Now say you borrowed a hundred books by the most acclaimed authors (acclaimed by some group and criterion you more or less approve of), you'd still only enjoy a small percentage of those books.
Now if you borrowed a hundred books which had been voted the hundred best books of all time, by competent judges-- you'd probably still only enjoy a small percentage of them.
I'm fascinated by this phenomenon of constantly-receding excellence.
If you listened to an album of "greatest hits" by your favourite band, you'd still only probably really love a minority of them. At least, that's been my experience.
This principle often occurs to me when I read a book of quotations. These quotations are already a sort of digest of everything that's been written or said-- the most interesting and historical quotations in history. But I still find myself really interested in only a relatively small numbers of them.
Nearly every great author, musician, artist etc. mostly produced less-than-excellent works.
Or think about the latest blockbuster movie-- presumably, everybody working on that movie has already been "pre-selected" to be at the very top of their profession, out of the vast throngs that want to act, direct, do special effects etc. But the rate of success (lasting success) of blockbusters doesn't seem any higher than any other artistic endeavour.
I suspect it works the other way, as well. If you watched a hundred movies that were considered the worst, worst, worst of all time-- you might actually enjoy about ten of them, to some extent. But I'm less sure of that.
It's as though there's some principle that we can only really enjoy about ten per cent of anything.
This is a thought-provoking post.
ReplyDeleteFrom my own experience, I distinguish between standing out in a group versus liking. For example, this year I listened to all the Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels as an audiobook. It took about four months altogether, but there were only two I thought were not good. Though to pick 10 that specifically stood out I would have to think about it and it would be based on other things that a pure assessment of quality.
Quotations are a good example, because a quotation can be recognized as well-said and interesting, but not something that really catches one's attention at the time. Another thing is lists made by other people, so a list of 100 best or 100 worst movies are by groups of critics, but what they like or dislike isn't the same as a given person's likes or dislikes.
Another factor is whether a work is being considered individually or as part of a group.