A Notso Novel Idea
Pipistrella recently stumped me with a reasonable sounding question… “What is your favorite novel of all time?” This was a disarmingly difficult question for me for two reasons. Firstly, much to the horror of many friends, I generally prefer non-fiction over fiction. Also, I’m just plain bad at playing favorites with songs, art, writing, etc. Even when I tried to consider the question as “If you could only have one novel with you on a desert island, what would it be?” I floundered and was only able to spout a few half-hearted potentials. Have I really got a gapping whole in my memory regarding all those high school and college classic novels I had to read?
With that possibility (or a particularly focused version of Alzheimer’s at work) in mind, I decided that I should revisit novels and make re-familiarizing myself an ongoing project. But where to start? Everyone has an opinion, often conflicting, about what the “greatest novels” are.
So in my hour of need/curiosity who can I turn to? That’s right, the internet and my friends. š
After weeding out some search engine debris, I found these two promising looking lists:
- Pulitzer Prize Novel/Fiction List (I mean, its the Pulitzer Prize list after all!)
- Random House Top 100 Novels (Admirably non-partisan)
Both seem to have done a pretty good job of representing the “heavy hitters” of the last century and might not be bad checklists for my little project. I ultimately decided not to reference the New York Times bestseller list because it follows primarily commercial success rather than literary success.
That leaves one more vital source. I’d love to hear what YOU think should be added (or dropped off!). Remember, novels/fiction only.* Hopefully I’ll have the makings of a 50-100 book list by the end of the week. After that, it should take what? Maybe a few nights to read them all? š
* If you dare to recommend anything by Robert Jordan or Dan Brown and I WILL find you!
Go read:
Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Chronicles (Winter King, Enemy of God, Excalibur) for Arthurian historical fiction;
Mark Helprin’s Soldier of the Great War, which is in fact a novel about WWI, and one of the relatively few books I’ve had to read for a class that totally enthralled me;
And I hope you’ve read at least Foucault’s Pendulum and Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.
Plenty more suggestions to make once you’ve read those. š
I won’t make a list of the books I detest from the top 100 list. But here are the ones I’d allow to remain on the Random House list: 1984, Animal Farm, I, Claudius, Slaughterhouse-5, Kim, and The Call of the Wild. Hmm, I haven’t read a single one of the Pulitzer prize list, shame on me. From the Random House reader’s list: Lord of the Rings (surely you’ve already read it), Dune, Stranger in a Strange Land (NOT The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, didn’t think much of that one at all), The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Ender’s Game, Starship Troopers, Fahrenheit 451, and Watership Down. And I’d have to toss in the Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin and the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay. And the Chronicles of Narnia, and… but I must stop. š
I am shocked at how few of the Pulitzer Prize winners I’ve even heard of, much less read. But I’m pretty darn familiar with the Random House list (and in fact am slowly working through reading the ones on there I’ve missed). DH Lawrence and James Joyce are both wonderful to me, though I’ve found few others that agree with me. I loved the Handmaid’s Tale by Atwood. I consider Charles de Lint a guilty pleasure for the most part, but will recommend his Memory and Dream fairly widely. I’m baffled that Laurell K. Hamilton made the list.
I second Brandes on the Eco recommendations. Love me some Eco!
My favorites that aren’t on the lists (that I saw at any rate):
Dostoevsky – Crime and Punishment is one of my all time favorite books
Chitra Divakaruni – no idea if I spelled that correctly. The Mistress of Spices has a mystical, mythical feel, but don’t discount it as a throw away fantasy
Madeleine L’Engle – I loved her children’s work. Her adult fiction is often overlooked, but beautiful
Sharon Kay Penman – excellently researched historical fiction, When Christ and His Saints Slept being my favorite
Sylvia Plath – the Ariel poems and the Bell Jar
You should post your final list! I love keeping a reading list.