Someone just posted reference to the 100 best novels in the English Language from the 20th Century.
Here is the list. Conveniently, the webauthor included links for a lot of the books. Thank you!
This is a neat list of books. I've read a lot of them, but maybe I'll try to read some more of them.
I don't think I agree that these are the hundred best. But "best" is a highly subjective word.
Let's just say they are good, and maybe I'll use it as a guide for some new books to try.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Al Barger
Great books lists such as this are most commonly put together by commie English department types with fairly narrow frames of reference, so I don't really expect much of them.
In particular, the absence of Ayn Rand is criminal, if not unexpected. Atlas Shrugged is arguably the most important book of the century.
What kind of fool thinks that this major work does not rate as high as Lolita, for example? Oh, the guilty conscience of a guy obsessed with an underaged girl! Now THAT'S profound literature.
2 - The Theory
i've only read 2 of the books on that list, "Darkness at Noon" by Arther Koestler and "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner. Both are very good books and highly recomended.
frieden.
3 - murphy
Well, I wasn't going to go there, Theory...
But you started it.
I have read:
2. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
4. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
6. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
7. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
10. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
13. 1984, George Orwell
15. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
19. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
31. Animal Farm, George Orwell
46. The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad
55. On the Road, Jack Kerouac Buy it now
56. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
61. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
67. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
88. The Call of the Wild, Jack London
100. The Magnificent Ambersons, Booth Tarkington
I object to the number of novels that are written by the same author. They ought to make room for more diversity.
And yes, Atlas Shrugged was great.
And a few hundred others I could mention.
4 - Al Barger
And while we're at it, it is MOST bogus not to have one or two Robert Heinlein books. Stranger in a Strange Land would be a good, obvious choice. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress might would be even slightly better. It's a little more realistic, and thus more emotionally real. It is arguably a little better dramatically focused.
5 - Murphy
You know, Al, i was absolutely thinjking that. I think the "commie English Department types" have some kind of problem with sci fi (as well as fantasy or romance).
I often wonder why we never studied these genres in college. It is obvious that these books are meaningful to a great number of people.
We studied the development of the novel, of the short story, and of different types of poetic forms, but missed what was going on right under our noses.
I guess that's one reason why I didn't go on to graduate school...I couldn't stand the irrelevancy of the work I was doing in. school.
Both thos books by Heinlein are great books too.
6 - The Theory
they were good.. but do they really deserve to be amid the greats?
frieden.
7 - Tim Hall
I too notice the almost total absence of any kind of genre fiction on this list. It's like a list calling itself 'Greatest music of all time', which is made up entirely of classical music with a total absence of rock, pop of jazz.
I think the division between 'Great Literature' and 'popular fiction' is bogus; What calls itself 'literature' is as much a genre as SF or Thrillers, and has it's own tropes just like they do.
8 - andy
I agree. I was surprised to see books like the Lord of the Rings not included in the list. Any list made before the movie probably would have included it.
I can understand their tendency to not want to include LOTR due to it's popularity in pop culture right now(let's face it, pop culture has the worst taste ever), but that does not take away from the credibility of the Author or the book itself.
9 - Tim Hall
I'm reminded of the reader's top 100 from a poll conducted by a major British book chain. LOTR came top of the list, and the literati went apoplectic.
I also remember The Independent compiled a list of the hundred worst books of all time. The list was topped by "Ulysees" (Because they considered inaccessible for anyone that wasn't an English Lit graduate). LOTR and Atlas Shrugged were also on the list. As was the complete works of Jeffrey Archer.
10 - James Russell
OK, then, I have read or made attempts at reading the following...
1. Ulysses, James Joyce
2. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
4. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
7. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
11. Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
13. 1984, George Orwell
23. U.S.A. (trilogy), John Dos Passos
31. Animal Farm, George Orwell
41. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
50. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
53. Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
54. Light in August, William Faulkner
55. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
56. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
67. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
73. The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West
97. The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles
98. The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain
I've seen film versions of a number of other books on the list. At any rate, that only goes to conclusively demonstrate that this list is, like all of its kind, a load of bollocks, since it so little agrees with my own reading experiences and tastes.
As far as Atlas Shrugged goes, I reckon I could take a great big messy shit over a four-foot square piece of paper then randomly attack the mess with brushes of varying sizes, and it would still be a more interesting and entertaining read than "John Galt speaking".
11 - Murphy
I'd be interested to know what you thought of Ulysses. My professor, in our last capstone class, was HORRIFIED that none of us in the class had read Ulysses. He was sad that we were graduating without having read it.
Funny...He thought that one novel was so important, and it was never assigned. However, we read Lolita in that class, and almost all of us had already been assigned that one. Lolita, Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn, certain short stories, these were redundant. But we miss a lot of other books..
He practically made us swear to read it later.
But he also said it was almost imperative to read it with a group and discuss it.
I can't get any group to agree to read it, and I'm thinking I should jsut go ahead and read it on my own.
Does anyone have any thoughts about this?
12 - James Russell
I personally thought it was unreadable. Then again, I was 16 at the time I tried to read it, so I may have more patience for it now. I just find it difficult to get enthused enough by Joyce to actually do so, however...
13 - Rodney Welch
The list referenced here is a few years old; it was cooked up by the editors of Modern Library, and it gave a few English teachers and editorial-writers another chance to gripe about the lack of representation of popular taste, among other things.
Personally, I thought the Top Ten were mostly on the money -- save for the glaring omission of Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! which unfortunately didn't make it on the list at all. And I've never read Brave New World, Darkness at Noon, or Sons and Lovers. I'd also push The Grapes of Wrath a little further down the list, and push Howards End higher.
I'd easily put Ulysses in the top spot; the Number Two spot I'd give to either of Nabokov's masterpieces, Lolita or Pale Fire, both works of genius that, reading for reading, continue to repay all the attention they demand. I'd also put Updike's Rabbit tetralogy on the list, somewhere in the Top 25. I'd scrap Saul Bellow altogether.
Joyce's masterpiece is undoubtedly difficult in patches, and does require some help to get through; it's also true that in its sheer scope and the genuine beauty of its prose there isn't much that can touch it. I haven't read it in a few years, but barely a month goes by that I don't take it from the shelves and read parts of it, sometimes aloud to myself, even -- in particular the penultimate "Ithaca" chapter. And I can't even begin to write about all that Lolita means and has meant to me -- not just the rich humor and sadness of it, but its multiple levels of meaning.
14 - Murphy herself
Absolom, Absolom! kicks the rest of Faulkner's works in the ass. That is a stunning book.
I do like Lolita a lot as well, even though it takes some getting out of yourself to get over th subject matter. But that's part of it's genius.
Hmm..you like Ullysses that much, huh? Hmm...
15 - Mark Saleski
i've attempted Ulysses several times. each time i get about a page and a half in and i no longer know what's going on. it's like some sort of bizarre literary drug has taken effect.
is it really worth it? dunno. anybody else out there want to say what they got out of it?
16 - Rodney Welch
Is it worth it?
Well, sure, I think it is, but how many hundreds of thousands of readers have given up on it, or found it one big crashing bore? On the other hand, there are so many -- English majors and teachers, mostly -- who have fetishized the book, who read and re-read and write papers that can only be read by like-minded cultists. The damn book has become such an exclusionary club. It's no wonder people hate it, or feel threatened by it. James Joyce had the kind of enormous artistic ambition that's bound to leave most people behind -- and by most people I simply mean people who aren't willing to ALSO buy one of the many "Reader's Guide to Ulysses" that are out there. Who in the world wants to pick up a book that comes with an owner's manual?
It would be thoroughly deceitful of me to suggest that any good reader will love and appreciate Ulysses if they approach it with the right attitude. No -- a good many will still windmill it across the room in fury. Instead, I'll say this: in literature as in life, the world is full of tasks that besides being arduous and challenging can also be exciting and deeply satisfying, especially if you have a good teacher. I was taught the book in college, but my real education came long after, when I read Ulysses with a couple of extremely solid aides: Vladimir Nabokov's Lectures in Literature and Anthony Burgess' ReJoyce. Written by great teachers as well as great writers, these books pointed the way for me: all the treasures, the interest, the strange joy. They gave me a map, and while I can't say I know my way around the book completely, I can say that few books since have matched it -- I feel comfortable with it now to appreciate it in my own way, to seize the parts of it that mean the most and to discover and rediscover others.
It won't work for everybody. Others may never want to read anything else.
17 - Doug Shaw
The link on the top of this thread is to my website.
Al Barger shows us the typical Ayn Randroid trait of trashing something he knows nothing about. In this case, blaming the list on "commie English department types." It is odd, in that Ayn Rand herself was an intelligent, gifted woman who would never go off half-cocked like the asses who spout her name.
The list was compiled, not by communists and English department types, but quite the opposite - a mega-capitalist publishing company who created the list as a way to sell more of their books. The idea came from a marketer who probably has Atlas Shrugged on his bookshelf, and masturbates to the rape scene from The Fountainhead. (The rape is okay, because the heroine later admits she enjoyed it)
What happened is this: The publisher put together a list of about 400 novels. The publisher consulted no commies, nor English department types. The publisher DID consult a list of the books that they were currently publishing. Then the publisher sent the list of 400 books to ten famous authors. The authors were asked to check off the great ones. Some of the authors later admitted they had no idea what this list was for, and had they known it would be released in the way it was, they would have taken much more time and effort in checking them off. Most of them had not read Ulysses, but checked it because they knew it to be "great" for example.
Then the list was released to the press, and the rest is history. Atlas Shrugged was not on the list, not because of the commies - but because of the capitalists who did not want business sent to rival publishing companies.
And now we will see if Al Barger remains true to form for a Randroid and does not apologize for his error.
18 - mike
I got about a quarter of the way through Atlas Shrugged. I found it very useful when a burglar broke into my house and I was able to knock him out cold with it--so cold, in fact, that he died; and I once again found the book useful, this time as a cement shoe when tossing the body into the lake.
Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake, along with Gravity's Rainbow, are also very useful for these purposes. I recommend them highly. Just don't try reading them.
19 - Al Barger
Doug Shaw (comment 17) hasn't much impressed me with his little screed. I don't know or particularly care about exactly how this list was compiled.
Who were these 10 "famous authors" who did the picking, anyway? Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal? A lot of famous authors would pretty well count as commie English major types.
In any case, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. This list we're talking about ran right to the usual English department endorsed choices, some of which are great and others of which are extremely overrated. Whole ranges of material are excluded because of political viewpoints or because they represent commercial genre fiction, or whatever.
I apologize for noticing this.
Atlas Shrugged seems to be getting lumped in with Ulysses on the charge of unreadability. This is not fair. The Joyce novel is just plain difficult to read. It's all kinds of murky and twisted in the use of language. It is infamously difficult to read. I suspect that this is part of the appeal for those who have managed to get through it- it's a special club only for super-cool people who can parse together what the hell the author was trying to do.
The book may have a lot going for it. For one thing, Robert Anton Wilson has touted it's greatness. It may be worth the effort when I eventually manage to force myself to read the damned thing. It is certainly, however, quite difficult to read, and that counts as points against it.
Atlas Shrugged, on the other hand, is quite readable. It's long, and some people are simply not going to read something that long. The prose flows, though. You can read it without a bunch of people to explain the book, without two or three other books to tell you what she's trying to say.
Now, you may not like what she has to say. That's understandable. She's strong medicine. Some people are going to be highly offended by her way of looking at things. Indeed, Mr. Shaw is offended enough to dismiss me as a mind-numbed "Randroid" on the basis of having said three or four sentences on her behalf.
Still, it is incorrect to label Atlas Shrugged as boring or difficult to read. Some people may find it so, but I tend to suspect that most of the people I've seen making such comments are disingenuous. It's not that it's unreadable or boring, but that they actively dislike what she was saying. It's more damning to call a book "boring" or "hard to read" than to say it's offensive. It's also easier to dismiss it as such rather than actually answering her forcefully presented ideas.
20 - mike
Well, Superman, I, and many "commie" English professors, admire Yeats and Eliot and Pound, despite their far right, and in the case of Pound, fascist politics.
In addition, the list above includes Koestler, a fierce anti-communist, Bellow, a staunch conservative, Burgess, who was something of a libertarian and was very hostile to the left, and Naipaul, a critic of Marxist national liberation movements.
The reason Ayn Rand is not included is because her fiction is didactic, replete with characters who are little more than ideological stick people.
But as I said, Atlas Shrugged is a great paperweight, so heavy that it recently kept my trailer home intact when it was overun by a tornado. No home should be without a copy.