. Whether their ideas last only a 100 years is irrelevant. Is Baroque, or better yet - Rococo - irrelevant?
There will be a handful of books that make a big, permament paradigm shift in society as a whole (or in big parts of it). But in order for the authors who will write those books to be born, society has to constantly move and spawn new trends.
Sometimes it's even perverse, as he loves nothing better than to champion the obscure and take the famous and well-established down a peg. So I suppose it's fitting that basically no one has heard of his work.
I discovered him years ago on a long bus trip with a layover in Salt Lake City, where I went to a used bookstore. His book--actually an earlier one called "Who's Who in 20th Century Literature", smaller but still massive--was on a shelf in the basement of the store. I looked someone up in it and thought "this is interesting", sat on the floor and looked someone else up, and then another and so on. Hours later I woke up and realized that I was sitting on the basement floor of a bookstore in a strange city. I remember I had to run to the bus station and barely made it. That book, and then later the astonishing one I described above, became my companions for years, the sort of thing where the author is your mentor and friend and you feel vividly that you know him. Thank you Martin Seymour-Smith!