I know that top 100 lists are highly subjective and that there is no point in really getting irate about people's choices, but I just can't help myself in this instance. "Time Magazine" has published a list of what they call the top one hundred English language novels written since 1923.
Although there are some fine writers represented on the list, and even some works that I would agree belong on the list, there are many things about their choices that I find questionable. They have selected lesser works of deserving authors; they have omitted some of the most innovative writing in the English language; and finally they have included books that have little or no literary merit.
Aside from that, I have hard time seeing the point of compiling a list made up of only English language writers. How many winners of the Nobel Prize for literature does that leave out? How many cultures will not be represented because of this decision? Does "Time Magazine" think that their readers don't read anything that has been translated into English from another language? Do they know that the Bible wasn't written in English originally? Just wondering.
How anyone can think that a book like Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind has more literary merit than anything written by Henrich Boll, Gunter Grass, Jorge Luis Borges, or Gabriel Garcia Marquez I don't know. Including a pot boiler romance novel on a list representing best novels is ridiculous to begin with, but to do so at the inclusion of books simply because they were not written in English is insane.
To say this is any sort of definitive list when it only includes English language books diminishes the stature of the books that are on the list. How would some them fared if they had been held up against the work of Grass or Borges? Compared to something like Marquez's One Hundred Years Of Solitude books like Robert Graves I, Claudius, A Passage To India by E. M. Forrester, and Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint don't even deserved to be mentioned.
Okay, I've got that out of my system, I hope, and will turn my attention to the merits of their so-called Best 100 English Language Novels since1923. Without doubt they have selected some highly deserving authors to be on this list; Thomas Pynchon, Jersey Kosinski, William Faulkner, Evelyn Waugh, Kurt Vonnegut to name a few. There are even some authors whose work I was pleasantly surprised to see included: Paul Bowls, William S. Burroughs, and Henry Miller in particular.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - James Avery
Have you ever read Gone with the Wind? I doubt you have. It is more than a romance, it is the American War and Peace. It is about the fall of the south and the destruction of a civilization, the love story is just the means of telling this much bigger story.
2 - Eric Berlin
Gone With the Wind is great storytelling, pure and simple, which always ranks high for me.
3 - Rodney Welch
Have you ever read Finnegans Wake? Real Joyceans tend to know how to punctuate it. And the Faulkner novel is As I Lay Dying, not Dieing. And it's Bowls, not Bowles. Forster, not Forrester.
Ever read any of the Rabbit books? You'd know they are NOT about a professional white man. Rabbit -- in the novel listed -- is a working class joe pushing products at a grocery store. In later books he becomes a typesetter; then he winds up running his father-in-law's Toyota dealership. You call it "navel-gazing" -- what in in the world is Ulysses, if not that? That's what stream-of-consciousness is, really. Or in Molly Bloom's case, tittygazing and pussygazing. And Joyce's novel has more than enough "middle class sexual politics." Hell, so do most novels, from the 19th Century onward.
You seem to think there ought to be a law against anyone making a list of English novels since 1923 -- that a list by law has to include Marquez. Well, I tellya, I've come to admire that great novel, but it's on enough lists. Who cares? Everyone knows it's great. It's not like every fucking list ever made has to get on its knees and polish Marquez's weary old knob. Books like that don't need lists.
Personally it wouldn't bother me if there was some sort of a ban on all these lists, as it's become a rather tiresome fetish that just gets all talked out really quickly with everyone yammering over why this made it and that didn't. When the Modern Library list came out a few years ago, then it was fresh and new and you could get a good chat going. But all these years later -- and all these lists later, with everyone getting into the act -- I wonder if the subject just hasn't been completely talked out.
4 - El Bicho
While a disagreement with the list is as valid as the list, I had these thoughts while reading your piece.
I agree that it's foolish that the lists excludes foreign language novelists. It's similar to the Oscars' Foreign Film category.
If they had a reason for picking the year 1923, then it hardly seems arbitrary. Your suggestion that they go back going back 23 years and starting at 1900 is arbitrary since they weren't creating the Top 100 20th Century English novels.
You didn't explain how Updike missed the boat other than you don't get the point of him. I'm guessing you think Woody Allen's serious films missed the boat as well.
By the way, here are some more corrections: Allen Ginsberg, Neal Stephenson.
You could have quickly illustrated the inadequecies of the list by pointing out its exclusion of Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces.
5 - LegendaryMonkey
Whoa there, gman, I think you forgot the happy pills. Take a deep breath and think about what the folks at Time are doing.
They're not saying these are the greatest novels ever, period. They're saying these are the greatest novels written in English and first published since the magazine started.
They state that over and over. By only giving that little tidbit backhand mention, you're giving the list more power than it should have.
As for some of the books you rail against being included:
1. Gone With the Wind
While you may see it as a simple romance, I, like an earlier commenter, must question whether or not you've read it. The novel captured an era, and a war, the destruction of a way of life, and made it a personal struggle. It's a lengthy book, but that is still a lot to include. It may not be to your personal taste. Hell, it's not even really mine, but I read it and I can perfectly well understand why it is a great novel, particularly from the critical perspective of a writer.
2. Snow Crash
You have got to be kidding me. Really. gman, understand that I have the utmost respect for you and that I greatly enjoy your writings. That said, I must ask -- do you understand the qualities that are near universally accepted in "great" novels? Neal Stephenson, with Snow Crash, laid the groundwork for much of the discussion of virtual reality that followed. Further, his description of society, with hyperinflation and franchise ghettos, with loglo and bimbo boxes, makes us bite our lips in fear -- much in the same way that the bleak world of 1984 springs to mind every time someone mentions the Patriot Act. This is without even getting into what he does with the novel, plot-wise, and all the elements he combines within to create a riveting story that is high action, razor-edged humor, and moral lesson all at once. He captured a future, and a society, that is frighteningly similar to where we might well end up -- that that does in fact put that novel on par with 1984 and Brave New World, in my opinion, and I'm thrilled to see it get some much-deserved recognition here, even if it is just from a couple of guys who work for a magazine.
3. On the "best" novels for some authors not being chosen:
I quibble with you here for some of the same reasons I've listed above, and will use The Great Gatsby as an example. Now, I really enjoy Fitzgerald, but this book has consistently been at the bottom of the list of his works for me. I much prefer This Side of Paradise; for me, it is his best work and most entertaining read. I'm pretty sick of Gatsby. But I understand why it is lauded over the rest of his books. More completely than any other, it captures a specific time in history and reflects that time, and its lessons, in a way that endures. Gatsby will live forever, as will the strange nihilism of that era, because Fitzgerald captured it perfectly and still wrote a good story.
Argue with the list. Rail about some books being chosen over others. Do as you will. But please, do try to understand the parameters they selected to make their list -- and if you want to use different ones, make your own.
And I recommend thinking twice about shunning some of these others. You may not feel that, say, Neuromancer deserves any real accolades, it did, after all, spawn an entire subgenre (cyberpunk) that pushed science fiction into the spotlight as something with literary merit rather than just what teenage boys read on rainy Saturdays. Did The English Patient do that?
No?
Then perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, Neuromancer is the greater novel after all. Maybe not better... but certainly the more influential of the two.
6 - alpha
Gypsyman. Excellent post since I had not seen this list. Do I agree with you all around? No. Do I agree with Time all around? No. Can I even agree with myself for more than a few minutes at a time? Difficult. And do one's tastes change? Yes, although the books on the list should be of the lasting variety and Time managed a lot more than I expected. And some that surprised me in both directions.
Gone With the Wind is not to my taste except as a movie with Clark Gable saying "Frankly, I don't give a damn." Not on my book list either.
But The Lord of the Rings, The Moviegoer (boring), Portnoy's Complaint, I don't think Roth keeps up, The Crying of Lot 49 I agree wasn't the right Pynchon. So you are right. There are bad errors and interesting leads and fine choices. I loved the Rabbit series, for example.
The fact of the matter is that 100 books is damned hard to decide on. It was hubris to try and amazing how many were right on and how many were missed and might be of interest.
Thanks for the tour.
7 - Dave Nalle
The list is a joke. The words 'all time' need to be removed from the title and replaced with '20th century'.
Ferchrissakes. No Tale of Two Cities, no Robinson Crusoe no Vanity Fair no Moby Dick no Return of the Native. For that matter, where the hell is anything by Melville, Dickens, Stephenson, Victor Hugo, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Upton Sinclair, Daphne DuMaurier, Jane Austin, Emily Bronte, Henry Fielding, etc.
Instead we get a bunch of pretentious contemporary crap and a fucking comic book - and it's not even Sandman.
This list really goes beyond being bad to being offensively ridiculous.
Dave
8 - LegendaryMonkey
Well, Dave, if you'd bother to go look at the list, you'd see that it's not a list of the all-time anything. Not even the full 20th century anything.
1923-present
Not difficult.
Have you read that "fucking comic book?" It's better than Sandman. It's on par with any of the novels listed, and the fact that it is a different format doesn't detract from its greatness.
Speaking of pretentious, Dave. I mean, really.
9 - Dave Nalle
Ah, I missed the bit about the list only applying to stuff published since 1923.
Ok, in that case where the fuck is Billy Budd or On the Beach or A Farewell to Arms or Elmer Gantry and the list could go on and on.
Bleh. Piffle.
Dave
10 - Eric Berlin
I'd have preferred For Whom the Bell Tolls to The Sun Also Rises.
If this list is "piffle," Dave, when can we expect to see yours?
11 - Dave Nalle
Ah Eric. I have much better things to do with my time than to come up with a list of books that no one will ever agree on.
Did I mention that the list doesn't have The Red Badge of Courage on it?
The best you can hope for from me might be a list of the 10 best dystopian novels of the 20th century sometime down the road.
Dave
12 - gypsyman
I've read the whole Rabbit series, Gone With The Wind, and pretty much every other book on that list. I don't agree with their choices.
I thought I made it quite clear why picking 1923 as a date and excluding foreigh language novels was irresponsible. I'm just curious about why people are so defensive about their favourite books; if these lists are supposed to be subjective, why are my opinions so suspect while yours are correct.
If I don't consider something a good novel, or a genre that important, why should I would I include it on a list of books I like?
In the end I'll just refer everybody to Dave's supperior editorial skills for my opinion of the list.
cheers
13 - Eric Berlin
The Red Badge of Courage, great novel that it is, was originally published in 1895.
Ah, Dystopia...
A Canticle for Leibowitz
1984
Brave New World
A Clockwork Orange
End of the World News (also Burgess)
...and especially...
The Dark Tower I - VII
...come to mind.
14 - Rodney Welch
Get a clue, Dave -- the fact that Billy Budd wasn't published until 1924 does not make it a 20th Century novel. It was written between 1885 and 1891.
gypsyman -- You're the one who's so defensive. In your world any list without Marquez is a bad list, and you don't make much of an argument for the books you want to include.
15 - Dave Nalle
Rodney, Billy Budd is still better than 90% of what's on the list, and the criteria was not '20th century novels', but novels published while Time was being published, which it fits. Admittedly, a retarded criteria.
Dave
16 - WTF
Hmmm. While I agree with I, Claudius. Where's Atlas Shrugged? Hemingway must have missed the 1923 parameter.
This list is dubious. Does Time-Warner publish? Which of these books have the publishing rights held by Time?
Maybe none... but I'm feeling Conspiritorial right now.
17 - Eric Berlin
Hemingway made the list, WTF.
18 - Nancy
I don't care for the list, either, but my objection lies in "Who died & appointed THEM experts (or God)?" As far as that goes, then any of us has the right to trumpet a list; it's just they have the capability of inflicting it on the rest of us thru their publication. Oh well.
I have read GWTW, a couple of times, twice straight thru (last week, coincidentally), and the rest skipping about. Most of it, in my opinion only, is dreck, over-written 30's bodice ripper, but it does have several parts containing passages of merit & historical value. So it's value is mixed, at best, I think. I certainly wouldn't class it as world-class great American 20th century lit, I don't think. There's too much other really good stuff around.
19 - Mark Saleski
On The Road is not pretentious, contemorary crap.
geezuz, i've just wasted 20 seconds of my life.
20 - Eric Berlin
Who said that it was, Mark?
21 - Mark Saleski
...Where's Atlas Shrugged?
on the floor, holding open the door of my second story bathroom.
22 - LegendaryMonkey
gman, how are their parameters "irresponsible?" Will children die because they didn't include foreign language novels?
It's their list. They get to do whatever they want. No one will die because of it. They're not saying these are the END ALL, BE ALL, BEST EVER. If they were, I could see where you'd have a bitch. But it's correctly labeled. Rail against the selections all you want, but the parameters? I kinda think that's a waste of breath.
And Dave... if you don't have time to produce a better list, one must wonder how you do find the time to be so confrontational about this one. With your busy schedule and all.
Seriously, guys, unwad thy panties. So what? It doesn't mean anything. The world isn't going to change because of this list. It's fun, it gives us a reason to talk about books instead of other tripe. Does EVERYTHING have to be a massive argument?
23 - Rodney Welch
Good post, LM
24 - Megan
Honestly, I think the reason why the foreign language books were kept off the list was due to the fact that judging a translated book is at times the equivalent to judging how well the book was actually translated.
I think this list is fair. I think the editors did a good job of incorporating a good deal of novels that are still being taught and read today by masses of English reading people. If Time was a literary magazine, perhaps they would've gone for the more obscure choices, but Time is a magazine read by a good deal of people. Their choices reflect the fact that there are people out there who only read when they have to and they chose a large number of books that frequently surface on school curriculums. I can see how many of these novels can be considered great because even people who don't love reading enjoy these novels.
25 - Mark Saleski
Who said that it was, Mark?
see comment 7. maybe he wasn't talking about the whole list.