h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Beeblefish, our agile-minded host, is packing several lives into one IRL and hasn't had time of late to step in and lead discussions with his usual merry panache.

So that leaves me, the Interior Decorator, to greet you, all the newcomers who have been posting to our forum and having some intriguing philosophical discussions about your reading.

Let me then offer this new thread as a place for everybody to meet each other from the aside threads, and pursue our love of books.

A launch topic (and let Topic Drift carry us where it will is) is the idea of World Literature. Each of us in our respective countries is taught the literature of our own poets, novelists, playwrights, essayists etc. But who really deserves to be taught in a World Lit course. Or, in the context of the Guide, let's call it Earth Lit.

Imagine you're the professor who will be teaching Earth Lit I, II and III at the University of Earth. What would your content be?

Lil

Well, in England it'd probably be Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy... Not surprising really.

Ahh, but suppose you're looking out over a sea of faces with only a sprinkling of humans looking back? This is a course where you're introducing Earth Lit to the students of the universe. So you're not just improving the human mind, you're introducing the working of the human mind to non-humans.

I would put Mark Twain and Shakespeare in my introductory course, for a start.

I would have said that Burns gets a look in here. We had it drummed into us at school that his stuff was internationally renowned (very popular in the old USSR apparently). No bad for the faither o' half o' Ayrshire.

It sure would give aliens a bracing introduction to the concept of dialect in human speech, wouldn't it! Although I discovered, while I was writing an article on him, that William McGonagall has been translated into over a dozen languages, many of them East European. If I were Prof, I would teach McGonagall too, but not till 3rd year.

Did Burns really father half of Ayrshire? There's cause for international reknown right there!

One of mine would have to be Anon. He (or was it she ) seemed to write an awfull lot of stuff from when the spoken word was literature.

And all the main holy books of all religions (I'm not really a religous person, but for a great many these could be the only books they ever read). Include several translations of each so they can do a compare and contrast exersise.

He certainly "put it about a bit" as they say. You'd have to make sure the aliens only got his poetry on the Freedom of the common man etc. and not his scrap ditty's on Ayrshire towns.

Ah've been pullin' ma hair oot.
Ye'd think ah'd been moultin'
Trying tae think o' something,
That rhymes wie Tarbolton.

You really have to put on your best accent to get that to work.

I sure am glad I said Earth Lit I, II _and_ III. Now you've added Oral and religious themes. And just by mentioning the matter of varying translations, you bring up the implication of disagreement about religious ideas. I award you your own course title for that last one, Phil! Imagine the impact it would have on more Borgian life-forms, the idea that humans differ on theological issues.

You're the assistant prof teaching aliens about the holy books of Earth religions. What will you call it the course? What will you include? *kibbitzing from audience is allowed* The Book of Bob? LRon? Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures? (That's the Christian Science Church's main text)

And of all these texts, are they all really Litticher?

Well the translation thing comes up in literature, especially the old stuff even when written in supposedly the same language.
The oral histories should be included as this is how some cultures, still or would traditionally like to, keep the stories alive. And yes the oral tradition does change the story in the telling so there are problems with taht also. Once a story has been recorded it usually becomes much more of a fixed entity.

As for the religious books, depending on your view of religion they could all be literature.

*Bookmark.*

I'd add Victor Hugo... My latest discovery...

And how about something Russian like Dostoevsky.
And something Chinese - I forget the names but there's a huge volume of well-reknowned classic oriental literature based on a very different philosophy and perspective on life to all the European and English language authors mentioned so far. We want those aliens to hear a broad range of literary traditions from this planet of ours after all.

Right!
Now if we've finagled Phil into teaching Comaprative Earth Religious Lit, he'll probably cover the Analects of Confucius and the Tao te Ching. So maybe a good representative Chinese lit would be The Art of War. That'll put some fear into the off-worlders.

Dostoevsky is a great choice. How about Brothers Karamazov? Would you put that in an introductory course or save it for later?

And Victor Hugo is noted, you on the furry sofa The French are spoken for, then.

Are you saying the French can't have more authors mentioned?? Alexandre Dumas is good too... Well, too bad for them...

I've got one Finnish author - Mika Waltari... Oh, and of course i -should- mention Väinö Linna, who is usually regarded as one of the best Finnish authors (famous from The Unknown Soldier (if that's what it is in English))... I've got no comments to that one... But Waltari's Sinuhe is great... Has anyone ever even heard about these...?

If you want to put Sun Tzu's Art of War in there how about adding the Machiavelli's european version from the early 1500's. A required reading for any military strategist. Or if you wish to teach people how to get and keep power the Prince (also Machiavelli) should be read.

A thought strikes (ow!) that you might want to include mythology as well. Probably Grimm's Fairy Tales for your Central European variety, Cuchulan (or however he is spelled) for the Celtic end, and perhaps the Odyssey for Greek (I don't know much in the way of Classical stuff). Don't know anythig else, but there has to be a bucket bload.

I'm familiar with Veinö Linna (probably due to the fact that I'm Swedish), and I'd like to agree that he deserves a spot. But what about the authors of Children's books? I'd love to see Astrid Lindgren (creator of Pippi Longstocking) in there, but I'm not sure if Pippi is big enough on an earthly scale, so to speak.

I don't think it is. What's Pippi Longstocking about?

Children's book authors would include:
A.A. Milne, Captain W.E. Johns, "Franklin W. Dixon", Enid Blyton etc.

I've heard of Pippi Longstocking. It's some precocious little girl.

A. A. Milne and Enid Blighton I'd agree with. You'd also need to add Frank. L. Baum and Roald Dahl to the list.

Tolkein also needs to be in there.

What a bunch of fertile minds youse guys are!

Let's see -- yes, we can have more than one French author, I didn't mean that any nationality should be limited to just one. Mythology! Let's see, should mythology be a precursor to the Comparative Religion course?

Notice how we are cross-categorizing? We're thinking in terms of nationalities and also in terms of categories, AND subjects.

Children's lit is another excellent thought. What makes it different from adult lit? I'm thinking of Alice when I say that. I mean, as adults don't many of us still love some children's books? I love some of Russell Hoban's books for children. And does Dr. Seusss get a mention?

Machiavelli's The Prince: right, an Italian book. What about the Germans?

Good point - I would argue that Tolkein is an adult author, but it is so hard to actually draw the line.
But I *should* have remembered Roald Dahl. And C.S. Lweis. And Isaac Asimov - but they all can be read in your adulthood - as can Thomas the Tank Engine by Rev. Awdry.