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August 14, 2005

Dwight MacDonald on Adler's Great Books

From Dwight MacDonald's scathing, funny, and right-on dismantling of Mortimer Adler's Great Books anthology of 443 works by 76 authors in 54 volumes:

...books, like people, look better out of uniform. It bothers me to see Tristram Shandy dressed like the Summa Theologica.

The review, published in a New Yorker, is just too delightful and insightful. [Tag: EverythingIsMiscellaneous]

Posted by D. Weinberger at August 14, 2005 07:53 PM

Comments

I wonder what he would have said about Fadiman's "Lifetime Reading Plan" book? The latest edition (the fourth) added a co-conspirator in John Major, which added lots of non-Western books. Unfortunately, for the first time this book is out of print. I've really enjoyed it and it has spurred me on to reading some of the Classics. In fact, I've started a blog about my reading quest (link on my home page), ala the blog about reading the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Posted by: Jonathan Arnold | August 15, 2005 11:11 AM

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