[HN Gopher] Books of the Century by Le Monde
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Books of the Century by Le Monde
Author : zlu
Score : 87 points
Date : 2026-03-19 00:58 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (standardebooks.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (standardebooks.org)
| onli wrote:
| What a strange list. Many books I'd never expect to be listed,
| others I'd expect to be listed are missing. So I looked up the
| background and indeed it's based on strange methodology, citing
| wikipedia: "Starting from a preliminary list of 200 titles
| created by bookshops and journalists, 17,000 French participants
| responded to the question, "Which books have stuck in your mind?"
| (Quels livres sont restes dans votre memoire?"
|
| Makes more sense like that.
| jdsnape wrote:
| Out of interest, why does that seem a strange methodology?
| onli wrote:
| When reading "Books of the Century" I expected a list of the
| most important, most influential or just best books. Skewed
| towards the french perspective, given Le Monde as a source.
| But this was never the goal, just a "what stuck in your mind"
| question.
|
| For example, 1984 is missing, and Louis Begley Wartime Lies.
| And I wouldn't have expected Ulysses in there given the
| french source, for me it was incomprehensible gibberish and I
| thought only the US ranks it high. But that gibberishness
| makes it certainly memorable, so given the question it fits.
| jkingsbery wrote:
| 1984 is 22 on the list.
| onli wrote:
| Upps. Searching for 1984 didn't turn it up.
| Karuma wrote:
| 1984 is Ndeg22 on that list...
| Guestmodinfo wrote:
| James Joyce wearing his bottle bottom glasses (thick
| glasses) would like to have a word with you. You can call
| him genius, dirty, knowledgeable in many languages but
| certainly not gibberish. He used to hold long book club
| style readings of his books among the prominent literateur
| in his times to exactly impinge in their minds that what he
| writes is clever and not gibberish. In our book club we
| often discuss for hours what he was trying to say on a
| page. Sometimes he says things in 3 different dimensions by
| writing a single sentence.
| onli wrote:
| Are you sure you are not just reinforcing my point? :)
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| Yep.
|
| > He used to hold long book club style readings of his
| books among the prominent literateur in his times to
| exactly impinge in their minds that what he writes is
| clever and not gibberish.
|
| My was so clever, that he had to verbally harangue people
| into finding his writing clever.
| jpfromlondon wrote:
| Woolf had his number, she was right on every count.
| rorytbyrne wrote:
| Ulysses was first published in Paris during the 20 years
| that Joyce lived there.
|
| >I thought only the US ranks it high
|
| Joyce never even set foot in the United States... You could
| say this about The Great Gatsby, which US sources might
| rank in the top 5 compared to 46 in this list.
| onli wrote:
| Right, Great Gatsby is another book one could highlight,
| where it's surprising that it is on the (french) list,
| while it would be on an US list. But I haven't read it, I
| do not know whether it is a good example for the
| difference between a good or important book and a
| memorable one.
| keiferski wrote:
| 1984 is listed at number 22 under its actual title, written
| out.
| mmooss wrote:
| _Ulysses_ was written in Paris, where James Joyce lived,
| and was published in Paris by the now legendary Shakespeare
| & Co. The US and UK banned it for being obscene.
|
| When I don't know, I ask and don't judge (and lacking
| omniscience, I don't judge anyway).
| onli wrote:
| It's completely irrelevant where it was written, where it
| was published and where it was banned, I'm talking about
| how it is seen today. It is possible I am getting this
| wrong -certainly possible, since I'm taking this
| impression from English speaking sites like this, that I
| attribute to the US what should be attributed to England
| -, but I have seen no argument so far that even strives
| the point I made.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| What is your question? If you just want to know why
| Ulysses is seen as influential you can start with the
| wikipedia article. If you want to try again to read it
| you can try to read it with a guide of some kind, there
| are multiple, I used this one
| https://www.ulyssesguide.com/1-telemachus.
| onli wrote:
| No question. It's completely against my being to consider
| something as good if it can't be enjoyed without a guide.
| I hated the tendency in computer science to hide simple
| definitions behind jargon. I'm okay with stuff having
| hidden meaning, with texts being interpretable, I'm not
| okay with it just being gibberish when not studying it in
| closest detail.
|
| I'm aware that some think this book is influential, I'm
| not clear on how widespread that belief is. Also, whether
| regular readers really like it. And no, Wikipedia does
| not clear that up.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Since you have no question I won't venture to answer. :D
| shakow wrote:
| > most influential
|
| > "what stuck in your mind"
|
| That's strongly correlated IMHO; and I don't really see any
| objective metric for the influence of a book anyway.
| hammock wrote:
| Starting with only 200 titles in the survey, for a final list
| of 100, seems off to me for starters. Every book surveyed has
| a 50% chance of making "book of the century"
| tstenner wrote:
| That makes it sound like 50 shades of grey would have had a
| 50/50 chance of getting into the top 100 if it only was
| included in the wider selection
| onli wrote:
| If the question is "which book stuck in your mind" maybe
| it would've had a good chance to be listed as #1?
| hammock wrote:
| Obviously 50/50 if random. But even if not random, I
| estimate 50 Shades would be 500-100,000 times more likely
| to be a book of the century using a list of 200 with it
| in it, vs an unaided open ended survey.
| kergonath wrote:
| > Many books I'd never expect to be listed, others I'd expect
| to be listed are missing
|
| Most of them make sense to me. I don't know some of them but
| then I don't know everything. The methodology can be discussed
| (and indeed, a pre-selection of 200 books is at the same time a
| lot and not that much), but none of these lists can be perfect.
|
| Out of curiosity, which one would you remove from the list, and
| which ones would you add?
| onli wrote:
| Hm, you are right. Those lists can't be perfect and giving
| this a second look, I guess my comment was hasty. For the
| choices I thought weird I can mostly see the justification
| when researching the titles a bit more (and partly by
| checking for their names in my language -> properly
| identifying them).
|
| For what it's worth and what mostly triggered my comment, I
| expected 1984 to be on the list but thought it missing, but
| as mentioned in the other comments I was wrong about that,
| it's just listed with the numbers written out. Le petit
| prince I wouldn't have wanted on the list, I know it's
| popular and french, but I never got the appeal. Ulysses, as
| mentioned below, surprised me as I thought it's only popular
| in some countries, and regardless of that I think its just
| not readable. I would kick out two of the Lord of the ring
| books, one is enough and it's not like each of them had a
| different impact.
|
| Maybe even more subjective, The Hound of the Baskervilles is
| important and well known and everything, but does it really
| held up when you read it today? If not, which would be my
| opinion, should it be on the list regardless? And I'd
| consider replacing Thomas Mann Zauberberg with Tod in
| Venedig, just because I liked it a lot.
|
| For missing books: Louis Begley is an author I felt to be
| missing, probably with Wartime lies, or About Schmidt. The
| first Harry Potter as well, but I understand that in 1999 it
| was too early for that judgement. Stephenson's Snow Crash is
| missing, maybe replaceable with Neuromancer to have something
| of that genre. Talking german literature with Thomas Mann
| above, Alfred Andersch Die Rote would have a place on my
| personal list, as well as Die Wand by Marlen Haushofer.
| Haruki Murakami is missing, though maybe with 1Q84 he better
| fits into a list of the current century. Stephen King? Paul
| Auster? Philip Roth? Though maybe that would be for The Human
| Stain, and that's from 2000.
|
| As an aside, I was happily surprised to see The Master and
| Margarita on the list. It's one of the more known books that
| I thought had a very special charm, but not one I'd expect to
| see working on many, as one would have to have read Goethe's
| Faust and liked it...
| rawgabbit wrote:
| 40 is Mann's Magic Mountain.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde%27s_100_Books_of_the
| _...
| onli wrote:
| Yes, I saw that, Der Zauberberg is the german title.
| keiferski wrote:
| How is this strange? It's pretty much what I'd expect from
| francophone readers. What were you expecting?
| linehedonist wrote:
| For a French-leaning list I'm surprised not to see Memoirs of
| Hadrian, "often considered the best French novel of the 20th
| century", per the recent LRB review. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-
| paper/v47/n10/joanna-biggs/beneath...
| idoubtit wrote:
| I agree, though the list contains "L'oeuvre au noir", another
| wonderful novel by Marguerite Yourcenar.
|
| I think some of the books on this list had very few readers,
| but were selected because of their relative fame among a list
| of 200 books. For instance, how many people have read the
| full "Gulag archipelago"? Or writings by Lacan or Barthes? Or
| the "Journal" by Jules Renard?
| pcasca wrote:
| Infinite Jest?
| orwin wrote:
| I don't think I would place all of them in any 'top' list, but
| all the books I have read, ~60%, are great read. Weird list
| though.
| haunter wrote:
| This should have an 1999 in the title even if the site and ebooks
| published are newer
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| More clean:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde%27s_100_Books_of_the_...
| rixed wrote:
| I find this other list more deserving of this title:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokklubben_World_Library
|
| If only because it's less french oriented, but also maybe because
| it starts with one of my favorite.
| idoubtit wrote:
| > I find this other list more deserving of this title
|
| How is a list spanning over the last 40 centuries deserving of
| the tile "Books of the Century by Le Monde"? Why would the
| "Epic of Gilgamesh" or the "Book of Job" be on a list of 20th
| century books?
|
| > ... it starts with one of my favorite.
|
| From that same Wikipedia page: "The books selected by this
| process and listed here are not ranked or categorized in any
| way;"
|
| The list is sorted by authors' name.
| keiferski wrote:
| What would be interesting is to cross reference this list with an
| Anglophone one and pull out the writers that are big in France
| but almost unknown amongst the public in America. Celine is
| definitely one such example, I think.
| specproc wrote:
| The sad thing is how many aren't available.
|
| I'm not sure I saw any living authors there. I see no reason why
| copyright should extend beyond the lifetime of the author.
| raffael_de wrote:
| pretty french heavy that list.
| throwforfeds wrote:
| well, it _is_ a french newspaper surveying french people
| BiraIgnacio wrote:
| I'm happy to see so many philosophy or philosophy-adjacent books
| on that list. And I also wonder why that is.
| throwforfeds wrote:
| The Stranger at #1 sort of tells me everything I need to know
| about the list. It's a fine book, and I ended up liking it a lot
| more when I went back and re-read it in French many years later,
| but #1 of the 20th century. Yeah, not even close.
|
| I know this is primarily a Francophone list, but not having Toni
| Morrison or Cormac McCarthy or so many of the great Latin
| American authors on it makes me wonder how much makes it into
| French via translation.
| zwaps wrote:
| Honestly, American lists are the same. Every decent English
| speaking author, plus some selections of other languages.
|
| Any national worlds book list, and this explicitly includes US
| and UK lists, are heavily skewed and I mean ridiculously so
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| This is one of the criticisms[0] of at least some Great Books
| curricula. The skew tends too strongly towards the Anglo-
| American and the "canon" is too rigidly held.
|
| [0] https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2023/05/great-
| books-e...
| Bayart wrote:
| Cormac McCarthy is decently translated (for having read him in
| both English and French) and is well known. But for the average
| French litterati, American literature harks back to Hemingway,
| Steinbeck, Salinger, Burroughs, Capote, Nabokov and so on much
| before McCarthy. Toni Morrison isn't well known here yet, if
| only because her writing is embedded with Afro-American reality
| which is off-phase with Europe culture. For the same reason
| you'd hardly hear about Ralph Ellison in France if you're not
| in circles aware of post-colonial African diaspora writing.
|
| To the same token, French authors who make it across the
| Atlantic aren't always the most valued here.
| mmooss wrote:
| It's interesting Nabakov is thought of as American. Yes, an
| American citizen beginning age ~46 (in 1945) but born in
| Russia, wrote in multiple languages, lived much of life in
| Europe.
| Bayart wrote:
| I write him down as American because that's his elective
| nation, although he's quintessentially European.
|
| After all you might not chose where you live, but how you
| live and where you die can be up to you. And as far as I
| can I try to respect what people chose for themselves.
| fmajid wrote:
| Yep, I had never heard of Derrida until I read a mention of
| him in an American Physics journal of all places.
| LucasOe wrote:
| I know it's subjective, but personally I think Nausea by Sartre
| is the much better "The Stranger", and it always saddens me a
| bit to see Camus so high up on every list while missing Sartre.
| yallpendantools wrote:
| Why are some numbers skipped? E.g., 58 [59 60] 61 [62] 63 64 65
| 66 67 68 [69] 70
| jackconsidine wrote:
| > _Ulysses_ by Joyce = > 264,258 words (16 hours 1 minute) with a
| reading ease of 74.9 (fairly easy)
|
| Don't want to know what difficult is
| acabal wrote:
| The reading ease algorithm we use is the Flesh-Kincaid
| algorithm, which works pretty well for regular prose books but
| clearly fails very badly on avant-garde prose like _Ulysses_ or
| _As I Lay Dying_.
| Bayart wrote:
| It's a decent list of what readers in France think of as the
| books to read from the 20th c., in that it holds value. Including
| to myself, a French citizen with odd tastes.
|
| The general debate on what's _the objective list_ doesn 't hold
| weight, and I'd rather see what each corner of the world values.
| gausswho wrote:
| I'm surprised to see Brave New World amongst these. The idea it
| presents is indeed powerful and influential, but for such a smart
| guy it comes across stilted and craftless. Try reading it now and
| it just doesn't hold up to more nuanced fiction.
| _ache_ wrote:
| About IP. It's 70 years after the death of the author in France,
| so Camus (car crash in 1960) books will be PD in 2030. There is
| an exception for people who lost live from war (+30 years), so
| 2044 is the year the elevate to PD for "Le petit prince".
|
| I don't understand that right is attached to local legislation.
| Like you will have access to these book before we do because of
| the local legislation of USA? That is a bit crazy.
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