Summer reading?
Seems Roth-heavy to me. I like the inclusion of Confederacy of Dunces. Agree with this list? What would you add? (Comments are working again, btw. Don't know what happened yesterday. Gremlins, I suppose.)
May 21, 2006
What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years?
By 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." Following are the results.
THE WINNER:
Beloved
Toni Morrison
(1987)
THE RUNNERS-UP:
Underworld
Don DeLillo
(1997)
Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy
(1985)
Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels
John Updike
(1995)
American Pastoral
Philip Roth
(1997)
THE FOLLOWING BOOKS ALSO RECEIVED MULTIPLE VOTES:
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole
(1980)
Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson
(1980)
Winter's Tale
Mark Helprin
(1983)
White Noise
Don DeLillo
(1985)
The Counterlife
Philip Roth
(1986)
Libra
Don DeLillo
(1988)
Where I'm Calling From
Raymond Carver
(1988)
The Things They Carried
Tim O'Brien
(1990)
Mating
Norman Rush
(1991)
Jesus' Son
Denis Johnson
(1992)
Operation Shylock
Philip Roth
(1993)
Independence Day
Richard Ford
(1995)
Sabbath's Theater
Philip Roth
(1995)
Border Trilogy
Cormac McCarthy
(1992)
The Human Stain
Philip Roth
(2000)
The Known World
Edward P. Jones
(2003)
The Plot Against America
Philip Roth
(2004)
posted by writer @ 2:55 PM
15 Comments:
Wow, I thought I was well-read, but I've only read Beloved and part of The Things They Carried.
*but I've read all of Jane Austen! she cries, as her English major badge is torn from her*
Give or take his personal politics, I was so pleased and surprised to see Helprin's Winters Tale on this list. It's my favorite book.
It's not just Roth heavy, it's also male heavy. No Amy Tan? No Leslie Marmon Silko? No Maxine Hong Kingston? No Anna Castillo?
While I guess it can be argued that these aren't exactly "American" in that they are ethno-centric...BUT STILL!
infinite jes by david foster wallace?
i jest, i jest! infinite jest.
on the blog in general, you seem smart & sane, someone one would want to have as a colleague. i think you should have a great writing career and, in this way, get back at all those silly professors!
I teach creative writing in an MFA program. Roth is almost never taught to young writers. Three writers not included on this list who regularly are: Alice Munro (who, as a Canadian, may not count), Tobias Wolff and Lorrie Moore. I'm also surprised not to see Doctorow on this list. (Another writer not taught, but widely admired.) The writer most admired and arguably most widely taught in MFA programs is probably the late and largely unknown William Maxwell.
Great comments, y'all. I agree about the male dominance on the list. But one man left out is one of my favorites, Ray Bradbury. I've read everything he's written and read nothing by Philip Roth. Another favorite author: Chaim Potok. If you've never read My Name Is Asher Lev, you must. It's as unforgettable as Beloved. And I didn't read Beloved until last year! (A tough read, but worth the effort.) More! More, please!
Someone needs to expand their reszding list. Toni Morrison? Are you kidding me? I have never read anything so cliche as her writing in my American Literature class. I'm fairly certain (I'm not even 25 yet) that these books all reached the bestsellers' lists. What about books that appeal to those with better literary taste rather than the millions of great unwashed, undereducated, and unread masses that put so many awful books (DaVinci Code anyone?) on the bestsellers' list in the first place?
Ingrid
I'd add Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake. Also, Lionel Shriver's We Need to talk about Kevin.
I love love love Toni Morrison's Beloved. I read it in AP English in high school and it blew me away. I'm not the type to re-read books generally, but I've read this one about 4-5 times.
Ergh. There is too much Roth on that list. I would include Shiloh by Phyllis Naylor. Yes, it is for 3rd graders, but it evokes West Virginia well.
I'd add anything by Barbara Kingsolver or Alice Munro.
Look at the list of Nobel and Pulitzer prize winners fifty years back, and see how many of them are still respected as serious writers rather than embodiments of the Zeitgeist.
Morrison has a period style. Once the politics of the 80s-00s have faded, so will much of her work, including the much overrated Beloved.
Toni Morrison is the politically correct choice. But her writing is totally platitudinous and unstimulating.
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