Novels

[poliphilo]

There was a meme going round the other day (it's probably still going round) which presented us with some officially-arrived-at list of great 20th century novels and invited us to highlight the ones we'd read.

I like to think of myself as well-read, but I backed away from this one in shame and confusion. I'd read the two Evelyn Waughs, the two Woolfs, one of the Nabokovs (not the obvious one) and Lord of the Rings and that was about it. Oh and the Faulkner- but only because it was a compulsory text for one of my university courses.

Some of the novels on the list I'd never heard of. Others I feel I've read even though I haven't (Animal Farm for instance.)

And am I going to go away and put things right? No, I'm afraid not. The thought of all those big, fat, worthy tomes stretching into the far distance like tombstones inspires in me nothing but lethargy.

I think the novel was a 19th century form and the 20th century form is the movie. I can't think of any 20th century novelist as good as Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky or Stendhal. Or, alternatively, as good as Bergman, Fellini, Bunuel, Welles or Powell. For me Lolita isn't a novel by Nabokov, but a movie by Stanley Kubrick with towering performances from James Mason and Peter Sellers.

I read novels systematically in my teens. Since then I've been more picky. Now, like Charlie Chaplin in old age, I find the only novelist I can really be doing with is Dickens. He's bigger, funnier, darker, more inventive and involving than anyone else. You've read the best, why bother with the rest? This year I've already re-read Bleak House and Little Dorrit and, with a fair wind behind me, intend to polish off Our Mutual Friend by Christmas.

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I had something along these lines in my recent poem - the whole "books you should have read/should be reading." I'm sorry, but I had enough of that in high school and college. These days, I have so little free time, which means even less time for reading, that I'll be damned if I'm going to spend it reading something I "should" be reading. I'm going to read books I want to read, and if that means I'm not cultured enough or intellectual enough for some people, so be it. Life is too short to read something because you should.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My favourite books are all pretty much ones I read because I wanted to, not because I felt it was my duty.

A counter-example

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

IMHO, Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago is way better than Lean's.

Re: A counter-example

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I didn't like either version very much. But then Lean isn't one of my favourite film makers.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I've never understood why any one guy's list (okay, two in this case) is better than anyone else's.

I had read exactly half the books on that list, mostly because they listed multiple books by a few authors that I went on runs on--when I find an author I like, I tend to read everything I can find by them.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess the real value of these lists is that they promote debate.

I'm a completist too. I've read all of Dickens's novels with the exception of Barnaby Rudge.