Writing that tracks the authors reactions to great works

June 1, 2009 7:12 AM

I'm looking for writings (especially blogs) in which the author sets out to consume (read, listen to, look at, watch, etc.) a prodigious amount of content, then writes about his/her reactions. Good examples would be if someone read every novel on the Modern Library list of the 100 greatest novels, or listened to every song on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest songs, then wrote about it.

An actual example would be David Plotz's Blogging the Bible -- the author (who was no Bible expert before this project) read the Bible from cover to cover and methodically blogged his reactions in real time. (I already have the book version of this.)

I particularly enjoy when the author admits they're naively approaching a lot of these works for the first time, or at least reflecting on them seriously for the first time, but boldly assumes their own quirky opinions are worth telling everyone about.

Criteria:

- It should be a large amount of content, preferably a multitude of different works within a genre. Although you could technically say the Bible is just one book, it fits with the spirit of this because it takes so long to read, was written by a lot of people, and has permeated our culture in so many ways.

- There has to be at least some pretense of conquering an objectively significant grouping of artworks. Hence, the above examples would qualify (greatest novels, greatest songs, the Bible), but if it's just "I'm going to listen to my awesome personal collection of 1,000 CDs and blog them," that wouldn't qualify since it's so haphazard.

posted by Jaltcoh to writing & language (25 comments total)

James Lileks is watching 100 (public domain?) noir movies, and writes about them on a weekly basis. Check out http://lileks.com/bleat/. I think he's going to do the equivalent amount of '50s sci-fi, too.
posted by Work to Live at 7:21 AM on June 1

A.J. Jacobs wrote two books, one on reading all of the Encyclopedia Britannica and one on following all the rules of the Bible.
posted by pised at 7:39 AM on June 1

From the AV Club's "Box of paperbacks book club" (55 entries and counting):

Not long ago, A.V. Club editor Keith Phipps purchased a large box containing over 75 vintage science fiction, crime, and adventure paperbacks. He is reading all of them.

This is right on the line of your second criterion -- the only uniting factor seems to be that the books were in a box together, but there does seem to be an unspoken theme of "pulp fiction of the early 20th century."
posted by hayvac at 7:39 AM on June 1

The Criterion Contraption is Matthew Dessem's trip through the entire Criterion Collection, in the order in which they were released. Each entry is detailed, researched, and well illustrated with screen shots, so he doesn't churn them out on a super-quick schedule, but the archives are substantial (he's up to #91). Highly recommended.
posted by redfoxtail at 7:41 AM on June 1

How about The Happiness Project? Here is the author's introduction on her home page: I'm working on a book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT--a memoir about the year I spent test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study I could find, whether from Aristotle or St. Therese or Martin Seligman or Oprah. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will gather these rules for living and report on what works and what doesn’t.
posted by yawper at 7:47 AM on June 1

Kernunrex does this for movies. He did every Mystery Science Theater 3000.
posted by Otis at 8:13 AM on June 1

David Denby wrote about his experience taking Columbia University's "Great Books" class, which focuses on classic works.

From the amazon.com review:

..."This is the course that, in preserving the notion of the western canon without apology to multiculturalists and feminists, has been an unlikely focus of America's culture war in recent years. Where other universities have caved in and revised or enlarged the canon, Columbia's course has remained intact. Denby's intention as a writer and protagonist in the culture war was to record the experience and the personal impact of the course. He has produced a cry from the heart in favor of the classics of western civilization, relaying with infectious enthusiasm how literature touched his soul."
posted by amicamentis at 8:17 AM on June 1

Bill McKibben wrote a book called The Age of Missing Information in 1992 where he watched an entire day of cable TV in the cable market with the most channels -- Fairfax Virginia -- so he spent a month watching recorded TV that all took place on one 24 hour day over some 93 channels. Then he spent another day walking in the woods and compared the two "daylong" experiences.
posted by jessamyn at 8:19 AM on June 1

The Whole Five Feet, in which the author reads the 51-volume set of Harvard Classics.
posted by Daily Alice at 8:24 AM on June 1

A six word review for every preview song for SXSW 2007.
posted by Midnight Rambler at 8:28 AM on June 1

Metafilter's own Matthew Baldwin blogs about AFI's top 100 film list.
posted by jzed at 8:36 AM on June 1

Ammon Shea read the entire Oxford English Dictionary.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 8:40 AM on June 1

The Julie/Julia project might count if you consider recipes works of art. Julia Child's recipes, culled as they are from the vast tradition of French cooking, do seem to me to fit your criteria, at least as well as the Bible does, even if they were technically all collected by one woman.
posted by dizziest at 9:25 AM on June 1

And another one:

Adam Noble is blogging about reading every issue of Cerebus in order.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:57 AM on June 1

Good examples would be if someone read every novel on the Modern Library list of the 100 greatest novels

Ha! Good luck to anyone who tries this. I attempted it back in 2006 and only got through the first ten or so (100-90). I blogged about it, but the entries are all something like "This book is sooo bad! I hate pretentious books! Why are all of these authors' books about young writers with huge erections!?"

This blog (readingulyssesforthefirsttime.blogspot.com) isn't too far from that, but it might be something like what you have in mind.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:28 AM on June 1

We've got four writers lined up to do this with Infinite Jest this summer. See infinitesummer.org, and the MeFi thread about the project.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 10:37 AM on June 1

Can't take my Eyes off of you : Seven Days, Twelve Televisions
posted by svenvog at 11:33 AM on June 1

"At the beginning of 2009, I decided that I might as well watch the many classic science fiction movies that I’d never seen yet. After a little thinking, this evolved into a plan to watch at least on sci-fi flick from every year between 1950 and the present. I also thought it would be fun to watch the movies (as much as possible) in chronological order to get an idea of how things have changed over the past sixty years."

link
posted by rollick at 12:03 PM on June 1

Fred Clark at Slacktivist has been reading and discussing the Left Behind books for quite some time (so you and I don't have to). He's currently about 50 pages into the second one, Tribulation Force, so you could pick up with that if you can't face ploughing through scores of reverse-ordered blog posts on the first book.
posted by daisyk at 1:46 PM on June 1

Noel Murray at the AV Club spent a year listening to nothing but his album collection, progressing alphabetically and writing about it.

"After 17 years of professional music-reviewing, Noel Murray is taking time off from all new music, and is revisiting his record collection in alphabetical order, to take stock of what he's amassed, and consider what he still needs."

popless
posted by codefinger at 5:37 PM on June 1

Thanks, everyone. The answers I marked as "best" are ones that neatly fit my criteria, which I realize were very vague. All the links are worth looking at.
posted by Jaltcoh at 5:48 PM on June 1

I just listened to Rolling Stone's top 500 songs in descending order...maybe I should have blogged about it.
posted by saul wright at 11:20 PM on June 1

Popular, wherein a chap reviews every single UK number one hit single, from 1952 onwards, currently at Bowie's Let's Dance. Home to some great writing about pop music and related cultural matters.
posted by my face your at 6:02 AM on June 2

Blogger Beware records one man's harrowing journey through the Goosebumps series.
posted by quatsch at 12:16 PM on June 2

Nicholson Baker, "U and I", about his relationship to John Updike, is idiosycratic, charming, fascinating. Not quite what you are requesting, because while writing the book, he purposely avoids reading or rereading any Updike, or even getting his quotes straight - which leads to some hilarity in the OK-I'm-done-let's-see-how-far-off-I-was footnotes.
posted by 31d1 at 4:21 PM on June 2