Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
The single best work of fiction in the last 25 years
. . . is Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
From the New York Times:
Early this year, the Book Review’s editor, Sam Tanenhaus, sent out a short letter to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify “the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.” [Read A. O. Scott’s essay. See a list of the judges.] Following are the results.
I find it a little mortifying that I own only one of these (Updike’s Rabbit series, of which I could tolerate only the first two or three pages). I made it through half of A Confederacy of Dunces — ultimately, I grew tired of the protagonist. I’ve been tempted by Roth’s The Plot Against America. As an alternate history, it rubs shoulders with SF.
I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised; I’m a genre guy. SF, fantasy, humor, hardboiled float my boat, while ‘serious’ fiction usually puts me to sleep.
Question: will any of you vouch for any one of these books? (Linked above.)
D.
I’ll vouch for Beloved, and I bet you’d like DeLillo’s stuff. White Noise is a decent red, even if I think it’s pathetic that anyone would consider it (and Cormac McCarthy’s stuff) as the best of the last 25 years. Even caling it the best of the year in which they were (respectively) published is pushing it, IMO. Gah, this list just further proves that the quote-unquote literary elite of this country are a bunch of unimaginative gits who treasure the Ivy League confines of their meagre intellectual lives.
Though I do give them credit for choosing Beloved. It seems so lonely on that list. Oh, and I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about The Things They Carried, and from sources I trust, but I always always ALWAYS forget to pick it up when I’m book-buying. I’ll go add it to my wishlist now.
Hi. I can’t vouch for any of these. However, when I can’t get through a book for whatever reason I’ll listen to it on Audiobook format. It adds so much to a story to hear the tones and emotions.
A great book to read is Don Winslow’s ‘The Power Of The Dog‘. I’ll vouch for that. A rollercoaster of a read, highs, lows & creamy middles.
Have a great day.
Confederacy of Dunces? I never did get the love for that book. (Cheating to call it in the last 25 years, too) And Philip Roth? Self loathing and self obsession is fun and well done… but one of the best ever? Cheever and F Scott did that kind of stuff better.
The only one on the list I’d put on the list is Beloved. Or maybe a Rabbit book. But it’s been about 25 years since I’ve read any of them.
I feel so illiterate now.
Thanks, y’all. Lyvvie, now you know how I felt perusing that list!
Kate, I kind of liked Portnoy’s Complaint, since I read it as a horny adolescent. I haven’t tried any other Roth. But I look on the bright side: at least they didn’t put any Bellow on the list (or is he entirely pre-1980?)
Beth, I think I’ll try to find Beloved in the library before I pop for it. We have Morrison’s Tar Baby — Karen read it, didn’t recommend it.
Thanks, Alan, I’ll check that one out, too.
Most I haven’t read.
But literature is so subjective – like art. How can you really choose? You have to be able to relate, and some books just don’t touch me the same as others. I suppose I would like to have most of these in my linrary though – just to see.
I loved Confederacy of Dunces! Hysterical. Otherwise if you’re looking for a fantastic “nongenre” read, grab Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs. I didn’t look up the list but I doubt it’s on it.
I feel illiterate now too. Can I assume that Independance Day isn’t the book from which they made the movie with Jeff Goldberg and Bill Pullman? 🙂
Yep, I can vouch for The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and another of his, If I Die In A Combat Zone. TTTC is a wonderfully written and quietly poignant book of stories during the Vietnam War. Whether it is fact or fiction is up to the reader to decide, but I really, really enjoyed it.
Unfortunately, everything else on the list either had a curled lip from me or a ‘nup, dunno it’.
At least I’m in good company, not having read most of them.
I’ve read a few Phillip Roth books–Portnoy’s Complaint, Goodbye, Columbus, and one or two more, but not the ones listed. Yes, horny adolescence. Read A Confederacy of Dunces back then, too, and loved it, but it’s been well over 20 years. If I read it today? Who knows.
Haven’t read The Things They Carried, but [[warning: parental bragging]] my kid did, wrote an essay about it, and won a dinner with Tim O’Brien, so that sort of counts, right? She said it was good, but other than Stephanie Plum books, we don’t really read the same things.
LOL, Crystal! My first thought when I read Underworld was a movie, too.
Beloved was given to me by a sweet woman and told me it was brilliant. I hated it. I’m easily the most depressed person I know and this book brought me down to places I didn’t know where there.
Confederacy of Dunces-Twelve Inches of Paradise! enough said.
Underworld-makes a really great doorstop
The Human Stain-always liked the title
well, like yourself I like sci-fi better that mainstream.
The Time Traveler’s Wife was the best book I have read the past year or two.
I went on a Toni Morrison binge a while back, and mostly her stuff depresses me. There’s no such thing as ‘happily ever after’ in her stories, and since reading is an escape for me [as are movies] unhappy endings either leave me feeling bleh or really pissed off.
Beloved made me really sad, as did The Bluest Eye and Sula. That’s all I remember about them [I think I was impressed with how she put the words together, but by the end, I didn’t care anymore. I was too depressed].