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List of best 20th-century novels…

 

List of best 20th-century novels in English stirs debate

1     A month after the American Film Institute unveiled its much-debated
 selection of the 100 greatest American-made movies, the editorial board of
 the Modern Library has selected the 100 best English-language novels
 published this century. James Joyce’s Ulysses, a book many people were
5 bewildered by in college, was the top vote-getter, followed by F. Scott
 Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Ian Jackman, managing director of the
 Modern Library, said the panel of 10 scholars and writers who chose the
 novels has been debating its selections for more than a year, so they weren’t
 inspired by the national attention the American Film Institute got.
10 Nevertheless the list has stirred controversy because of the titles and authors
 it excludes and because the selections were made almost entirely by men.
2     Although William Kennedy’s Ironweed from 1983 is included, many current,
 highly regarded writers are left out, such as Don DeLillo and Thomas
 Pynchon. Other prominent omissions include Irish Nobel Prize-winner
15 Samuel Beckett and Raymond Chandler, even though fellow hard-boiled
 writers Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain appear.
3     But the fact that British novelist A.S. Byatt is the only woman on the panel
 and only nine of the chosen books are by women has come in for the most
 comment.Women writers not featured include Doris Lessing,Toni Morrison
20 and Eudora Welty.
4     “I think it’s sort of an attempt to exert control on people’s reading and
 thinking and appreciation of literature that really smacks of a sense of
 desperation,” said Dr. Meta G. Carstarphen, poet and professor of journalism
 at the University of North Texas. “I’m appalled that in the latter years of this
25 century, when so many strides have been made by very strong women writers,
 by multicultural writers, by international writers, when we really are seeing some
 extraordinary writing, that the list doesn’t acknowledge these developments.
5     “I’m just stunned by what’s on the Top 10.There really are some parallels
 with this very male protagonist who must make his way in the world - the
30 male coming-of-age - but there are other ways of talking about the human
 experience than through the eyes of a pubescent or young white male. One
 also should be encouraged to read novels that look at the coming-of-age
 experience in other contexts, such as in writings by Sandra Cisneros or Alice
 Walker or Toni Morrison…”
635     Scott Gonzalez, who teaches ninth- and 10th-graders at St. Mark’s School of
 Texas, a private boy’s school in Dallas, agreed. “Oh, come on,” he said, laughing
 about the list. “There’s not much broadness of opinion going on here.”
7     “The Modern Library board is an old institution, made up mostly of men,
 and we’re addressing that now,” said Ann Godoff, president and editor in
40 chief of publishers Random House, which includes the Modern Library as
 one of its divisions and publishes 59 of the 100 novels on the list.
8     “To increase gender and ethnic diversity, the board will be doubled in size,”
 Ms. Godoff said. “If the list speaks to anything, it speaks to the need for
 more voices.” Random House hopes to achieve this in time for its next lists,
45 the top 100 non-fiction books and the top 100 books, fiction and non-fiction,
 to be released in 1999 and 2000, respectively.

Jerome Weeks, 'The Dallas Morning News', July 21, 1998