The Editor's Place

LOGOS 11(3) crc 17/10/00 11:24 am Page 116

LOGOS THE EDITOR’S PLACE

Our “Books that Shaped the Century” project and will be the subject of a seminar for post-gradu- reached its dénouement with exhibits at the Frank- ate students in the fall of this year. furt Book Fair 1999 and the London Book Fair The last words on this venture come 2000, at both of which it attracted extensive public appropriately from our readers and from visitors to and media interest. The Bookseller, Publishing News the exhibits, who were invited both to comment and the Börsenblatt carried feature stories. “How and to nominate titles which they think should nice to see an exhibit at Frankfurt which is not have been included. The list was never meant to be commercial,” said one visitor. Another asked us exclusive. It was the result of a vote exercised by what we were selling. Hundreds browsed and took our panel. Inevitably, the cumulative personal views away copies of our descriptive booklet. of the panel affected the outcome. We all had Each book was displayed adjacent to the favourite titles which didn’t make the grade and we text written by Dick Abel, as set out in 10/3. The were all surprised that some titles of which (at least display was in chronological order, starting with speaking for myself) we had never heard, received Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim and Sigmund Freud’s The substantial support. Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1900, and fin- When I made my own initial list six years ishing with Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Free- ago, I tried to distance myself from books which dom, published in 1994. influenced me personally and to judge each title on The exhibits were aided by the generosity its revelation of seminal truths, and, in the light of of many people. The fair managements gave us free subsequent events, prescience. Such is the richness space. London arranged custom-made fittings lent of the literature of the 20th century; such have to us by Point Eight, who have equipped many been the complexity and pace of events; such is the British bookshops. Blackwells North America paid diversity of human experience and culture that the for the booklet. Most of the books were donated by assembly of a definitive list is impossible. The pro- the publishers. ject has simply illustrated with specific titles the sig- The exhibit was also mounted in Hori- nificant role that books play in history. zons, our local Marlow bookshop, by courtesy of the For those scanning the exhibit, as I did owners, Ian and Fiona Fletcher, and in two of the myself many times while acting as custodian, absent UK’s leading public libraries, in Chelmsford and titles spring readily to mind, but arguing in a para- Saffron Walden, under the direction of Chief graph for the inclusion of a title is harder than one Librarian Grace Kempster and Reading Develop- expects. The quality of the list was acknowledged ment Director Martin Palmer. by everyone. People paused with delight over Now the collection has found a perma- favourite titles (a management teacher exclaimed nent home in the Oxford Brookes University in the “James Burnham! Marvellous!”); or exclaimed their Department of Arts, Publishing and Music, thanks surprise over the unexpected (“Winnie the Pooh ??” to the initiative of Professor Paul Richardson – and said a French visitor “What about Astérix?”) It left a virtual home in cyberspace, thanks again to nobody unmoved, and that was the satisfying thing. Blackwells, which has entered the entire text on its From hundreds of spoken and written website. At Oxford Brookes, the collection will be comments (apart from the formal entries) I quote a available for study, will occasionally be exhibited few:

From Ritta-Liisa Eerola, Helsinki: and influential books (“books that shaped”). An example is Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, I was very fond of the idea “Books that which few people heard about or read when Shaped the Century” when I noticed it in it was published during the German occupa- Frankfurt. When thinking about names I tion, and few except Sartre’s students or col- should put in my list, I found that most of leagues could have read or understood them already exist on the list: Hawking, Kun- thereafter. The influential works of Sartre dera, Eco, Grass, Salinger. One that I didn’t were his plays, and eventually the short book find was Kurt Vonnegut. For me his style of you cite, L’Existentialisme est un humanism, writing meant a lot when I first started to read but above all his short articles, speeches, his books as a teenager. Slapstick was perhaps then his magazine. I’d be quibbling if I said the first of all, but also Slaughterhouse-five. the same of La Nausée, published when From a national point of view, first of all are Sartre was only an obscure professor, and Mika Waltari: Sinuhe egyptilainenˆ (Sinuhe, the read by few, since of course it became part of Egyptian) and Vˆainö Linna: Tuntematon sotilas his corpus, and was later read widely. (The unknown soldier). One could also argue that a delicate piece of literature like Chekhov’s Three Sis- From Inge Bush, Charlotte, North Carolina: ters couldn’t have done much to shape the century. It was very good and much admired I think it would be a bit presumptuous for us by people with access to the theater, espe- to suggest titles that perhaps should have cially to the theater in translation. In the been included. From my standpoint, it might same way, The Sound and the Fury had a very fall into the category of “my favorite reading limited audience before it got taken up by matter”, unless one has a constant – and the schools. And how and where could authoritative, preferably professional – finger Mother Courage have shaped anything? Under on the pulse of humankind. I thought of Milk Wood? names like Bertrand Russell, Toynbee and Most of the books worshipped by Santayana. Right away, one sees the problem: Anglo-Americans are totally ignored by writers, people, not necessarily specific works. other languages and civilizations – meaning Incidentally, there are two books in your that they could have had no universal influ- compilation that I have tried to tackle sev- ence. Imagine what a narrow range is implied eral times after having them recommended by the listing of The Wind in the Willows. Can to me as “must read” works: Eco, The Name one really suggest a book called The Rise of of the Rose and García Marquez, Cien Años de the West and bypass Spengler’s The Decline of Soledad. The latter I tried in Spanish and the West? An American would find it hard to English. I made several attempts. They were ignore Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed – just too difficult for me to decipher and, but a Spaniard? When I was growing up, therefore, even boring. That, of course, says Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa was more about my limitations than the writers’ the last word in cultural relativity; it has ability to move their readers. I ran into an since been discredited. even harder wall when I tried to read works by Teilhard de Chardin. From Janka Hochland, Manchester, England:

From Herbert Lottman, Paris: The booklet was read with great interest by many friends. However, to obtain written lists I had the feeling that your panel in a number of additional titles is another matter. My of cases confused the notions of good books friends from Versailles, who stayed with me