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Jun. 9th, 2004 01:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraJed asked this interesting question about what 10 fiction books you'd want available after the apocalypse to your small population of survivors.
I don't think they'd really be the foundation of a new culture - I think the stories the survivors started telling would be vastly more relevant to their lives - but they might be good for various things. Some people who tried to come up with lists seemed to be trying to make a pocket archive of the variety and highlights of pre-apocalypse culture - I kind of think that would be hopeless with only ten books. Also, a lot of books I can think of rely on you knowing stuff already about other stories that might not be in the other books on the list. So this is a really hard question. Also, even once I came up with some criteria for what I thought these ten books *would* be good for (entertainment, inspiration, catharsis, comfort, and provocation), it's hard to think of what books would do those things without being too dependent on things outside themselves.
So, my list has Atlas Shrugged on it, because some of the people will go and lead good lives by it, and some will be really annoyed and counter-create their own moralizing fictions, which is like two for the price of one. I guess A Light In The Attic is technically something called "poetry" and not "fiction", but it's not *non*-fiction, so I'm giving it a slot, bundled with Where the Sidewalk Ends and the Missing Piece books if possible but not the odious Giving Tree. (The Missing Piece books are fine moral treatises, not to mention grand examples of minimalist cartooning.)
But after that, I'm not so sure. Wizard of Oz, as Vardibidian suggests? Lord of the Rings, as Jess did? I definitely want some good romance in here somewhere, as that's something I enjoy reading again and again - maybe Pride and Prejudice, or the very obscure YA novel Seven Daughters and Seven Sons? (Which has really nice family and gender-role themes too... I definitely want some good Strong Women Role-Models in this booklist.) Secret Garden also has good family stuff, and the nice outline of a love triangle without actually developing it - "fanfic potential", you might call it. Very important if these stories are going to become the new mythology. Peter Pan? Superman:Peace on Earth? Maybe that one doesn't really work unless you already know Superman as an action hero - it's lovely, though. Tarzan? Tarzan is enormously racially bad but is a good myth-y kind of story that appeals to boys, and it's not like you're going to be able to wipe out the idea of aggressive prowess. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? It's definitely provocative, in the sense of providing some nice material that people can sit around and argue about, and has decent cult status.
I feel like I'm missing a really good tragedy (catharsis, of my five "things books are good for"). And not thinking of a lot of obvious books.
And like I should have been in bed an hour ago, oy.
I don't think they'd really be the foundation of a new culture - I think the stories the survivors started telling would be vastly more relevant to their lives - but they might be good for various things. Some people who tried to come up with lists seemed to be trying to make a pocket archive of the variety and highlights of pre-apocalypse culture - I kind of think that would be hopeless with only ten books. Also, a lot of books I can think of rely on you knowing stuff already about other stories that might not be in the other books on the list. So this is a really hard question. Also, even once I came up with some criteria for what I thought these ten books *would* be good for (entertainment, inspiration, catharsis, comfort, and provocation), it's hard to think of what books would do those things without being too dependent on things outside themselves.
So, my list has Atlas Shrugged on it, because some of the people will go and lead good lives by it, and some will be really annoyed and counter-create their own moralizing fictions, which is like two for the price of one. I guess A Light In The Attic is technically something called "poetry" and not "fiction", but it's not *non*-fiction, so I'm giving it a slot, bundled with Where the Sidewalk Ends and the Missing Piece books if possible but not the odious Giving Tree. (The Missing Piece books are fine moral treatises, not to mention grand examples of minimalist cartooning.)
But after that, I'm not so sure. Wizard of Oz, as Vardibidian suggests? Lord of the Rings, as Jess did? I definitely want some good romance in here somewhere, as that's something I enjoy reading again and again - maybe Pride and Prejudice, or the very obscure YA novel Seven Daughters and Seven Sons? (Which has really nice family and gender-role themes too... I definitely want some good Strong Women Role-Models in this booklist.) Secret Garden also has good family stuff, and the nice outline of a love triangle without actually developing it - "fanfic potential", you might call it. Very important if these stories are going to become the new mythology. Peter Pan? Superman:Peace on Earth? Maybe that one doesn't really work unless you already know Superman as an action hero - it's lovely, though. Tarzan? Tarzan is enormously racially bad but is a good myth-y kind of story that appeals to boys, and it's not like you're going to be able to wipe out the idea of aggressive prowess. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? It's definitely provocative, in the sense of providing some nice material that people can sit around and argue about, and has decent cult status.
I feel like I'm missing a really good tragedy (catharsis, of my five "things books are good for"). And not thinking of a lot of obvious books.
And like I should have been in bed an hour ago, oy.
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Date: 2004-06-09 04:03 pm (UTC)Will our survivors have motorcycles to be Zen about? In the immediacy of survival after a cultural crash, will they have patience for the mid-life crisis of a failed university professor? Will they know the original Phaedrus? Would they be better off without Plato and his dang-blasted cave?
Great post, though. Thanks!
Dan Percival (www.kith.org/poi/journal (http://www.kith.org/poi/journal))
no subject
Date: 2004-06-10 04:26 pm (UTC)(And you seem to be anonymous, alas. I suppose I could go post this somewhere random in your journal...)
no subject
Date: 2004-06-24 03:36 pm (UTC)Here's a link to the entry: http://kith.org/poi/journal/show-entry.php?Entry_ID=2104 (http://kith.org/poi/journal/show-entry.php?Entry_ID=2104).
Dan Percival