Have we degraded literature?

What makes this list of "100 best novels" in any way definitive? Don't get me wrong, I personally consider many books on the list great. But what is the criteria of "greatness" that we're using here?

Three Men in a Boat is one of the most hilarious novels I've ever read. Same thing with Voltaire's Candide. If my criteria for greatness were how humorous I found a book, those two would definitely be in any "best novels" list I composed. It isn't clear what criteria are being used to compile and order the books.

Another problem with taking these sorts of lists seriously is that if you really think about ranking books by assigning to them numerical values, by which you mean to say of a given book that it is (in the case of, say, Grapes of Wrath) just barely better than one (Under The Volcano) but not quite as good as another (Sons and Lovers), I think you'll find the idea really rather absurd.

I do.

Lastly, let's pick out a specific book on the list. Take Animal Farm. I like Animal Farm. But if I had to make a "best of" list, I'd rank tons of recently written novels above it. Animal farm (IMO) has very little subtlety, the characters aren't particularly interesting--the best thing about it is the premise. Again, what is the criteria on the basis of which Animal Farm is included but other books (both recent and not) are excluded?

It's a meaningless list. It was based on a reader poll, that's all.

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/

Medievalist said:

It's a meaningless list. It was based on a reader poll, that's all.

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/

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Ah, well that explains it...

Early Shakespeare wasn't exactly classic literature back in his day, was he? And Dickens was a serial writer.

Who knows, Nora Roberts and RL Stine might be classic literature in the future. I like the latter, and I've never read the former. I think it's highly unlikely, but there's a slight possibility.

@MrAnonymous: I loved Animal Farm when I was eight, but I read it again my freshman year in high school and, sadly, most of the charm was gone.

The best of lists are rather subjective. One person will say Jhumpa Lahiri is the best writer ever. Others will say she's too heavy handed and doesn't branch out enough. One person will say Haruki Murakami is creative and trippy. Someone else will say he should stop dropping acid and write a real story. As for the opinions on Cormac McCarthy? I've had people tell me he's the most overrated writer ever and others swear by him as the best American novelist.

Have who what?

What any of the many '100 best books evah' lists are good for is widening one's experience of literature, especially someone who hasn't yet read very widely.

What they aren't good for is making judgments about current literature. After all, as has been pointed out several times upstream, they only contain books considered to be classics that have survived the test of time.

Since bazillions of books haven't survived, we can't very accurately compare the classics with all books published contemporaneously with them, the way we can with books published in our own era.

Until recently Robert Louis Stevenson was classed as trash. Then about twenty years ago, people changed their minds and he became the 'classic' writer he is today.

This is the writer of boys-own [and occassionally girls] stories such as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae as well as Jekyll and Hyde.

Give me the adventure stories of RL Stevenson, John Buchan and Rosemary Sutcliff. And I have a literature degree that cover right from Sophocles, to Chaucer, to Shakespeare and Marlowe, to Pope and Sterne, to Stevenson and Eliot to Sarah Waters and Kate Atkinson.

I firmly believe that Sarah Waters will be one of the classic authors of Queer Gothic.

gothicangel said:

Until recently Robert Louis Stevenson was classed as trash. Then about twenty years ago, people changed their minds and he became the 'classic' writer he is today.

This is the writer of boys-own [and occassionally girls] stories such as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae as well as Jekyll and Hyde.

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That's a very good point. And Rudyard Kipling's gone in and out of favour over the years..

One thing I do like about these discussions is that many times new authors/books rise up out of the ashes that I haven't heard of or have forgotten that makes me want to visit/revisit.

*adds a title to my tbr pile and then goes to dust off The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde*

butterfly said:

If you go here http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/ you will find that many of these novels were written many years ago. The prose, style, concept, and eloquence doesn't come close to what is written today.

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This reads as if you're telling us that literature is more well-written today. Which doesn't seem accurate, given the tone of the rest of your post.

Out of idle curiosity, how many of the novels on that list have you read?

iRock said:

This reads as if you're telling us that literature is more well-written today. Which doesn't seem accurate, given the tone of the rest of your post.

Out of idle curiosity, how many of the novels on that list have you read?

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I've read most of them (book nerd and several literature degrees) and to be honest I can see that many of them have merit, but also that many more 'modern' books and, to be honest, many more 'classic' books have merit too - that particular list seems to be concerned withe the last 100 years, and I can't help but notice how many of those books are listed on GCSE and A level set texts.

What are the great novels written today? Please name a couple.

www.blitzreview.blogspot.com

p.s. The arguments made against butterfly's question are of two types.

1.) There's no way to make a judgment, because one person's masterpiece is another person's trash.

2.) There are many great novels written today-- but no one will name any.

Someone mentioned Gatsby. The same year that came out, 1925, also saw, among American novels, the publication of Arrowsmith, Manhattan Transfer, and An American Tragedy. Four heavyweights, and recognized as such. Can you name four comparable American novels published in 2011? I can't.

King Wenclas said:

What are the great novels written today? Please name a couple.

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The point is that NO ONE KNOWS. It's today, and today, no one knows what will be great tomorrow. We know that today there are break-out books like The Night Circus. We know that there are super-popular series like Harry Potter.

In 300 years, the books read for this "period" may be what present day literary types consider beach trash. George RR Martin could be hailed as the Tolkein of the 21st century, or this could be renamed the chick-lit era for all anyone knows.

The definitive work studied in years to come may be a self-published e-book for which the coding is so corrupt in the future no one's read the full text and there are classes dedicated to filling in the blanks.

Sorry, but that's nonsense. If what you say is true, then the much-lauded publishing companies and their p.r. departments aren't doing their jobs. Once, the release of a great novel was a cultural EVENT.

Please find one of the great novels you insist is out there and tell us what makes it comparable to a Great Gatsby. Surely you can find one.

If you do, I'll get a copy and laud it at my blog, helping to give it the attention it deserves.

www.blitzreview.blogspot.com

p.s. If all you can give me is Harry Potter, your argument is in serious trouble.

Those lauded novels of the past aren't the ones that are remembered today.

King Wenclas said:

Sorry, but that's nonsense. If what you say is true, then the much-lauded publishing companies and their p.r. departments aren't doing their jobs. Once, the release of a great novel was a cultural EVENT.

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It still is. You're, apparently, just not in the loop.

Some possibles from 2011:

The Night Circus Erin Morgenstern

The Magician King Lev Grossman

Embassy Town by China Miéville

11/23/63 Stephen King

The Art of Fielding Chad Harbach

The Marriage Plot Jeffrey Eugenides

Stephen King is already in the canon; I think he's going to be important fifty years from now. Miéville doesn't float my boat, but the dude can write. Morgenstern gets story at the gut-level, and knows how make a sentence work; I'd keep my eye on her.

butterfly said:

If you go here http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/ you will find that many of these novels were written many years ago. The prose, style, concept, and eloquence doesn't come close to what is written today.

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And I personally feel like putting the barrel of a gun in my mouth when reading some of the "greatest" novels of all times.

As many have said - it is a change in style and what people want.

At least for me.

Unlike the four I mentioned not a one of the books mentioned has made a sliver of an impact on American culture, with the possible exception of Stephen King's. Whether they're very good is highly debatable. I'll look up a few of them. (I've read Harbach's. A snoozer.)

King Wenclas said:

Sorry, but that's nonsense. If what you say is true, then the much-lauded publishing companies and their p.r. departments aren't doing their jobs. Once, the release of a great novel was a cultural EVENT.

Please find one of the great novels you insist is out there and tell us what makes it comparable to a Great Gatsby. Surely you can find one.

If you do, I'll get a copy and laud it at my blog, helping to give it the attention it deserves.

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So, what, every winner of the Man Booker and Pulitzer prize for fiction for the last 50 years was just lowbrow trash?

I mean, there is truth to the statement that we can't know for sure which living writers will be studied by grad students in a hundred years, but we can certainly look at some of the big names and make reasonable guesses. Off the top of my head, Haruki Murakami, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Jonathan Franzen, Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison, Jane Smiley, Kazuo Ishiguro, Barbara Kingsolver... it's a pretty good bet that they will all at least be remembered and very likely most of them still read. And while I'm not endorsing all of them (I haven't even read some of them, and a couple I don't like much), if you say that none of them write as profoundly or well as any of the great writers of the 19th century, I'm going to say you don't know what you're talking about.

King Wenclas said:

Someone mentioned Gatsby. The same year that came out, 1925, also saw, among American novels, the publication of Arrowsmith, Manhattan Transfer, and An American Tragedy. Four heavyweights, and recognized as such. Can you name four comparable American novels published in 2011? I can't.

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I think you need to spend a lot more time looking publishing history.

You'll no doubt note that only two of those is considered canon fodder; An American Tragedy and Gatsby.

Neither of which were perceived in wider literary circles as being All That.

These are the best selling novels of 1925 according to Publisher's Weekly:

Black Oxen by Gertrude Atherton
His Children’s Children by Arthur Train
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
The Dim Lantern by Temple Bailey
This Freedom by A.S.M. Hutchinson
The Mine With the Iron Door by Harold Bell Wright
The Wanderer of the Wasteland by Zane Grey
The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Babbit is the only one that made it into the canon--and it's B list.

King Wenclas said:

Sorry, but that's nonsense. If what you say is true, then the much-lauded publishing companies and their p.r. departments aren't doing their jobs. Once, the release of a great novel was a cultural EVENT.

Please find one of the great novels you insist is out there and tell us what makes it comparable to a Great Gatsby. Surely you can find one.

If you do, I'll get a copy and laud it at my blog, helping to give it the attention it deserves.

www.blitzreview.blogspot.com

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Off the top of my head, contemporary novels I consider great,

- Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Remains of Day - Kazuo Isiguro
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathon Safron Foer
- The Sense of An Ending - Julian Barnes
- The Lessons - Naomi Alderman
- The Secret History - Donna Tart
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian - Sherman Alexie
- Spin - Robert Charles Wilson
- The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- Angel's Game - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- God is Dead - Ron Currie Jr.
- Atonement - Ian McEwan (cheating slightly with this one, haven't finished it yet.)

I could list more but there's no real point in doing so. Not all these books may be great for the reasons you consider Gatsby great, but if you approach them on their own terms, I think you'll find they do achieve their own kind of greatness.

King Wenclas said:

p.s. If all you can give me is Harry Potter, your argument is in serious trouble.

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I've already listed three:

One person will say Jhumpa Lahiri is the best writer ever. Others will say she's too heavy handed and doesn't branch out enough. One person will say Haruki Murakami is creative and trippy. Someone else will say he should stop dropping acid and write a real story. As for the opinions on Cormac McCarthy? I've had people tell me he's the most overrated writer ever and others swear by him as the best American novelist.

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I don't even like the latter two.

And, apparently, John Green is trying to become the new Fitzgerald/Salinger. I wish him luck with that endeavor.

King Wenclas said:

Really? Scott Fitzgerald was a very famous writer at the time Gatsby came out. Icon of the twenties, treated like a movie star. Equally known were Sinclair Lewis, John Dos Passos, and Theodore Dreiser, authors of the opther books I mentioned. What about The Sun Also Rises a year after, by Fitzgerald's good friend? Lauded then and now.

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Lauded by whom? Gatsby wasn't exactly a success when it came out; in fact it was out of print by 1937.

It really isn't fair to compare texts from the canon--which are placed there for a number of reasons that don't relate to literary value or quality--with current texts.