Thursday, May 11, 2006

Best novels of the last 25 years

I'm still a little too traumatized to have anything contructive to say about last night's Idol. But seriously. WTF? Morons!

Anyway, the NY TImes asked a bunch of literary and cultural eminentoes for the best "work of American fiction" from the last 25 years. The winer: Toni Morrison, "Beloved." "Here's the list:

1. Toni Morrison, "Beloved"
2. Don DeLillo, "Underworld"
3. Cormac McCarthy, "Blood Meridian"
4. John Updike, Rabbit Angstrom: The Novels
5. Philip Roth, "American Pastoral"

Other multiple vote-getters:
John Kennedy Toole, "A Conferderacy of Dunces"
Marilyne Robinson, "Housekeeping"
Mark Helprin, "Winter's Tale"
Don DeLillo, "White Noise"
Philip Roth, "The Counterlife"
Don DeLillo, "Libra"
Raymond Carver, "Where I'm Calling From"
Tim O'Brien, "The Things They Carried"
Norman Rush, "Mating"
Denis Johnson, "Jesus' Son"
Philip Roth, "Operation Shylock"
Richard Ford, "Independence Day"
Philip Roth, Sabbath's Theater"
Cormac McCarthy, The Border Trilogy
Philip Roth, "The Human Stain"
Edward P. Jones, "The Known World"
Philip Roth, "The Plot Against America"

A.O. Scott has an interesting essay that touches on the pitfalls of this kind of exercise as well as some of the big themes. Some brief, random thoughts of my own: Roth is pretty clearly the BSD of the period in question. Speaking of which, "Bonfire" must not have aged very well. (Will have to re-read it one of these days to be sure.) My signed copy of "Underworld" is going to be worth a lot of coin some day. Lastly, "A Confederacy of Dunces" must be the least funny allegedly funny book I've ever read.

I assume some of our readers will have some thoughts about this. Comment away.

Posted by jwb at 10:33 AM   

1 Comments:

Blogger Bram said:

Great. Another list showing how illiterate I am. Last time, my parents, my wife, and, of course, Raphael, all beat me out.

I suppose Foucault's Pendulum and Possession aren't literary enough (being fun to read and all), but I find the lack of Matthiessen unforgivable.
at 7:15 PM     

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