LOTR wins the Big Read.....

[The Last Word]

'The AS Byatt's of this world can gripe all they want, but they are not encouraging the readers of the future.'

To do what? I think you'll find the AS Byatts of the world perhaps have a valid point. Right from the start The Big Read was given the full-on warm, cosy Auntie Beeb treatment, complete with kiddy-appealing animated bookworms (genius!), so the end result was only going to be reflective of those who found this approach appealing. Dutifully, safe as houses, school-read 'classics', nostalgic childhood whimsy, and modern, barely middle-brow confections are piled high, with only a few encouraging choices scattered like crumbs for the starving (The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, say). What this contest doesn't seem to encourage - the main complaint - is the reading of anything paticularly new and challenging (the irony here is that many of the books on the list were considered challenging and daring upon publication). It paints the literary landscape as something unmoving, dominated by accepted, age-old edifices. I've heard of people setting out to read every book on the list, which is surely symptomatic of the safety-net these type of lists can act as. No unchartered waters there then - and that's missing the whole point of literature.

Then again, perhaps animated worms could draw people towards the haughty, serious, and generally hated Man Booker prize, which this year (like other years) gave us at least two choices way superior to many on the top 100 (winner Vernon God Little & Oryx and Crake). Just a thought.

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"Let's do it..."

[WillieBo]

............'no Henry Miller on this reading list was there, or Emile Zola or Knut Hamsun or Samuel Beckett....No Charles Dickens even,.............'

This is mere posing. Did you honestly think that any of the first three would be on a list dominated by the popular and populist works that can be protrayed on the big or small screen.

Have you ever actually read any Zola or Hamsun, Giles ? Do you honestly think the writers of 'Germinal' or 'Hunger' would feature ? And as for Hamsun, a Norwegian who was an unreconstructed Nazi has about as much chance of being on the list as, well, you have. Who's going to publicise or promote his often brilliant output whilst defending a man who was a traitor even to the Norwegians during WW2 ?

[WillieBo]

I think you've missed my point, Giles. In light of the books chosen and promoted, Hamsun had absolutely no chance of being selected by anyone. And if the great project's ulterior motive was to encourage people to read, then Hamsun is a very tough place for anyone let alone Britains' youth to start.

Hunger, the first of his most celebrated works was written in 1890. Mysteries and Pan followed in the next decade. He wrote 'The Growth of the Soil' in 1917, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1920.

There is considerable critical debate as to how Hamsun's early works that drip with misanthropy and pessimism informed the Nazi affections of his later life.

And I'm afraid your statement..'Even the Norwegians have rehabilitated Hamsun now ...' is very wide of the mark. Even now, modern critical debate in Norway will ask whether forgiveness and 'rehabilitation' can ever be bestowed upon someone who is a great writer. At best, modern Norway is ambivalent and at most happy to forget further reminders or legacies of their recent Quisling history. And of course that is something of which other Scandinavian nations like to remind them about.

[jj]

The argument that 'if it makes one more person read a book.....' has already been used here.
The sort of people who watched the Big Read are already (partially) converts: it's those who were then watching 'Davina's All-Star House Makeover Celebrity Gardening Chef Special' who need to be persuaded that literature needn't be elitist and might even be fun, interesting and maybe even enrich their lives........a few more inspirational (or even, God help us, just literate) teachers might help.

[WillieBo]

I have no interest in the motivation behind the programme. I never watched it ; only read about it. I merely reiterate that particular argument made in a previous post. My point was the inevitability that certain works or writers were never going to be included.