Modern Library Top 100 novels of the 20th Century

kowloon

Back in 1998 Modern Library compliled a list of the top 100 novels of the 20th century, they also compiled a readers list.
What interests me is the difference between the editors' list and the readers' list, I'll post the top ten of each. Link to both lists on wiki

What stands out more?
Are book critics and academics out of touch with what's good? How do we define what makes a good novel? Why is Joyce so revered when the average joe finds his work inaccessable or worse?
Looking at the second list, are there really that many literate scientologists? Why is Ayn Rand in both the top spots? Should I be worried?
Does either list come close to capturing 'the best novels of the 20th Century'?

Editors' list
1. 1922 Ulysses James Joyce
2. 1925 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce
4. 1955 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
5. 1932 Brave New World Aldous Huxley
6. 1929 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner
7. 1961 Catch-22 Joseph Heller
8. 1940 Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler
9. 1913 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence
10. 1939 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck



Readers list
1. 1952 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand
2. 1943 The Fountainhead Ayn Rand
3. 1982 Battlefield Earth L. Ron Hubbard
4. 1954-1955 The Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien
5. 1960 To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
6. 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
7. 1938 Anthem Ayn Rand
8. 1940 We The Living Ayn Rand
9. 1985-1987 Mission Earth L. Ron Hubbard
10. 1951 Fear L. Ron Hubbard

buck65

Ayn Rand must have sent alot of texts to this competition.

here.from.day.1

The readers list is awful, who votes on these things?!

Denerick

The fact that Rand and Hubbard made the 'readers list' is evidence that scientologists and libertarians were amazingly over-represented among the voters. I certainly wouldn't read anything into it.

Eliot Rosewater

Ayn Rand texting in? From six feet under?

Apparently at the time of poll the Internet was dominated by Ayn Rand and Ron Hubbard fans, hence the disparity. The readers poll gets more normal further down.


I think the Modern Library critics list is the best of these top 100 lists. There is no "best book of the 20th century", of course, because reading is a subjective thing. I don't think the critics are out of touch with "the public". It's a review of literary fiction, not popular fiction, and the choices reflect that.

Dades

The readers list reminds me of those polls that occasionally run where a movement gets going (usually for the laugh) to get someone really obscure or ill-suited to top the list.

Only in that poll it was the crazies that got wind of it. :pac:

Amazotheamazing

Who is Charles de Lint? Seems to have been pretty popular on the readers poll, epic rigging?

kowloon

I find both lists to be quite out there. The Rand and Hubbard are just bizarre.
Glad I'm not the only one puzzled by it all.

squeakyduck

I have read 7 books out of the two lists combined.

I might pop out and get Lolita when I get paid!

InTheTrees

here.from.day.1 wrote: »

The readers list is awful, who votes on these things?!

Politically motivated americans.

Giselle

here.from.day.1 wrote: »

The readers list is awful, who votes on these things?!

Ayn Rand acolytes and Scientologists.

Eliot Rosewater

Giselle wrote: »

Ayn Rand acolytes and Scientologists.

Who, it seems, have been rather succesful in publicizing their "cause". A thread is started on an Irish forum about the Modern Library Top 100, and two out of every three replies are about Rand and/or Hubbard.

You've played right into their hands.

Permabear

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Valmont

donegalfella wrote: »

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I've been circling Joyce like a vulture since reading A Portrait, almost buying Ulysses a few times and in my procrastinations I've been reading quite a bit about Joyce and it seems that putting Finnegan's wake at the top might be a contentious position to take?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Amazotheamazing

donegalfella wrote: »

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Where's a good place to start with Proust (let me guess, the beginning?)?

Eliot Rosewater

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

Where's a good place to start with Proust (let me guess, the beginning?)?

Yes, yes, begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end, and then stop.

tyler71

Thanks to the OP btw, on looking at the editors list there's three I haven't read which I think I'll now add to my list. The readers list though, I'm just going WTF? Although I have heard good things about the Fountainhead so I must make an effort there as well.
As for Ulysses I would say just dive in, I just love that book, I can't see why anyone would be wary of it. Although I have to say, I read Finnegan's Wake back in the day and I found it tough going, my main memory is reading about ten or twenty pages before figuring out a passage which made me so happy I had enough euthusiasm to go for another twenty or so - I had more energy then though, does it get easier the second time round or should I be looking for a reader's guide?

John

I'd recommend a reader's guide to give you a foothold, the classic one being A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake by Campbell and Robinson but my personal favourite is Joyce's Book of the Dark by Bishop. I've also got the annotations book by McHugh but haven't delved into it much. However, reading the book by Bishop after my first reading of The Wake has lead to a more productive second reading for me.

Grievous

Nice list.
I have read at least 20 from the editors list.
Hope to read alot more from that list soon as I actually stocked up on most of these books over the years as I was finding them cheaply in second hand bookstores.

Note on Joyce: His work is certainly difficult, but not impossible and very rewarding.

Even his non-word QUARK is a proper scientific term now pertaining to light particles, I think..........

John

Grievous wrote: »

Even his non-word QUARK is a proper scientific term now pertaining to light particles, I think..........

More matter than light I think. Quarks are the constituents of subatomic particles like protons and neutrons (which in turn make up atoms). /tangent

Grievous

John wrote: »

More matter than light I think. Quarks are the constituents of subatomic particles like protons and neutrons (which in turn make up atoms). /tangent

Show off.
I kid, I kid.
Thanks.:)

Mellor

The name quark didn't exactly come from finnegans wake.
I was actually named after the sound made by ducks/seagulls. He had the word verbally and took the spelling from Joyce later

In 1963, when I assigned the name "quark" to the fundamental constituents of the nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been "kwork". Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, I came across the word "quark" in the phrase "Three quarks for Muster Mark". Since "quark" (meaning, for one thing, the cry of the gull) was clearly intended to rhyme with "Mark", as well as "bark" and other such words, I had to find an excuse to pronounce it as "kwork". But the book represents the dream of a publican named Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several sources at once, like the "portmanteau" words in "Through the Looking-Glass". From time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of the cry "Three quarks for Muster Mark" might be "Three quarts for Mister Mark", in which case the pronunciation "kwork" would not be totally unjustified. In any case, the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature.