Jesus in disguise

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04 June 2012

Books

This is a list of the greatest fictional works of the 20th century, composed by a critic with quirky taste and strong postmodern tendencies:
http://www.spinelessbooks.com/mccaffery/100/index.html

It's now been more than five years (more like seven) since I first found this list, and I believe there were close to fifteen or twenty I had already read by then. Most of the books on this list were titles I'd never heard of by authors I'd never heard of. Some I knew would be extremely difficult or not interesting to me. Nonetheless I resolved to read the whole list!
I have since discovered exquisite literary wonders I would never have otherwise found. I've hated at least a couple (I won't name names), and worked harder at reading literature than I ever did as a student (Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow). Some of these books have changed the way I view the world (Morrison, Faulkner, Joyce), not to mention all the authors and books I discovered tangentially as a result of the list and the perspective gained for reading contemporary lit. Now that I am halfway done, I realize it will likely take *at least* another five years to finish them all, but I do wish to share a little more about my reading experience on this blog beyond a link to some review or what-have-you. I am not planning to write book reviews (plenty of better ones out there than what I could contribute), just an account and impressions.

Right now I have just started A Passage To India and The Grapes of Wrath, and I just finished The Sot-Weed Factor, which is one of the most absorbing, hilarious, and twisted tales of adventure ever imagined. Before that I read Libra, which seamlessly blended reality and fiction into a compelling account of the Kennedy assassination. These two books were so good, I felt I must start sharing more about the joy I get from these books. If you're wondering how I have so much time to read the answer is simple: I take a 45 minute train ride each way to and from work. 
So in the near future you can expect to see entries giving an account of the above mentioned works, and maybe you will find a few good reads as well.

Books I've read so far (54) and links (reviews/text):

1. Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov, 1962
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0244.html

2. Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922
www.dougshaw.com/Reviews/review1.html

3. Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon, 1973
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-rainbow.html


6. Trilogy (Molloy [1953] , Malone Dies [1956], The Unnamable [1957]), Samuel Beckett
http://www.samuel-beckett.net/Karen2.htm

8. Nova Trilogy (The Soft Machine [1962], Nova Express [1964], The Ticket that Exploded, [1967])
http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/The_Nova_Trilogy

12. Beloved, Toni Morrison, 1986
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/01/11/home/14013.html

13. Going Native, Stephen Wright, 1994
http://articles.latimes.com/1994-01-30/books/bk-16785_1_stephen-wright

14. Under the Volcano , Malcolm Lowery, 1949
http://esposito.typepad.com/Misc/Under_Volcano.html

15. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf, 1927
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/08/reviews/woolf-lighthouse.html

18. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison, 1952
http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/072098ellison-invisible.html

20. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway, 1926
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/05/07/044757.php

21. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, 1916
http://www.literature-study-online.com/essays/joyce.html



33. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany, 1975
34. The Grapes of Wrath , John Steinbeck, 1939
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/06/home/history-grapes.html

36. Cyberspace Trilogy (Neuromancer [1984], Count Zero [1986], Mona Lisa Overdrive [1988])
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037220/

37. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller, 1934
http://www.architectureink.com/2002-06/bookreview-tropic.htm

38. On the Road, Jack Keroac, 1957
http://bookreviews.nabou.com/reviews/ontheroad.html

42. The Sot-Weed Factor, John Barth, 1960
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/21/specials/barth-sot.html

44. Brave New World , Aldous Huxley, 1932
45. A Passage to India, E. M. Forster, 1924
http://www.shmoop.com/passage-to-india/

54. Slaughterhouse Five , Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., 1969
56. Wise Blood, Flannery O’Conner, 1952
60. The Catcher in the Rye , J.D. Salinger, 1951
http://www.levity.com/corduroy/salinger1.htm

62. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver, 1981
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7363.Raymond_Carver

63. Dubliners, James Joyce, 1915
http://www.csun.edu/~hceng029/joyce/dubart.html

64. Cane, Jean Toomer 1923
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/27/books/27cane.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

65. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton, 1905
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/books/21wharton.html

70. Skinny Legs and All, Tom Robbins, 1986
http://www.librarything.com/work/6522/reviews

71. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace, 1995
http://www.badgerinternet.com/~bobkat/jest1a.html

72. The Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus, 1996
http://www.richmondreview.co.uk/books/ageofwir.html

75. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick, 1962
http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-679-74067-8.html

79. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, 1962
http://www.worldsgreatestcritic.com/aclockworkorangenovel.html

87. Winesberg Ohio, Sherwood Anderson, 1919
http://www.americanliterature.com/Anderson/WinesburgOhio/WinesburgOhio.html

89. The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer, 1948
http://partners.nytimes.com/books/97/05/04/reviews/mailer-dead.html

95. Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe 1929

posted by Christopher @ 10:15  0 comments