[rcarr]

> Definitely the most important novel of this century.

There is no such thing as “the most important novel of this century”. “Importance” is subjective based on the values of the beholder.

It’s an especially ludicrous claim if by “this century” we are to assume you mean 2000 - 2100 considering we are not even a quarter of the way through it.

> It feels like most novels are rather silly in comparison (2666 even pokes fun at literature in general for ignoring the atrocities in Mexico.

I for one am glad that J K Rowling chose not to mention the atrocities occurring in Mexico in the Harry Potter series as it has zero relevance to the plot, as it probably does in 99.99% of all novels written.

[noema]

> “Importance” is subjective

No, not really. "Importance" is a rough proxy for legacy and influence. This is why one can say without any trace of subjectivism that Shakespeare is the most important writer of the English language, or Kafka the most important writer in modern German, etc. Maybe this is slightly less rigorous in the case of '2666' which is still a relatively young work, but it is widely hailed as a landmark novel.

[rcarr]

Disagree with your definition of importance. Go interview 1000 modern English speakers and ask them what the most important book is to them - I doubt if anything by Shakespeare would make it in to the top ten. Go ask 1000 literature professors and maybe something by Shakespeare will crop up.

Was Shakespeare a great writer? In my opinion, yes. Is he still influential? To a lot of people yes, but to a growing amount of people probably not, in the same way that Beethoven and Mozart are only really important to classical music fans who no longer represent the majority of music listeners. Your average clubber probably doesn’t give a fuck. You could argue that the professors could get extra weighting for having dedicated their lives to studying literature but who’s to say that social factors aren’t at play and that people who become professors of literature become professors of literature because they conform well to the standard viewpoints and social norms circulating in those circles? Birds of a feather flock together.

Literature is not like science - there are no hard and fast rules where you can be outed as a bad literature professor the way a bad scientist can be identified after publishing papers which can be later demonstrably disproved by experiments. Judging a book is a personal evaluation of a piece of art.

Importance is subjective depending on the individual and the group and it is also temporal and fleeting in nature.

To quote Shelley:

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

A very important man that Ozymandias, in his time. Not anymore.

[kinghtown]

If you were to ask 1000 English speakers what their favourite food was, the average would be some kind of fast food slop. Shakespeare is going to be sitting very pretty near or at the absolute tippity top of importance in literature for a very long time.

[rcarr]

You are attempting to imply that consuming food and consuming Shakespeare are the same which they are not. Consuming fast food likely has a negative physical outcome in most people. Can you prove that consuming Shakespeare has a corresponding positive mental outcome for the majority of people? I suspect not.

The argument is also flawed because favourite is not important. If you asked someone what their favourite food was they may say Chinese takeout. If you asked them what their most important food was, they may say Sunday dinner because it reminds them of their deceased mother. There is a significant difference between the two, one is a personal preference but the other could compromise a bigger part of one’s identity.

Here’s a thought experiment:

Which book is more important? The book that the most influential man in the world considers the most important but which nobody else has read? Or the book dismissed by all elites but that is the most important book to the least influential billion people on the planet?

[kinghtown]

Shakespeare is taught in high school, my dude. You are a little deluded if you believe Shakespeare to be little read.

I’m quite aware that you can’t eat Hamlet.

[rcarr]

Yes it is taught in school. But have you ever thought to think why? Is it because he is the greatest writer that ever lived? Or is it because he was in favour with the British monarchy who use tradition as a way of maintaining power and the status quo and who then went on to conquer most of the planet, exporting their culture as they went? The upper class Oxford and Cambridge professors who determined the curriculum would have made studying his works mandatory and other universities would emulate. A couple of centuries of inertia and you end up where we are today.

Notice you said Shakespeare is taught in high school. In that sense it carries importance in that people are exposed to it whether they like it or not. But it doesn’t mean that once those people leave school it continues to be of importance to them and to most people I would argue it doesn’t. The majority of people run a mile when you start mentioning Shakespeare because they have less than fond memories of being sat and forced to read something written in archaic English that in the present day requires either a teacher or another book written in modern English to understand if you have never encountered it before.

The original comment talked about “most important novel of the century” which is a ludicrous claim. The assumption in that sentence is that there is a universally agreed upon consensus for evaluating literature in comparison with other literature that allows us to rank them like you would football teams in a table and that the commentator’s choice is the undisputed winner of this gladiatorial death match. If you can point me towards this criteria please do so. Otherwise what you actually have is ‘This is the most important thing to me so I’m going to assert grand unprovable statements as proof in order to propagate my personal tastes and beliefs”.

[kinghtown]

Thank you for that. I got my full dose of pedantry in early today. Do yourself a solid and check the book out anyways.

[ngoilapites]

Bolaño is the best author of the change of century.