This column originally appeared on December 27, 2000. We are periodically asked to run it again, and have. This weekend, we were asked to run it one more time. Given what’s going on in America and the world, it semed like a capital idea to us.
Peggy Clifford, Editor
FIFTY GREAT 20TH CENTURY NOVELS
Compiling lists of the best of this or that is always subjective and subject to debate, which is probably why we enjoy compiling such lists. In the past year or so, there have been many lists of the best books of the 20th century. Most recently, CONTEXTS, a literary magazine from Dalkey Archive Press issued their list of major 20th century writers. So I decided to try my hand at it.
My criteria were as follows: 1) books I have actually read; 2) books of high writing style; 3) books of critical acclaim; 4) books of historical importance (i.e., consciousness-raising); and 5) books which in many cases influenced other writers and readers. My lists are admittedly idiosyncratic and personal, however, here goes:
James Joyce,
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
AS A YOUNG MAN
James Joyce, ULYSSES
Thomas Mann,
THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
THE GREAT GATSBY
Ernest Hemingway,
THE SUN ALSO RISES
Mikhail Sholokov,
AND QUIET FLOWS THE
DON
Boris Pasternak,
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO
Upton Sinclair, THE JUNGLE
Eli Weisel, NIGHT
Jerzy Kosinski,
THE PAINTED BIRD
Erich Maria Remarque,
ALL QUIET ON THE
WESTERN FRONT
Albert Camus,
THE STRANGER
Andre Malraux, MA’S FATE
John Steinbeck,
THE GRAPES OF WRATH
George Orwell, 1984
George Orwell, ANIMAL FARM
Chinua Achebe,
THINGS FALL APART
J.D. Salinger,
CATCHER IN THE RYE
John Hersey, HIROSHIMA
Ralph Ellison,
INVISIBLE MAN
William Faulkner,
THE SOUND AND THE FURY
Robert Penn Warren,
ALL THE KINGS MEN
E.M. Forster,
A PASSAGE TO INDIA
Joseph Heller, CATCH-22
Kurt Vonnegut,
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE
Joseph Conrad, LORD JIM
Joseph Conrad,
HEART OF DARKNESS
William Styron,
SOPHIE’S CHOICE
Edith Wharton,
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE
D.H. Lawrence,
SONS AND LOVERS
Franz Kafka, THE TRIAL
Arthur Koestler,
DARKNESS AT NOON
Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
ONE DAY IN THE LIFE
OF IVAN DENISOVICH
John Dos Passos,
USA TRILOGY
Leslie Marmon Silko,
CEREMONY
N. Scott Momaday,
HOUSE MADE OF DAWN
William Gaddis,
THE RECOGNITIONS
Sinclair Lewis, MAIN STREET
Hermann Hesse, SIDDHARTHA
Joseph Roth, RADETZKY MARCH
Richard Wright, NATIVE SON
Carlo Levi,
CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI
Graham Greene,
THE QUIET AMERICAN
D.M. Thomas,
THE WHITE HOTEL
Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
ONE HUNDRED YEARS
OF SOLITUDE
Thomas Keneally,
SCHINDLER’S LIST
Iris Murdoch,
THE BLACK PRINCE
Gilbert Sorrentino,
MULLIGAN STEW
Philip Roth,
THE GREAT AMERICAN
NOVEL
Robert Coover,
THE UNIVERSAL
BASEBALL MACHINE
After compiling this list, I waited a few days and tried to look at it with an objective eye. A couple of things struck me: it is a heavily western-European list and it is heavily a white male list. Not surprising since both are my limitations. An Egyptian or African or Peruvian would, no doubt, compile a different list. Nonetheless, given the criteria I imposed on myself, this is, I believe, a good list to stimulate discussion.
I can certainly say that every book on the list makes for wonderful reading. Some are utterly terrifying- NIGHT, SOPHIE’S CHOICE, THE PAINED BIRD, HIROSHIMA; others are hilarious – MULLIGAN STEW, THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL; others are stylistic tour de forces – THE SOUND AND THE FURY, ULYSSES, THE RECOGNITIONS, THE WHITE HOTEL; and others so capture the 20th century landscape that they not only give perspective to the century, but actually help to define it -1984, HEART OF DARKNESS, CATCH 22, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, THE TRIAL, THE STRANGER, and INVISIBLE MAN. And, finally, some are simply instant classics which beautifully combine all the elements of story, style, and content. These would include THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, SONS AND LOVERS, and ALL THE KING’S MEN.
I welcome responses from any interested readers.Paul Cummins is Executive Director of the New Visions Foundation.
