I’m currently taking a break from the hellsite still known as Twitter, though I’m aware people have been arguing about this list. I don’t care all that much, to be honest. The list is mainly useful for tracking what I have and haven’t read: here the strikethrough is for the books I have read; the tick is for when I have seen a screen adaptation.
100 My Ántonia
99 The Go-Between
98 The Road ✔
97 Catch-22
96 Pedro Páramo
95 The Return of the Native
94 The Known World
93 Invisible Cities
92 Sentimental Education
91 Life and Fate
90 Jacob's Room
89 The Left Hand of Darkness
88 Ragtime
87 The Line of Beauty
86 The Turn of the Screw ✔
85 The Vegetarian
84 The Talented Mr Ripley
83 A Farewell to Arms
82 The End of the Affair ✔
81 Buddenbrooks
80 Rebecca ✔
79 Go Tell It on the Mountain
78 A House for Mr Biswas
77 The Rainbow
76 Dracula ✔
75 The Bluest Eye
74 Nervous Conditions
73 Austerlitz
72 Our Mutual Friend
71 Kindred
70 Jude the Obscure ✔
69 Crime and Punishment
68 Blood Meridian
67 The Man Without Qualities
66 The Master and Margarita
65 The Color Purple ✔
64 The Good Soldier
63 White Teeth
62 Half of a Yellow Sun
61 The Rings of Saturn
60 Howards End ✔
59 Never Let Me Go ✔
58 Disgrace
57 The Sound and the Fury
56 Mansfield Park ✔
55 The Waves
54 Orlando ✔
53 The Transit of Venus
52 The Golden Bowl
51 My Brilliant Friend
50 Wide Sargasso Sea
49 A Fine Balance
48 The Metamorphosis
47 Vanity Fair
46 The Leopard
45 The Golden Notebook
44 Giovanni's Room
43 Housekeeping
42 The Magic Mountain
41 Heart of Darkness
40 Song of Solomon
39 Their Eyes Were Watching God
38 The Age of Innocence ✔
37 Invisible Man
36 The Handmaid's Tale
35 Great Expectations ✔
34 Wolf Hall
33 David Copperfield ✔
32 The God of Small Things
31 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie ✔
30 Frankenstein ✔
29 Pale Fire
28 The Brothers Karamazov ✔
27 The Trial ✔
26 Don Quixote
25 Lolita ✔
24 The Remains of the Day
23 Midnight's Children
22 Things Fall Apart
21 The Portrait of a Lady ✔
20 Wuthering Heights ✔
19 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
18 Persuasion ✔
17 One Hundred Years of Solitude
16 Nineteen Eighty-Four
15 Moby-Dick ✔
14 Mrs Dalloway
13 Emma ✔
12 Bleak House
11 The Great Gatsby ✔
10 Madame Bovary
9 Pride and Prejudice ✔
8 Jane Eyre ✔
7 War and Peace ✔
6 Anna Karenina ✔
5 In Search of Lost Time
4 To the Lighthouse
3 Ulysses
2 Beloved ✔
1 Middlemarch ✔
You know how I feel about Middlemarch. It is undoubtedly a masterpiece, but in the English language alone, there are 3 novels I’m placing above it: Moby-Dick, Bleak House, Wuthering Heights. In terms of greatness, I mean. On a personal level, I also have more love for Mansfield Park, David Copperfield, Tom Jones, the Alice books, and a few others. Beyond the English language, we also have Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Don Quixote.
My list—if I’m ever shameless enough to make such a list—would be very different. But who cares. This is a reminder that there are lots of novels out there I need to read (once I’m done exploring the ancient Greece and ancient Rome).
Don't forget to check No. 26. I'm pretty sure you read it.
ReplyDeleteSince a very famous writer commented "No Faulkner?" I note that The Sound and the Fury is on the list. But that choice and not "Absalom, Absalom!" makes me wonder if the list has more to do with popularity than value. I need to find the Guardian piece and see what they said about their criteria.
The tick (checkmark in American English) is about screen adaptations.
DeleteOn some other lists, like the British novels list, there are quite a few cases where I haven't read the book but have seen an adaptation, so I know the story.
The Guardian list is done by votes. Middlemarch is No.1 because most people voted for it.
I didn't look at every single person's list, but I thought Roxane Gay's list looked quite bad haha.
Ooops - I didn't read your intro carefully enough.
DeleteActually it's my fault. I wrote strikethrough and then put things in bold lol.
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ReplyDeleteThis list doesn't really bother me.
DeleteWhen you see that it's done by votes, there's not much point asking why some obscure book isn't there, why English dominates, etc. Middlemarch for instance is not something that most people would consider the greatest novel of all time, but it does happen to be on most people's top 10.
Some of the rankings in the list are, of course, absurd, but because it's a popularity contest as you say, I'm not really mad about it.
Send me the link for the reader's 20th century list please.
DeleteIt seems the Modern Library no longer has the list produced by reader's votes up at the old address--perhaps embarrassment or controversy. (There were a lot of accusations of ballot stuffing by fans of certain movements.) But the top 5 books were Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. (To put it mildly, quite the contrast with the Modern Library's editorial board's picks.)
I see.
DeleteLast year I saw a Penguin list of greatest novels (of all time, I think?), voted by people. There were many good choices but also many questionable choices.
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ReplyDeleteI see on your list that you’ve read My Antonia and am curious what you think of Willa Cather? I’m just beginning to read her novels, and am reading O Pioneers. Her descriptions of the American Great Plains in the late 1800s is superb and I love the way she weaves together the timelines with the development of her characters
ReplyDeleteHere's my blog post on My Antonia: https://thelittlewhiteattic.blogspot.com/2022/07/imagery-in-my-antonia.html
DeleteI've just realised that I didn't create a Willa Cather tag, but I have now.
I admire your partial strikethrough of Proust. That is more than one novel! People who voted for the whole set cheated.
ReplyDeleteHahahhaha.
DeleteI'm gonna have to get back to Proust at some point. It's been a couple of years.