Best novels written in English in the 20th century

[WICKES]

Modern Library chose the 100 best novels of the 20th century (you can find it on Wikipedia)

Do you think the boards choice is pretty good/ fair/ accurate? Some people said it was a sales gimmick.

If we look at their choice for the top ten:

1. Ulysses
2. The Great Gatsby
3. A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man
4. Lolita
5. Brave New World
6. The Sound And The Fury
7. Catch 22
8. Darkness At Noon
9. Sons And Lovers
10. The Grapes Of Wrath

Is that pretty fair?

I'd put Orwell's 1984 and Conrad's Heart Of Darkness above The Sound And The Fury or The Grapes Of Wrath

11. Under The Volcano (Malcolm Lowrey)
12. The Way Of All Flesh
13. 1984
14. I, Claudius
15. To The Lighthouse
16. An American Tragedy
17. The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
18. Slaughterhouse 5
19. Invisible Man
20. Native Son


I really want a reliable reading list for the great 20th century novels (not necessarily in English) but I can't find one.

[Adagio]

It's hard to comment because I haven't read all of the top ten yet but I think it's safe to say that The Sound and the Fury; Lolita; The Grapes of Wrath and Sons and Lovers belong there. Why As I Lay Dying isn't even in the top 20 is beyond me.

[muhsin]

Very good. It's really hard to state which is which for me too especially as I haven't read all of them yet.

[kelby_lake]

The reader's list for that is insane:

1. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
3. BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
8. WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
9. MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
10. FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard
11. ULYSSES by James Joyce
12. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
13. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
14. DUNE by Frank Herbert
15. THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert Heinlein
16. STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert Heinlein
17. A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute
18. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
19. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
20. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell

What idiots voted for Rand and Hubbard in the top 10?! Seriously, the critic list is starting to look good compared to this!

[PeterL]

I don't think much of lists of that sort. For one thing they don't define the standards by which books are being judged, and it appears that different books are included for different reasons. As an example, Brave New World would be included for political reasons, while Lolita is included for literary reasons. I don't think they belong on the same list.

[March Hare]

What idiots voted for Rand and Hubbard in the top 10?!

I envision a massive get out the vote campaign by both the Objectivists and Scientologists. Funny, though. I would have thought the latter would have creamed the former.

[mono]

I don't think much of lists of that sort. For one thing they don't define the standards by which books are being judged, and it appears that different books are included for different reasons. As an example, Brave New World would be included for political reasons, while Lolita is included for literary reasons. I don't think they belong on the same list.
Agreed, not to mention the subjectivity of composing such a list, despite literary tastes, exposure, and education. Who could not admit that a well-educated critic like Harold Bloom could not feel as biased in selecting the best English-written novels of the 20th century as a highschool student? Even such a prominent name as the Modern Library cannot objectively narrow down 10 novels from the wide scope of 100 years of literature, a century that showed multiple cascades and uprisings of many literary movements; another prominent name in "best of literature" selection, like the Swedish Academy (who awards the Nobel Prize almost annually), would highly disagree with the Modern Library's list, especially that it does not include writers like Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, Saul Bellow, or Sinclair Lewis; another committee that I feel may have more authority, who awards the Pulitzer Prize almost annually, may disagree too, that the Modern Library again does not include Hemingway and Bellow, but also John Updike, Alice Walker, or John Kennedy Toole.
Though I feel relieved that the Modern Library included such writers as Joyce, Fitzgerald, Lawrence, and Steinbeck, I feel that a few others could take priority (no offense to them) over Koestler or Heller - perhaps just my opinion, but, as stated above, it all seems subjective, whether or not I belonged to an organization like the Modern Library, Swedish Academy, or Columbia University (who I just found out awards the Pulitzer Prize).
To follow up the list you kindly provided, WICKES, the Modern Library also announced their list of the top 10 non-fiction works of the 20th century:

1. The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand
2. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard
3. Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff
4. 101 Things to do 'Til the Revolution by Claire Wolfe
5. The God of the Machine by Isabel Paterson
6. Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life by Michael Paxton
7. The Ultimate Resource by Julian Lincoln Simon
8. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
9. Send in the Waco Killers by Vin Suprynowicz
10. More Guns, Less Crime by John R. Lott

Allegedly the Modern Library could not find a spot for writers like William James, Bertrand Russell, Virginia Woolf, Oliver Sacks, or Stephen Pinker.

[PeterL]

The degree of subjectivity on making such lists overwhelms any shred of objectivity. It might be nice it there were a list that was selected based on a known set of standards, but the lists that exist are utterly useless, because everything is mashed together.

BTW, they screwed up on the non-fiction, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard is a work of fiction.

[MANICHAEAN]

I've personally found it interesting to honestly ask myself how my choice of books has developed (or degenerated as the case may be) since I first started reading as a child. Ones concurrence of approval or distain, is of course a value judgement, but books have been like friends: some dipped into intermittently, some devoured page by page & read numerous times, yet others revealed in a new light & with greater meaning after a 20 to 30 years lapse. The list of favourites (50 number), I came up with is not all 20th century as that is a restiction I would find too irksome. The result was as follows:
(a) Childhood:
Charles Dickens A TALE OF TWO CITIES, OLIVER TWIST.
Aldous Huxley BRAVE NEW WORLD.
Robert Louis Stevenson TREASURE ISLAND.
(b) Adolescence:
D.H.Lawrence SONS AND LOVERS.
William Shakespeare JULIUS CAESAR, THE SONNETS, OTHELLO, THE MERCHANT OF
VENICE.
Earnest Hemingway FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO,
FIESTA, A FAREWELL TO ARMS, DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON.
Evelyn Waugh BRIDESHEAD REVISTED,THE SWORD OF HONOUR TRILOGY, SCOOP,
DECLINE AND FALL, BLACK MISCHIEF.
Joseph Heller CATCH 22.
Alan Paton CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY.
James Baldwin GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN, GIOVANNI'S ROOM, TELL ME HOW
LONG THE TRAIN'S BEEN GONE.
(c) Middle Age.
Graham Greene THE POWER & THE GLORY, THE END OF THE AFFAIR, THE HON
CONSUL, THE QUIET AMERICAN, THE HEART OF THE MATTER, OUR
MAN IN HAVANA, TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT.
Oscar Wilde THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, LADY WINDAMERE'S FAN, A
WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE.
16th Century Writers CHRISTOPHER MARLOW, EDMUND SPENSER, SIR PHILIP SIDNEY,
ROBERT BURTON, WILLIAM CAMDEN, THOMAS CAMPION,
THOMAS CAREW.
John Le Carre THE HONOURABLE SCHOOLBOY, A MURDER OF QUALITY.THE TAILOR OF
PANAMA.
(d) Old Age.
Andre Gide THE FRUITS OF THE EARTH.
Honore de Balzac THE WILD ***'S SKIN, FATHER GORIOT.
Alexei Tolstot COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.
Mikhail Bulgakov THE MASTER & THE MARGARITA.
Mikhail Lermontov A HERO OF OUR TIME.
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol TARAS BULBA.
Fyodor Dostoevsky CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.
(e) History.
William Manchester THE LAST LION.
Elizabeth Longford THE YEARS OF THE SWORD.
Edward Gibbon THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
(f) Light Reading.
Raymond Chandler THE BIG SLEEP.
Frederick Forsyth THE DAY OF THE JACKEL.

[Three Sparrows]

Agreed, not to mention the subjectivity of composing such a list, despite literary tastes, exposure, and education. Who could not admit that a well-educated critic like Harold Bloom could not feel as biased in selecting the best English-written novels of the 20th century as a highschool student? Even such a prominent name as the Modern Library cannot objectively narrow down 10 novels from the wide scope of 100 years of literature, a century that showed multiple cascades and uprisings of many literary movements; another prominent name in "best of literature" selection, like the Swedish Academy (who awards the Nobel Prize almost annually), would highly disagree with the Modern Library's list, especially that it does not include writers like Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, Saul Bellow, or Sinclair Lewis; another committee that I feel may have more authority, who awards the Pulitzer Prize almost annually, may disagree too, that the Modern Library again does not include Hemingway and Bellow, but also John Updike, Alice Walker, or John Kennedy Toole.
Though I feel relieved that the Modern Library included such writers as Joyce, Fitzgerald, Lawrence, and Steinbeck, I feel that a few others could take priority (no offense to them) over Koestler or Heller - perhaps just my opinion, but, as stated above, it all seems subjective, whether or not I belonged to an organization like the Modern Library, Swedish Academy, or Columbia University (who I just found out awards the Pulitzer Prize).
To follow up the list you kindly provided, WICKES, the Modern Library also announced their list of the top 10 non-fiction works of the 20th century:

1. The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand
2. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard
3. Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff
4. 101 Things to do 'Til the Revolution by Claire Wolfe
5. The God of the Machine by Isabel Paterson
6. Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life by Michael Paxton
7. The Ultimate Resource by Julian Lincoln Simon
8. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
9. Send in the Waco Killers by Vin Suprynowicz
10. More Guns, Less Crime by John R. Lott

Allegedly the Modern Library could not find a spot for writers like William James, Bertrand Russell, Virginia Woolf, Oliver Sacks, or Stephen Pinker.


Claire Wolfe writes for a magazine called Backwoods Home. Its great, and I like her articles, along with Jackie Clay's, of course. A good magazine.
Anyway, back to lists...

[meh!]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Ayn Rand is an awful writer in fiction and non-fiction.

She's an awful, awful philospher. How on earth could she be at the top of a list of non-fiction writing!? This is why nobody teachers her.

[Barbarous]

not even qualified to be coined a 'philosopher', miss Rand is.

[mona amon]

I had no idea that Objectivism was still going strong!

[billl]

It's like somebody is having more success at targeting lists than they are at targeting actual people.

[prendrelemick]

I've personally found it interesting to honestly ask myself how my choice of books has developed (or degenerated as the case may be) since I first started reading as a child. Ones concurrence of approval or distain, is of course a value judgement, but books have been like friends: some dipped into intermittently, some devoured page by page & read numerous times, yet others revealed in a new light & with greater meaning after a 20 to 30 years lapse. The list of favourites (50 number), I came up with is not all 20th century as that is a restiction I would find too irksome. The result was as follows:
(a) Childhood:
Charles Dickens A TALE OF TWO CITIES, OLIVER TWIST.
Aldous Huxley BRAVE NEW WORLD.
Robert Louis Stevenson TREASURE ISLAND.
(b) Adolescence:
D.H.Lawrence SONS AND LOVERS.
William Shakespeare JULIUS CAESAR, THE SONNETS, OTHELLO, THE MERCHANT OF
VENICE.
Earnest Hemingway FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO,
FIESTA, A FAREWELL TO ARMS, DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON.
Evelyn Waugh BRIDESHEAD REVISTED,THE SWORD OF HONOUR TRILOGY, SCOOP,
DECLINE AND FALL, BLACK MISCHIEF.
Joseph Heller CATCH 22.
Alan Paton CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY.
James Baldwin GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN, GIOVANNI'S ROOM, TELL ME HOW
LONG THE TRAIN'S BEEN GONE.
(c) Middle Age.
Graham Greene THE POWER & THE GLORY, THE END OF THE AFFAIR, THE HON
CONSUL, THE QUIET AMERICAN, THE HEART OF THE MATTER, OUR
MAN IN HAVANA, TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT.
Oscar Wilde THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, LADY WINDAMERE'S FAN, A
WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE.
16th Century Writers CHRISTOPHER MARLOW, EDMUND SPENSER, SIR PHILIP SIDNEY,
ROBERT BURTON, WILLIAM CAMDEN, THOMAS CAMPION,
THOMAS CAREW.
John Le Carre THE HONOURABLE SCHOOLBOY, A MURDER OF QUALITY.THE TAILOR OF
PANAMA.
(d) Old Age.
Andre Gide THE FRUITS OF THE EARTH.
Honore de Balzac THE WILD ***'S SKIN, FATHER GORIOT.
Alexei Tolstot COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.
Mikhail Bulgakov THE MASTER & THE MARGARITA.
Mikhail Lermontov A HERO OF OUR TIME.
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol TARAS BULBA.
Fyodor Dostoevsky CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.
(e) History.
William Manchester THE LAST LION.
Elizabeth Longford THE YEARS OF THE SWORD.
Edward Gibbon THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
(f) Light Reading.
Raymond Chandler THE BIG SLEEP.
Frederick Forsyth THE DAY OF THE JACKEL.


Thats a good point Manichaean. Your tastes change as you go along.

I began with AA Milne, and have arrived at Xenophon, by way of Sven Hessle, Shakespeare and Tolstoy. Some would say thats almost a full circle :D .Who knows where next.

[The Comedian]

Allegedly the Modern Library could not find a spot for writers like William James, Bertrand Russell, Virginia Woolf, Oliver Sacks, or Stephen Pinker.

Or any of the outstanding environmental writers whose elegant nonfiction prose has profoundly affected us: Rachel Carson, Barry Lopez, Farley Mowat, & Edward Abbey come to mind.

[kelby_lake]

I wonder how the male and female favourite books list would look? For The Big Read, the men had things like Lord of The Rings and 1984 and women had Pride and Prejudice and Rebecca in their top 3.

[Barbarous]

^that'd be interesting to see a list complied on litnet >_>

[kelby_lake]

Then it shall be so!
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=771515#post771515

[mal4mac]

I really want a reliable reading list for the great 20th century novels (not necessarily in English) but I can't find one.

How would you define "reliable"? My favourite list is "Top ten" edited by j. Peder Zane:

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/books/zane.htm