The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels

Hello there!

This entry is all about the section of my "Strive to Learn" goal that involves reading the Best 100 modern novels. I started working at a library two years ago and decided that it would be a terrible waste not to make the most of the literature surrounding me. The problem was that I didn't really know where to start. The previous summer I had finally got around to reading Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, and I was hungry for more of the classics. I couldn't bear to read any more "chick lit" and on a more vain level, I wanted to appear cultured and knowledgeable.

So I spent some time perusing the internet and stumbled upon this list. It was perfect! Unlike many of the top 100 lists voted for by the public, it didn't include children's books or Dan Brown, and I hadn't even heard of a lot of them, so I was itching to get started. Perhaps my biggest mistake was starting at number one: Ulysses. A colleague even advised me to read number 3 first but I felt that I should start my new reading era with the best, the number one book. And I failed to read it. I got through about half and then realised that I wasn't enjoying it, and the whole point was to find books that I would love. That little obstacle side-stepped, I devoured some wonderful books, books that I would never have looked twice at had they not been on this list. Even the authors I don't like so much (sorry Henry James) have been an experience, and have enabled me to pinpoint what I enjoy and why.

Most of the novels on this list have left me feeling full. The really good ones have been voraciously feasted upon in one or two sittings and when the story has come to an end, mourned and contemplated. There have been characters so vivid and lovable that I have cried when they have been through hardship and settings described so wonderfully that I have longed to be transported there. I have realised that all I want from a book is characters that I feel I truly know and a writing style that doesn't leave me frustrated and angry or confused. A good story tends to follow from strong characters, and a powerful message will shine through, even to literalists like myself who struggle to read between the lines.

Anyway, below is my list. I have highlighted in red the titles that I have read.

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
   
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
13. 1984 by George Orwell
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
36. ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
52. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
57. PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
87. THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
89. LOVING by Henry Green
90. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy
93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
96. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington

TYSIC has rekindled my excitement for my list. In fact, it has rekindled my excitement for everything. I sometimes find that people see excitement as a childish emotion. Something that should only be brought out on special occasions, as a guilty pleasure. As an adult, you are allowed to be excited about weddings, births and perhaps holidays. It is seen as silly to be excited about your birthday, or Christmas, or seeing a rabbit hopping along in a field, or receiving a letter from an old friend. You've seen it all before so you should act your age and grimace your way through life. But you haven't seen this Christmas before, or read this letter, or watched this rabbit. Anything can be exciting if you see it that way, and in my experience, living your life in perpetual excitement is far more enjoyable than living it from a distance, with a look of boredom on your face. So what if millions of people can drive? So what if thousands of people have run a marathon, and if hundreds of thousands can play the piano, and if loads of people run businesses? I haven't done any of those things, and perhaps neither have you, so they are new, and they are exciting. And every time one of us achieves one of our little goals, however modest, we can all be excited together, revelling in the wonder that is being alive and being human, thankful that we were lucky enough to be born in a free, developed country, able to connect with and positively influence other lives. So, once again, I'd like to say thank you Mr Watson, and thank you everybody else who is making TYSIC what it is.

Cheerio! Amy. xxx