i can't stop thinking about goodreads' top 100
by goodreads' top 100, i'm specifically talking about the top 100 list dictated by user ratings. why it has failed to leave my mind is its fascinating modernity, especially in comparison to other user-rated best of all time lists.
a few months ago, i saw a tweet about how today's readers were "cooked" because moby dick was sitting at an average rating of 3.6 while catching fire was rated a much higher 4.3. someone in the replies went on to complain about the concerning lack of appreciation for classic novels today, moby dick or otherwise, and to look at how ridiculous goodreads' top 100 was as proof for their claim. curious, i examined the list myself and promptly saw that this complaint actually had some backing. on this list is no more than ten books published before the year 2000, with the oldest books having been published sometime in the 1950s. i don't think a lower rating on classic novels is bad on an individual level — but as a general consensus surprised me! it made my head spin every time i pondered the lack of classics on the list.
i mean surely, classics were classics for a reason? the reason being that they were...good?
in a sort of mesmerized daze, i opened up the letterboxd top 250, imdb top 250, rym highest rated, and aoty highest rated just to compare.
i wanted to talk a little bit about letterboxd and imdb first because i feel more familiar with film than i do literature or music. these websites' highest rated movies have substantial overlap, even if their exact rankings are different. both lists feature multiple classics from old hollywood (12 angry men, casablanca), new hollywood (the godfather, apocalypse now), asian directors (akira kurosawa, masaki kobayashi), and european directors (andrei tarkovsky, vittorio de sica), which i consider to be a very healthy variety. these lists did not surprise me one bit because it had all the kinds of movies i expected to find in a top 250 list.
i considered that accessibility played a major role in shaping such a thing, as film is still a very new medium, relatively speaking of course, being a little over one hundred years old — whereas literature is so old we have no small amount of penguin classics that were published in the 1400s. i assumed it is probably far easier for the modern 2020s human to sit back and enjoy a movie from the 1940s than it might be to read something from medieval times.
even so, there are still plenty of modern classics published from the 1900s onwards that are nowhere to be found. something like to kill a mockingbird or 1984. i figured that if i am able to understand the english used in an early 20th century movie, i should have no trouble reading a novel of the same time period, difference in spoken and written word considered. to really test this, i picked up the 1938 novel rebecca and have found myself understanding its prose without issue. i know this is just one book, so maybe a reader who has read other novels from this time period would like to inform me if other books might be a bit harder to parse. i think the only popular classic i've read was crime and punishment, which to be honest, was not that hard to understand either.
additionally, i thought it was interesting that a few of the films listed are based on classic books. dune is an example, but one i considered to be more interesting is tolstoy's war and peace. somehow, a four-part film series that totals 413 minutes (a movie i think would not be very accessible for general, not just modern audiences) has landed itself at 82nd place with a score of 4.4 on letterboxd while its book counterpart is missing roughly 0.3 points before qualifying for top 100 status on goodreads.
as for rym and aoty: they are quite similar to their film counterparts the way they too have a significant overlap between artists. i'm aware that both websites are primarily used to rate modern music (is there a music website having fan wars over beethoven?) so "classics" in this sense would likely refer to something like the beatles, who to literally no one's surprise, has abbey road on both lists of highest rated albums. i hope you'll agree with me, but because different music genres emerged at different times the exact years an artist would be considered a "classic" varies. bearing that in mind, i'd consider both wu-tang clan (formed in the 1990s) and john coltrane (active 1960s) classics for their respective genres. and yes, both of these artists are on the two lists of highest rated albums.
again, i figured that because both websites focus on modern music, listening to a 1960s album is about as easy as watching a 1960s film. which is to say, very.
so, coming back to goodreads, i really hope you don't think i'm crazy over being perplexed by the lack of classics. i don't want to come off as elitist or anything, but i'm not a hundred percent sure i can get behind literal harry potter fanfiction being in 62nd place over the count of monte cristo. i know the hurdle for getting into classic literature can be quite a high one (why, i myself failed to finish pride and prejudice in my teen years) but is this a hurdle nobody is trying to jump over anymore? are majority of the ratings on classics from kids who were annoyed they had to read the book for school? are the users holding classics to a higher standard and being more critical because they are classics? are the users judging classics using contemporary standards? i don't know. i feel like you could apply these thoughts to other art mediums but those user-rated lists still turned out very different.
of course, i could also just be deeply misunderstanding why the goodreads top 100 list would look like that. if you have any thoughts about it, please write me. i feel like i'm being haunted.
reader responses
so it turns out that a handful of other bear users feel quite passionately about the lack of classics on the goodreads top 100 as well! i've received a lot of lovely emails with different insights that i thought i might compile down below. a general thank you to everyone who wrote me — seriously — it's been fun talking to you!
- data discrepancies due to the goodreads list not being weighted (i found a list that was weighted to compare, though it is a bit outdated)
- a difference in website demographics i.e. letterboxd/rym might have more members who are serious about their interests while goodreads might have more members who are casual readers. true because i don't even have an rym account!
- survivorship bias, because if you're reading brandon sanderson's wind and truth thousands of pages later, you probably already really like his work.
- it is all booktok's fault
i've also received replies in the form of blog posts! please go check out misu's and ulik's responses for some longform insights :) they have some interesting things to say that i didn't include in the bullet points.