100 BEST NOVELS? PT. 3

 Here's the next 10 titles on the list, and a chance to hear about my biggest disagreement with the list.

21.  Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow, 1953.  An odd, somewhat amusing look at middle aged 1950's while male disillusionment.  Bellow's hero is a fiftyish man who, disappointed with his well off life, travels to Africa.  But his attempts to play white savior there are not as successful as he expected them to be.  This is an amusing and mostly interesting novel, with some unusual plot twists.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes, even though I didn't love it.

22. Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara, 1934.  A dark story about a reasonably well off Cadillac salesman who throws his life on the rails in the space of 3 days.  Controversial in its time for some frank sexual descriptions, this is a pretty bleak look at man self destructing for little obvious reason.  Not a fun read, but a good one.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

23.  U. S. A., John Dos Passos,  1930,1932, 1936.  A trilogy that features some innovative writing in an attempt to give a broad overview of the country at the time.  Passos follows a dozen characters, while also incorporating descriptions of news articles and song lyrics, short biographies of real historical figures of the time, and stream of consciousness memories to patch together a unique look at the US. Although the stream of consciousness sections  don't really work for me, and I wish that not  all 12 of the  characters in his overview were white, this is still an ambitious and impressive series.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

24. Winesburg Ohio, Sherwood Anderson, 1919.  Not really a novel so much as a short story cycle, Anderson provides short 22 snapshots of life in a fictional small town.  Loneliness and isolation are themes repeated as few people in the town seem truly happy.  This negative view of small town America is confirmed by the last story's uplifting ending.  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

25.  A Passage to India, E.  M.  Forster,  1924.  Based on Forster's own experiences in India in the previous decade, this is a great look at the unjustness of the English colonial system in India.  It focuses on the trial of an Indian doctor and the well off white woman who accuses him of rape.  Powerfully written, and controversial in its day, it holds up well, in my estimation. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes.

26.  The Wings of the Dove, Henry James, 1902.  I first encountered James when I was assigned to read one of his short stories in college, and within the first paragraph I knew that I wasn't going to like him.  To put it kindly, his style is discursive, to put it honestly, it's painfully rambling.  His sentences and paragraphs seem to run on forever, with their meaning winding up lost to me.  There's the seed of an interesting love triangle here, but buried in this style it's not worth it!  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No!

27.  The Ambassadors, Henry James, 1903.  I just finished trashing James, and here I go again.  As always, I find his style unbearably dull, and this story of romance among Americans in Paris is as boring to me as The Wings of the Dove was. Amazingly, James has 3 three titles on this list, tying him with Faulkner for the most by an American author, so obviously he has admirers.  But Mark Twain wasn't one of them, as he's supposed to have said “Once you've put one of his [Henry James] books down, you simply can't pick it up again.”  Amen, brother!  DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No!

28.  Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1934.  Fitzgerald based this sad story on his own disintegrating relationship with his mentally ill wife Zelda.  It's a bitter look at relationships as a psychologist and his wife engage in affairs and hurt each other repeatedly.  As a chronicle of Fitzgerald's own life, this is quite good, but as an actual novel I think it falls short, with its downbeat ending foreshadowed from the first page. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No, I think Gatsby is enough Fitzgerald.

29. Studs Lonigan,  James T. Farrell, 1932, 1934, 1935.   A trilogy of books about the life of a young man living in an Irish Catholic neighborhood in Chicago, starting from his teen years and ending when he's 30.  This is an honest and well written look at a young man who leads an unremarkable but always interesting life.  The hardest part about reading it is that it's almost too honest, with many characters having racist and antisemitic attitudes that lead to them carrying out what can only be called hate crimes.  While it's clear that Farrell himself does not agree with these beliefs, and that he's realistically portraying what people in that neighborhood at that time believed, it can still make for tough reading. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  Yes, but like I said, it's not always an easy read.

30.  The Good Soldier, Ford Maddox Ford, 1915.  Told mostly in flashbacks, Ford uses an unreliable narrator to look at the breakdown of a seemingly perfect marriage.  Like James, I find Ford's style hard to get through at times, although there are some good parts here. DO I THINK THAT IT DESERVES TO BE ON THE LIST?  No, Ford has another novel on this list, and I don't think that he needs 2.