What makes a “Great Book” so great?
On Wednesday, Feb 12th The Meriwether Study Club met in Nashville for another enlightening and thought-provoking conversation. Members discussed what they were reading, essays and other works being written, and the various lessons being learned through everyone’s individual studies.
After discussing Thoreau’s retreat to the pond, Odysseus’ journey home, and Tocqueville’s ramblings through America, one of the members posed a question to the room…
“What makes a Great Book so great? What are the qualities of a Great Book?”
Some will know that there exists an unofficial collection of volumes widely considered “The Great Books” or “The Great Books of The Western World”.
This pantheon of timeless literature includes works spanning across time from Ancient Greece to perhaps the early 20th century (depending on which scholar you are arguing with) and are regarded as containing the most important ideas mankind has ever produced.
Some consider the top 10 volumes of this collection being:
- The Iliad – Homer (c. 8th century BC)
- The Odyssey – Homer (c. 8th century BC)
- The Republic – Plato (c. 375 BC)
- Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle (c. 350 BC)
- The Divine Comedy – Dante Alighieri (1308–1320)
- The Prince – Niccolò Machiavelli (1513, published 1532)
- Hamlet – William Shakespeare (c. 1600)
- Leviathan – Thomas Hobbes (1651)
- Meditations on First Philosophy – René Descartes (1641)
- The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
So why are these considered “great books” anyway?
After some discussion, members of the study club decided on a few criteria;
- The book needs to communicate timeless lessons, things that are still as relevant today as they were when it was written. Lessons that are perennial in their nature and live above the ebbs and flows of trends and norms.
- The book needs to communicate deeply thought-provoking ideas consistently. The example was given of a book that can be opened to any page, any paragraph read, and the reader be immediately impressed with the depth of thought taking place by the author.
While there are surely more criteria to be discovered, the study club came up with these 2 during our evening discussion.
Now I ask you, the reader, what else would you add to this list? What do you look for in the books you read and how would you decide if a book is “Great” or not?
These types of questions and more are what Meriwether is all about. Digging into the most meaningful aspects of life, literature, nature, work, and relationships to bring to light the true essence and beauty of being a human.
You are also invited to join us in April as we bring these ideas to life in the beautiful Tennessee countryside during our 2 day/2 night Meriwether Men’s Retreat (April 25th – 27th). Click here to learn more about it.
Sincerely,
Warren – Founder Meriwether