# Greatest books of all time | Dan Houser and Lex Fridman *Lex Clips* · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEmSj6U-BHM ## Summary Dan Houser talks with Lex Fridman about the greatest books of all time, from Middlemarch and War and Peace to 1984 and Animal Farm. They discuss what makes great war literature, especially Life and Fate and Man's Search for Meaning, and how the 20th century revealed the failure of communism. Houser argues that freedom of thought is the one value worth fighting for. ## Key points - Houser names Middlemarch as the best novel written in English and War and Peace as one of the best in Russian, favoring long books that contain all of life. - He was obsessed with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his 20s and finds their relationship itself novelistic. - He praises Kafka, who wanted his work burned, as one of the best writers of the 20th century. - Houser came to 1984 cold during COVID and found it incredible despite its fame feeling like a cliché. - Lex says Animal Farm is the book he has read more than any other. - Houser names The Thin Red Line, Life and Fate, and The End of the Affair as three great World War II books from different perspectives. - The Treblinka section of Life and Fate is one of the most harrowing pieces of writing Houser has read. - Houser says the one value worth fighting for is resisting thought control, from either side of politics. - Lex argues that individual freedom is a prerequisite for happiness and the flourishing of society. ## Notes ### Books for an Alien - Houser recommends Middlemarch as the best novel written in English and War and Peace as one of the best in Russian. - If you only get one book, you want a long one that contains all of life: love, death, violence, romance. - He loved Vanity Fair, the novel, for the same reason. ### Fitzgerald and Hemingway - Houser was completely obsessed with both in his 20s. - Their relationship is itself novelistic: one helped discover the other, died in obscurity, and was rediscovered as a genius. - Kafka is cited as one of the best writers of the 20th century, fascinating because he wanted all his work burned. ### Dystopian Novels - Houser came to 1984 cold during COVID and found it incredible despite its fame making it feel like a cliché. - Lex says Animal Farm is the book he has read more than any other, possibly because he grew up in a communist country. - Lex criticizes Brave New World as poorly written but thinks it applies more to the 21st century; Houser defends 1984, noting its fake wars and analog-internet quality. ### World War II Books - Houser names The Thin Red Line, Life and Fate, and The End of the Affair as three great World War II books from American, Eastern European, and British perspectives. - The Treblinka section of Life and Fate is one of the most harrowing things he has read, an incredible piece of humanism. - Lex brings up Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, where small acts of kindness and love allow the human spirit to persist. ### Communism and Freedom - Houser was taught by disappointed English communists after '89 who were discovering the atrocities. - He finds the failure of communism one of the most disappointing things about the 20th century, given its beautiful idea. - Lex argues compassion at scale is abused by centralized power, and a dictator arises to do the opposite of the ideal. - Houser's one value worth fighting for: whenever either side moves toward thought control, move away. ## Transcript [00:02] - Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about some of the greatest books of all time. And I should also give a shout-out to an excellent podcast he did with Sonia Walger, who's a friend of yours, but she had a great podcast. She has guests pick their five favorite, most impactful books and so on. You picked five fiction books, one for each decade of your life. For the audience, they should go listen to that conversation. But you picked Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransome. Second one was Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Then Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Thin Red Line by James Jones, and Middlemarch by George Eliot. But just zooming out, reflecting back on that conversation, what do you think, [00:44] if an alien came, what are some candidates for books that you would recommend to them? - Middlemarch. It's the best novel written in English. War and Peace is one of the best novels written in Russian, I would argue. I think both of those are... Because if you've only got one book, you want a long book. - Yeah, true. - And then they're both books that kind of... It's something I was always trying to put into games, and you know, that feeling of all of life is here. You know, you've got love, death, violence, romance, the whole human experience in different ways. So I think there's something amazing about, you know, Vanity Fair, I used to love the novel, not the magazine. Because same thing, all of life is here. [01:31] - You also spoke highly of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway. - I was obsessed by them in my 20s. - Yeah. - Completely obsessed. - As one must be. - Yeah. - Absolutely. - At that age, and I think them as a double act is so amazing. You know, one helped discover the other and then died first, and then suddenly died in obscurity and then was rediscovered as a genius while the other one was still alive and falling into decline, I think their relationship is itself very novelistic. - That, by the way, is a phenomenon of writing maybe no longer, maybe still, you know, people like Franz Kafka who died in obscurity. All these writers who die in obscurity. Nobody knows them and they become famous later. That is just so interesting. That's such an interesting... [02:22] You know, Franz Kafka. Kafka in particular is fascinating because he wanted all of his work to be burned, like destroyed. So that, speaking of the critical voice, and I think he's one of the, one of the best writers of the 20th century. Of course, the dystopian novels are really interesting: 1984, Brave New World. - Love 1984. Had never listened to it or read it, and then I think I did it on Talking Book, or I maybe read it, I can't remember, during COVID. I think I did both, became obsessed by it. And it's got the elements of that creeping into A Bed of Paradise. But it's so good. I hadn't realized how good it was. - Yes. - And it's so of the moment. - It's almost like because of its fame, and... [03:09] it's almost like cliché, and you take away the character- - Yeah, if it were English... And I remember the year 1984- and you're like, "This is..." I remember the song. You know? It's just too much. - Yeah. Too much. - It can't be that good. And then it was that. I came to it completely cold, just, "Oh, I should work my way through this 'cause it's another classic I haven't read." And then it's incredible. - And the book I've read more than any other book is Animal Farm by George Orwell. I don't know why exactly, but the childlike fairy tale-telling of totalitarianism. - Well, you grew up in a communist country. - Yeah. Maybe that's it. The roots of it. - You know, I remember, I was a kid in the Cold War in [03:45] London. And we were always terrified of Eastern Europeans, "You're gonna come and kill us all." And then I ended up marrying a Pole. And I was... We were... And we had Ukrainians, you know, who worked for us and worked with us. And I was... We were sitting, a few years ago, sitting around a campfire in Upstate New York, with the campfire built by our old nanny's husband, who's Ukrainian, and he'd been in the Red Army. I was like, history is so strange that you end up... The Red Army used to be the ultimate enemy. And like, we're now just hanging out with... It's like, everything changes. You think these things are permanent, and they're really not. You know, and we face some of that now, where you think these structures are permanent, and they're [04:26] gonna change. - And you also mentioned that the three great World War II books are The Thin Red Line, Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman. And The End of the Affair, Graham Greene. What makes for a great war book? - I think World War II is interesting because it affects everywhere, obviously. And so you can get all these different kinds of stories. And there's so many good... I was just trying to come up with a range of one American, one British, one Eastern European just to get different perspectives. But there's so many amazing World War II books around all kinds of stories. I think the most complete one, because it is this all of life being there, probably is Life and Fate, which is amazing. - It was written by Vasily Grossman. He experienced Stalingrad firsthand. [05:15] And there's also just a deep philosophical component. - And the bit in Treblinka is one of the most harrowing sections of any book I ever read. And it really, almost more than any other piece of art around the Holocaust, made me feel what you would feel like at that moment. I mean, it's just incredible piece of humanism. - And also, I mean, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. - Yeah. Oh, yeah. - It seems like that context reveals, in the most pure way, human nature and like what kind of... You know, in Man's Search for Meaning is when everything is taken from you, you know, the little remains of love for, in this case, his wife... is the thing that is a little flame that burns. And let's say your Grossman is small acts of kindness, [06:05] is the thing that allows the human spirit to persist. - I love the bit in Life and Fate when you get... Obviously, it's in this Stalinist period, and so they're all losing... They all know that what they thought was going to be wonderful about the revolution isn't going to happen. So everyone's scared of being killed by Stalin 'cause it's post the purges. But then you get these guys and they're trapped in a building, fighting in Stalingrad. And so they know at this moment they're dead anyway. And they get to live like pure, perfect Marxist communists away from Stalin and all his nonsense. And I thought that section's incredible 'cause you realize in some ways, in all of its horrors, the most disappointing thing about the 20th century, in some ways, was the absolute [06:55] failure of communism. You know? 'Cause it was such a, you know, quote-unquote beautiful idea and it just did not work time and time again. And these people who fought for it and then saw it not working, I think they're sort of fascinating characters. You know, all of the revolutionaries from 1917 that were then killed by Stalin, which was all of them apart from him, him and Lenin. - And that was, you know, people in modern day politics talk about communism like it's trivial, it's trivial that it would lead to atrocities. But I don't think it's that trivial. It's this idealism of humans. It's like, why, you know, why can't... Basically, why can't we all get along? There's a real compassion behind it. There's real love. And what you realize is [07:40] there is... It's a real study, the 20th century, of human nature. that, unfortunately, at scale, that kind of compassion is abused by centralized power. So there's a dictator always, in that context, given that set of technologies, a dictator arises and does the opposite of what the promise of the ideal is supposed to be. - Well, I think I thought a lot about that then because I was taught by all these disappointed communists, you know? After '89, all of these English communists, you know, were all like having to access, discovering all these atrocities that happened. You know, so it always fascinated me. And then you think about complexities or where one's own values are in the modern moment. And I say, you know, without from every [08:32] and whether either of them, what we would call left now or call right now, does it have any bearing on the sort of communist era of those words? And I would say probably not. I think things have changed. But fundamentally, the one value that I would think is worth fighting for is, whenever either side starts to move towards thought control, move away. That's never the right outcome. The never right outcome is, "Oh, you've said the wrong thing. You should be removed now." That should never ever be a thing we should lean towards. - Yeah, it does seem like freedom, individual freedom, is a prerequisite for - for happiness - for happiness, and the flourishing of a larger society. So there's, like you said, 1984 is pretty. I mean, it's a caricature. [09:15] - But it is brilliant. - It's quite, it's actually also just a good story. That's my criticism of Brave New World, it's just poorly written. But I like Brave New World probably applies more to the 21st century than does 1984. So, - I don't know. I think 1984, with the fake wars, and the way that it revealed everything in it was a setup for him. There's something that if he could've seen the Internet. There's something of, it's like an analog internet, that world they build around the main character.