5 ms·

I love this idea, and the lost is full of gems, but I see a couple of issues. If you actually intend you or anyone else to read these and stay sane I'd remove t

by Y_Y 1y ago

I love this idea, and the lost is full of gems, but I see a couple of issues. If you actually intend you or anyone else to read these and stay sane I'd remove the mathematical tables (there is value in reading these, but only for a very rare soul), the Bible (lots of really dry stuff about begetting and knowing), the complete works of Shakespeare (hard to understand without careful study, way too long to cafefully study).

mitthrowaway2 1y ago
Shakespeare is worthwhile but much easier to understand when you see it performed, which is how it was meant to be experienced anyway.
- KineticLensman 1y ago
  Yes, exactly. A lot of people forget that he wrote ‘plays’ and not ‘reads’
  - mr_toad 1y ago
    He had to; a large part of his audience would have been unable to read. A lot of European literature was poetry for the same reason. Its only because literacy rates have risen that prose has become more popular.
- dhosek 1y ago
  My Shakespeare class in college was based around performing a play at the end of the semester. We read about half a dozen plays, but the bulk of our work was based around preparing to perform Hamlet (each semester, a different play was performed, with fall being Comedies/Histories and Spring being Tragedies/Romances). The big challenge is that a lot of plays are rarely performed. I had the good fortune of hearing an interview with Kenneth Brannagh where he talked about how Shakespeare is better experienced by watching a performance than reading a text and he made an aside about how it’s unlikely you’re going to get to see Henry IV part II performed and then spotting that there was a free performance of that exact play being given at the Chicago Cultural Center. This turned out to be part of a series of staged readings of all the plays. I missed the beginning of the sequence, but stuck around to the end. One of the coolest moments of this came when I was attending a play at the Goodman Theatre which had the actors interacting with audience members during intermission and one of the actors in the play recognized me from the audience of the staged readings.
  - TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
    There are more or less accessible TV performances. The definitive complete collection is probably the BBC Shakespeare, available on iPlayer and DVD. Some of the plays have also snuck onto YouTube.
- vonnik 1y ago
  Highly recommend Shakescleare for anyone reading Shakespeare, esp students: https://www.litcharts.com/shakescleare/shakespeare-translations https://www.litcharts.com/shakescleare/shakespeare-translati...
stryan 1y ago
> the Bible (lots of really dry stuff about begetting and knowing) I'd suggest replacing the Bible with just the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke[0], and John). Removing it entirely seems like a mistake since you'd lose a lot of the literary and moral underpinnings of Western culture, but having to read the bible in its entirely sounds exhausting. I did it (reading all four gospels) recently and can attest even outside of the religious aspects the retelling of the same tragic story in four different was is a fascinating literary experience. [0] Technically we should through Acts in there too since Luke-Acts are essentially one book, but it's not a gospel so I left it out. Plus quite frankly while I did read it I found it way more boring than the others; turns out that Jesus fellow is a way more interesting main character than Paul :)
- gen220 1y ago
  I think the Bible can mostly be distilled to Genesis, Exodus and the Gospels without losing too much. Each of those books is eminently legible in its own right. You could arguably make the sermon on the mount its own book, “communist manifesto” style. I think those individual chapters would be super compelling to modern readers with or without a religious background, but their legibility is held back by the rest of the Bible’s contents. How is someone non-religious supposed to figure out that it’s ok to start reading a book at section 2, chapter 1? :)
  - Y_Y 1y ago
    I'm inclined to agree, except to add that Ecclesiastes stands on its own as a great piece of philosophy, and Revelations is pretty influential as well as having some pretty entertaining madness.
  - ivape 1y ago
    It's argued that God had a plan (all-knowing). The compelling argument to read the Old Testament in full before the New Testament is that this whole thing was a deliberate sequence. That's if you are willing to entertain the notion on a literary level (forget about belief). Take the story of Samson for example, one argument is that God showed that humans would persecute a man whom humanity couldn't even contemplate could have gotten his powers from God. It's a setup for Christ. You can distill if you are looking for moral teachings, but you can't if you want to know this guys (that guy up in the sky) full plan, in which case you have to entertain that it was a sequence of events. It's very weird, but almost makes going through the whole Bible fascinating as a serial drama. One thing led to another.

by Y_Y 1y ago

mitthrowaway2 1y ago

Shakespeare is worthwhile but much easier to understand when you see it performed, which is how it was meant to be experienced anyway.

KineticLensman 1y ago
Yes, exactly. A lot of people forget that he wrote ‘plays’ and not ‘reads’
- mr_toad 1y ago
  He had to; a large part of his audience would have been unable to read. A lot of European literature was poetry for the same reason. Its only because literacy rates have risen that prose has become more popular.
dhosek 1y ago
My Shakespeare class in college was based around performing a play at the end of the semester. We read about half a dozen plays, but the bulk of our work was based around preparing to perform Hamlet (each semester, a different play was performed, with fall being Comedies/Histories and Spring being Tragedies/Romances). The big challenge is that a lot of plays are rarely performed. I had the good fortune of hearing an interview with Kenneth Brannagh where he talked about how Shakespeare is better experienced by watching a performance than reading a text and he made an aside about how it’s unlikely you’re going to get to see Henry IV part II performed and then spotting that there was a free performance of that exact play being given at the Chicago Cultural Center. This turned out to be part of a series of staged readings of all the plays. I missed the beginning of the sequence, but stuck around to the end. One of the coolest moments of this came when I was attending a play at the Goodman Theatre which had the actors interacting with audience members during intermission and one of the actors in the play recognized me from the audience of the staged readings.
- TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
  There are more or less accessible TV performances. The definitive complete collection is probably the BBC Shakespeare, available on iPlayer and DVD. Some of the plays have also snuck onto YouTube.
vonnik 1y ago
Highly recommend Shakescleare for anyone reading Shakespeare, esp students: https://www.litcharts.com/shakescleare/shakespeare-translations https://www.litcharts.com/shakescleare/shakespeare-translati...

stryan 1y ago

> the Bible (lots of really dry stuff about begetting and knowing) I'd suggest replacing the Bible with just the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke[0], and John). Removing it entirely seems like a mistake since you'd lose a lot of the literary and moral underpinnings of Western culture, but having to read the bible in its entirely sounds exhausting. I did it (reading all four gospels) recently and can attest even outside of the religious aspects the retelling of the same tragic story in four different was is a fascinating literary experience. [0] Technically we should through Acts in there too since Luke-Acts are essentially one book, but it's not a gospel so I left it out. Plus quite frankly while I did read it I found it way more boring than the others; turns out that Jesus fellow is a way more interesting main character than Paul :)

gen220 1y ago
I think the Bible can mostly be distilled to Genesis, Exodus and the Gospels without losing too much. Each of those books is eminently legible in its own right. You could arguably make the sermon on the mount its own book, “communist manifesto” style. I think those individual chapters would be super compelling to modern readers with or without a religious background, but their legibility is held back by the rest of the Bible’s contents. How is someone non-religious supposed to figure out that it’s ok to start reading a book at section 2, chapter 1? :)
- Y_Y 1y ago
  I'm inclined to agree, except to add that Ecclesiastes stands on its own as a great piece of philosophy, and Revelations is pretty influential as well as having some pretty entertaining madness.
- ivape 1y ago
  It's argued that God had a plan (all-knowing). The compelling argument to read the Old Testament in full before the New Testament is that this whole thing was a deliberate sequence. That's if you are willing to entertain the notion on a literary level (forget about belief). Take the story of Samson for example, one argument is that God showed that humans would persecute a man whom humanity couldn't even contemplate could have gotten his powers from God. It's a setup for Christ. You can distill if you are looking for moral teachings, but you can't if you want to know this guys (that guy up in the sky) full plan, in which case you have to entertain that it was a sequence of events. It's very weird, but almost makes going through the whole Bible fascinating as a serial drama. One thing led to another.