Strange list. They say "Top 20th century novels", not "Top 20th century novels originally in English", and yet omit:
Magister Ludi, also known as The Glass Bead Game (Hermann Hesse); The Magic Mountain (Thomas Mann); The Trial (Franz Kafka); The Stranger (Albert Camus); among other works. Even in English, they omit 'Til We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis); Sister Carrie (Theodore Dreiser); Cry the Beloved Country (Alan Paton); Mr. Sammler's Planet (Saul Bellow); The Book of Daniel (E.L. Doctorow); and many other great novels. "Atlas Shrugged", though a powerful influence on many people, is a joke as literature, and should not be on the list. The Jungle was an expose masquerading as literature, and should be off. Whatever Finnegan's Wake is, it is sui generis, and should go. The World According to Garp is an embarrassment on such a list. Franny and Zooey, good as it is, is not a novel, but two interelated long stories. If it goes on, one should put on "Metamorphosis" and "The Hunger Artist", both by Kafka. In general,it is a mishmash. I will come back later for more........ |
