Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
If you had to prove that a book was good, you could never recommend anything.
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Agreed but saying that a book is good is different, IMO, from saying that it's the best in the English language. That, I think, needs to be proved. (Saying it's the best you've read is OK, that would clearly be a personal judgement.) And it's likely the writer of the article could prove his actual statement which is that it is *widely considered* the best. My actual dispute is with those the writer consulted who apparently said that it was the best. Neither it nor Ulysses is best-and IMO Ulysses doesn't even come close to good. Innovative, yes, but not good. I note that Wikipedia (FWIW) claims Ulysses is one of the most important works. No argument there-but important isn't the same as good.
I'm always saddened when literary 'experts' make simple mistakes like confusing words. I'm sure Middlemarch is an important work. It might even be the most important work. (I'd find that arguable due to a lack of consensus of what's most important.) But that doesn't make it the best.