Features

The demise of the hard copy book has been predicted by technophiles since the birth of the personal computer. After all, with surf the channel and youtube at our fingertips, who has the time to struggle through Jane Eyre, or, god forbid, Tolkein? Charlotte Greenfield talked to Politics lecturer turned literature promulgator Jim Flynn about his new book The Torchlight List, and why he thinks students should still read the classics.
Today we speak of iPods, digital TV, Google, Wikipedia and Toy Story 3D. There is an influx of new technology in the world and the new is beginning to jostle with the old. Groucho Marx said of television, “I find [it] to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book.” Admirable as this may sound, for most us television does not have the same effect. Add to it the babble of the internet, video games, films and radio and you might begin to wonder where this leaves literature.
 
Jim Flynn became concerned about this twenty years ago. “I gave a question on a POLS 101 final: ‘give me Plato’s theory of tyranny and apply to a twentieth century tyrant.’ Only about one in ten of the students could even name a twentieth century tyrant.”
 
Not even Hitler? “Not Hitler, not Stalin. A few could but sometimes they were fuzzy. They would put Stalin in Germany or Hitler in Italy. They were really at sea and I thought this has to stop.”
 
So he wrote The Torchlight List, a book about other books, two hundred pieces of literature that he thinks you should seriously consider reading.  As well as being the former head of Politics at Otago University, Flynn is considered a world expert on intelligence, and in particular on IQ tests. But the purpose of this book is not to raise your IQ. When asked by parents how to raise their children’s IQs, Flynn’s response is that “they should not aim at anything so trivial.”
 
Nor is his agenda that of an English literature course. “Do they take every line and textually analyze it? Well I can’t imagine anything that would kill your interest in English literature more than going line by line and saying some people think this refers to his cousin but other people think this refers to his sister and besides that it’s just a metaphor for the futility of women trying to make their way in a man’s world. By the time you’re finished with the damn thing, you hate the book.”
 
Literature can be a work of art, literature can make you smarter and literature can entertain you, but none of these are the sole aim of Flynn’s list. “It had to have a
dual criteria. A few things were too good to leave out, particularly comic novels. I say: read this, you just have to enjoy it, it may not educate you much…so every now and then I couldn’t resist the temptation.” Conversely he will happily admit that sometimes a novel included on the list “is not a great book. Sometimes they will be just too valuable in terms of their social insight. I couldn’t star them. I would only star something that was very good or better and some of them were only pretty good.” But his overarching intention is “to educate through literature.”
 
Flynn talks of books as “windows on the world”, a beautiful idea. With the proliferation of the internet, television and film, we have more options for viewing the world than ever. It may be natural that people read less because it is no longer the only vehicle to gain that view.
 
Flynn acknowledges that forms other than literature can indeed provide an insight on humankind. “The arts can do it, though I despair of getting students to take an interest in visual arts from most parts of the world. I do mention some films [on the list].  But it’s surprising with how many students I know, the minute [a film] has subtitles, off it goes so again they are only getting a western perspective [on the world].”
 
As for video games, “probably some of them would help you become a London taxi driver but I don’t think it’s important to play a game in which the purpose is to kill as many gnomes as you can in the minimum amount of time. And if we talk about the internet it’s no good unless you know the questions to ask. If you know how to ask the internet about the Nigerian civil war, that will help, but if you don’t know what ever happened [in the first place], how are you going to ask it to bring up stuff on the Nigerian civil war?”
 
Flynn’s concludes that “certainly if you’re already educated, film, the internet, music, these things can be immensely useful, but I really think it’s easier to start that education with reading.”
 
It may be an easier starting point, but reading too has its limitations. In the literary tradition a ‘good book’ is usually one written by a European or an American or, if the author is not of that nationality will nonetheless have forsaken their national language for English. This is changing of course, but it is debatable whether it is changing fast enough to provide a comprehensive worldview.
 
“Two thirds of people in the Sudan are illiterate so they’re not going to write a novel that looks at the Sudan from their perspective, it can’t be done”, says Flynn. “And of the third that are literate, very few of them would have the style and the time to write a novel and even fewer would get an international audience, as someone would need to think it was worth translating. So it’s hopeless to think of literature as a poll-taker sample.”
 
But something is always better than nothing and Flynn doesn’t think such issues undermine the value of reading widely. “This [list] is to get you started. What I try to do here is to tantalize so that people will follow it up. If five novels give you a fascination for tropical Africa, then you’ll really start to study it…But there’s no chance you’re going to be interested if you’re totally ignorant. And at least you will not be running around saying, ‘well these people are too congenitally stupid to ever develop a civilization’’”.
 
Women too are underrepresented as writers. Only about twenty-five out of the two hundred directors and authors on the list are female. Before I had the chance to point out this imbalance, Flynn commented, “why don’t you ask me why there aren’t more women authors?” So I ask him. “It’s mainly because I’m a child of my culture. It’s interesting isn’t it. People don’t think that persecution has consequences. If women are not given a full place in society, they are excluded from achievement…It’s not that I had any desire to boycott female novelists. But…the people who were the movers and shakers at the time…tended to be male. The last thing I would do is put in a second-rate novel as a ‘great novel by women’ because that’s counter-productive.”
 
What is a great novel, whether written by a man or a woman, a New Zealander or an African? Flynn thinks there are two elements. “In my opinion the characters are painted so vividly that you can’t help but be drawn to their fate. That’s the first thing. And secondly, beauty of style.”
 
To find such books was a shared journey for Flynn who, as a child, would get recommendations from friends, his father and teachers he respected. “Finally you start finding your own way because you know which authors are a waste of time and which…are worth reading everything they’ve ever written, like Huxley and Singer and Remarque.”
 
For people who were never encouraged to read widely it may be an uphill battle and going to university alone is not enough. “Universities have lost their way, we educate too narrowly.” Flynn has written The Torchlight List as much for those who have no inclination to read outside of their assigned textbook list as those who do not have a textbook list at all. “Though they should read judiciously. They shouldn’t start with War and Peace. I tell them five books to start with [these are included in Critic’s top ten]. Start with those and then if you loved one of them, read their other stuff and then you’ll be on your way.” Are people really able to cultivate a love of reading if they have never had one before? “I’ve no idea,” says Flynn, “but they’ll never know unless they try.” 
 
Why should they close their laptops, turn off the TV, put down their Wii controllers and try? “The way to control the world is not through entering a fantasy world where control is artificial. It’s becoming a liberated human being who understands the real world and can at least critically examine it. You can’t influence the world unless you’re a liberated person. If you’re a captive of the world, just a captive of your place and time and narrow group you’re stopped before you start.” Whether you use an iPad, a Kindle, a website or a paperback to do so, Flynn’s list is a good place to start the journey.