This Telegraph article, claiming to list the 50 best cult books, is causing much puffing up of chests over missed classics, and sniping at overrated ones.
With book bloggers queuing up to argue over their favourite titles, it’s worth a read. (That said, I’m not sure I can wholeheartedly recommend an article that seems to favour John Fowles’ awful Durrell lite The Magus—which even its own mother couldn’t love—over The Alexandria Quartet; or that thinks the UK still had rationing in 1957…)
May 6th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Surely these titles are all too well known to be worth listing? What I hope to see from a list of ‘cult books’ is half a dozen that I rate highly (including one or two that I thought nobody else liked), and then – for the zinger – a couple of titles I’ve never heard of, which I can then go and investigate in the knowledge that I have something in common with the authors of the list.
But Catch-22? The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? I’ve read and enjoyed them, but so has everyone else in the western world. From the same authors, Something Happened and Last Chance to See would have been more interesting choices.
May 6th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I’m inclined to agree with you.
The Telegraph seems to have given up on defining “cult books” and just gone for “books people talk about”. It’s actually sent me to my trusty Oxford, to check the definition of the word “cult”:
ODE UK: A person or thing that is popular or fashionable among a particular group or section of society.
NOAD USA: A person or thing that is popular or fashionable, esp. among a particular group or section of society.
So in American usage, it doesn’t even have to appeal to a specific subset of people.
The origin of the word is also interesting:
So a suitable synonym might be “books that have been worshipped”, which fits the Telegraph list rather well, but as you say, isn’t half as interesting as a more obscure list would be. Some more hidden cults would be nice; as far as worship goes, the list is all Christ and no Mithras.