{"id":190,"date":"2003-11-11T10:10:43","date_gmt":"2003-11-11T15:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=190"},"modified":"2024-10-27T14:54:20","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T18:54:20","slug":"100-greatest-novels-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=190","title":{"rendered":"100 Greatest Novels of All Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

… as chosen by The Observer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have read 37 of them.<\/p>\n

But, of course, being obnoxious, I have a couple of comments about some of the books:<\/p>\n

The Executioner’s Song<\/i>? What? To have THAT book be on there and not In Cold Blood<\/i> (Truman Capote invented the genre, and Norman Mailer stole it) is very bizarre. I didn’t think The Executioner’s Song<\/i> was that great a book – definitely not one of the greatest novels of all time. That seems baffling to me.<\/p>\n

Second of all: neither of those are novels. They are true-crime books. They are dressed up as novels, which was the whole “gimmick” of them – but Truman Capote got there first, and In Cold Blood<\/i> is a much better book. Please don’t even argue.<\/p>\n

I was completely gratified to see Charlotte’s Web<\/i> on there.<\/p>\n

I have huge gaps in my reading – stuff which must be rectified.<\/p>\n

I haven’t read any Paul Auster. I haven’t read any George Eliot (which I know is completely shameful – she is DEFINITELY on my list).<\/p>\n

I have read Pilgrim’s Progress<\/i> of all things, but I haven’t read any Philip Roth. Please don’t kill me.<\/p>\n

I have not read David Copperfield<\/i>, strangely, although I have read Oliver Twist<\/i>, Great Expectations<\/i>, Christmas Carol<\/i> and Bleak House<\/i>. How did I read all of those and miss David Copperfield<\/i>, which everybody talks about as his best?<\/p>\n

I have never heard of the book Sybil<\/i>, by Disraeli. Sue me.<\/p>\n

I haven’t read any Trollope, and I haven’t read any Wilkie Collins.<\/p>\n

I have read all of the Bronte books numerous times. I have read all of James Joyce.<\/p>\n

I, somehow, embarrassingly, have not read any Faulkner. This is horrifying, I know. Faulkner is on my eternal list – I own all his books, but I haven’t read them.<\/p>\n

I have read Crime and Punishment<\/i>, but I have NOT read The Brothers Karamazov<\/i> – which, I believe, is one of my dad’s all-time favorite novels.<\/p>\n

Glad to see Catch-22<\/i> on there. In my opinion, it should be #1.<\/p>\n

I have read Portrait of a Lady<\/i> but it left me cold. I mean … I liked some of it … I liked how much of it was conversation – not a lot of description, but just long long passages of people talking to each other – fighting, jostling for position … But Henry James remains opaque to me. I will grant him his space in the canon (I’m sure he is happy to have my endorsement), but so far, I have been unable to “go there” with him.<\/p>\n

I like the passionate wild books better. The Wuthering Heights<\/i>. The Anna Kareninas<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I have never read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde<\/i>, and yet I HAVE read Three Men in a Boat<\/i>, which I thought was abysmal, but that is probably only because I was in a dreadful musical adaptation of the book, described in this post here<\/a>. The production was so awful that one critic started off his review with the following words: “Not since the Titanic has there been such a nautical disaster…” So I despise Three Men in a Boat<\/i>. I think it’s a stupid book.<\/p>\n

I have only read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness<\/i> – have not read Nostromo<\/i>, which appears on the list, and is called Conrad’s “masterpiece”.<\/p>\n

Never read any Ford Madox Ford.<\/p>\n

I’ve read all of DH Lawrence and I know this is sacreligious – but … I guess I didn’t get it. Perhaps I was too young when I read them. Maybe I should go back and try them again.<\/p>\n

I think Howard’s End<\/i> is a far superior book to Passage to India<\/i>, but I could be persuaded otherwise.<\/p>\n

I have had Gunter Grass’ The Tin Drum<\/i> sitting un-read on my bookshelf for nigh on 15 years now. My best friend Mitchell read it and it blew his mind – He could not stop talking about it. But it’s one of those books I haven’t gotten around to yet.<\/p>\n

And : Housekeeping<\/i>? Gimme a break.<\/p>\n

Oh, and one other subjective comment: Oscar and Lucinda<\/i> by Peter Carey has no business being on that list, in my opinion. I had to force myself to finish that book. I know everybody fawned over it, and loved it, and praised it, but I thought it was over-praised. Some of the writing was okay – and the plot itself was fascinating (carrying a glass church over hundreds of miles) but … whatEVER. The book didn’t work for me.<\/p>\n

Oh, if you haven’t read Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table<\/i> – you really must. However: it’s a memoir<\/b>. It’s not a novel. So … why is it on this list?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… as chosen by The Observer. I have read 37 of them. But, of course, being obnoxious, I have a couple of comments about some of the books: The Executioner’s Song? What? To have THAT book be on there and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,28],"tags":[983,102,104,745,77,697,240,992,105,2208,75,266,974,35,2215,96,676,150,1042],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194839,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/194839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}