6/3/10

Great Literature, defined

My son* has developed a theory of what makes a book good. It is very simple.

1. A book is good if it includes a fire truck.

I tried to review my knowledge of world literature with this aesthetic in mind, but I discovered how little I remember.

Is there a fire truck in Ulysses? Probably somewhere (yes it does yes, says Google). The Bible doesn't make the cut, unfortunately, and I don't remember any hoses and ladders in Proust - not that I've finished him off. I bet there are a lot of fires in Sholem Aleichem, but in his time it was probably all about horses and bucket brigades.

This is going to be a big paradigm shift, I can tell.

*Who is two.

No comments:

Post a Comment