A week ago I completed my Quest to read the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time. Of course, no one can say with authority what the 100 Greatest Novels are because there is no official keeper of literature. Any Greatest Novels list is subjective. If you want to know how I came up with my list, click the hyperlink above. If you want to see The List, it is at the very end of this post, with hyperlinks to each review.
I began this quest on August 16, 2011 and completed it June 30, 2018, meaning it took me 2510 days from the first page of The Great Gatsby, to the last page of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The longest amount of time I spent on one book was 140 days for Ulysses; the shortest was a few hours to read The Call of the Wild, and the average was 23 days per novel.
The longest book was Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust. The Guinness Book of World Records recognizes this as the world’s longest novel, based on character count, with over 9.6 million characters. My version was 3365 pages. The shortest novel, by page count, was The Call of the Wild at 84. The combined page count of all 100 novels was 55,582 pages, or an average of 555 pages.
The oldest book was Don Quixote, published in 1620, which was the only one from the 17th Century. There were two from the 18th, 23 from the 19th, and 73 from the 20th Centuries. The most contemporary, and only novel published in the 21st century, was Atonement, though it felt older as it was set in early 20th Century. The average year of publication was 1917.
William Faulkner and Henry James each had four novels. There were 11 authors with two: Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, George Orwell, Ayn Rand, Leo Tolstoy, Evelyn Waugh, and Virginia Woolf. These 13 authors accounted for 30% of the list. Although he did not have the most novels, George Orwell has perhaps the greatest distinction with two novels in the Top Seven.
There were 11 authors who worked in intelligence. I mention this, because that is my career field and I hope to follow their career path to author one day. The authors with roots in intelligence are: W. Somerset Maugham (British WWI); Muriel Spark, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess, and Anthony Powell (British WWII); Kurt Vonnegut, J.D. Salinger, and Thornton Wilder (U.S. WWII); Ernest Hemingway (unproven, Russia WWII), and John Steinbeck (unproven, U.S. Cold War).
My trophy case: Pictured here are the 100 Greatest Novels. I read mostly from ebooks, but I have a hardcover tree book for all 100. Some used some new. (six shelves on the left, plus the top shelf on the right)
A few of my prized copies – Les Misérables (1938, 2-volume, illustrated Heritage Press), Tom Jones (1973 Folio Society), and Deliverance(1981, leather bound, limited edition, Franklin Library – autographed by James Dickey)
Covers: These do not always represent the version I read, but rather covers that I thought were emblematic of the story.
Ratings: Upon completing this quest, I went back and changed a few of my early ratings. I was a bit unfair to some early reads as I didn’t have a broad base for comparison. Still, there were only four that I changed: Ulysses from 1.5 to 2.5 stars, On the Road from 1.5 to 2 stars, and The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye from 3 to 3.5 stars.
Regarding these ratings, they are NOT commentary on the “Greatness” of these works, rather they simply reflect my personal enjoyment of the read – very opinionated. Secondly, in order to differentiate amongst a group that are all considered “Great”, I set the bar VERY HIGH for 5 or even 4 stars. 3.5 is above the median, so still a good rating. If you plot my ratings on a graph, the result is a fairly standard bell curve, which suggests consistent rating.
Average Rating: 3.7 stars
And now a few distinctions:
Top 10 Favorites (in order, starting with #1 most favored):
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Lord of the Rings
Gone With the Wind
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Chronicles of Narnia
Lord of the Flies
The Grapes of Wrath
David Copperfield
Atlas Shrugged
The Stand
Deliverance
Top 10 Dislikes (in order, starting with #1 most disliked)
Remembrance of Things Past
On the Road
Money
The Ambassadors
The Golden Bowl
The Good Soldier
Ulysses
The Sun Also Rises
To the Lighthouse
The Wings of the Dove
Best Subtitles:
Blood Meridian: The Evening Redness in the West
Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus
Most Unusual:
Pale Fire – a very novel novel. Metafiction, experimental fiction, poetry as part of prose fiction. All very unusual – a bit challenging, but still enjoyable.
The Trial – just very bizarre
Most Surprising:
One Hundred Years of Solitude – read it
Most Underappreciated:
Invisible Man – ought to be required reading
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – beautiful and powerful
Most Overrated:
On the Road – ugh!
Happiest Ending:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Saddest Ending (in a good way):
Les Misérables
Saddest Ending (in a just plain ole sad way):
Blood Meridian
Most Unexpected Ending:
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Most Satisfying Ending:
Jane Eyre
Vanity Fair
Least Satisfying Ending:
A Clockwork Orange – but only the post 1986 editions, with the “additional chapter” that Burgess preferred. Not me!
Favorite Hero:
Jean Valjean (Les Misérables)
William Dobbin (Vanity Fair)
Nick Andros (The Stand)
Reepicheep (The Chronicles of Narnia)
Favorite Heroine:
Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre)
Marmee (Little Women)
Dagny Taggert (Atlas Shrugged)
Scarlett O’Hara (Gone With the Wind)
Scout Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Ma Joad (The Grapes of Wrath)
Lady Jessica Atreides (Dune)
Denver (Beloved)
Mary Bakonskaya (War and Peace)
Mother Abagail (The Stand)
Best (as in worst) Villain:
Caligula (I, Claudius)
The Judge (Blood Meridian)
Randall Flagg (The Stand)
Danglars (The Count of Monte Cristo)
The Man (The Grapes of Wrath)
Sauron (The Lord of the Rings)
Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)
Uriah Heep (David Copperfield)
Roger Chillingsworth (The Scarlet Letter)
Madame and Monsieur Thenardier (Les Misérables)
White Witch (The Chronicles of Narnia)
Most Interesting/Complex Characters:
Francisco d’Anconia (Atlas Shrugged)
Becky Sharp (Vanity Fair)
Starbuck (Moby Dick)
Edmonde Dantes/The Count (The Count of Monte Cristo)
Jack Burden (All the King’s Men)
Ralph (Lord of the Flies)
The unnamed main character (Invisible Man)
Alyosha (The Brothers Karamazov)
Sarah/Tragedy (The French Lieutenant’s Woman)
Hester Prynne (The Scarlet Letter)
Pearl (The Scarlet Letter)
Count Pierre Buzukhov (War and Peace)
Bigger Thomas (Native Son)
Favorite Quotations:
A World is supported by four things…the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing…without a ruler who knows the art of ruling.~ Dune
Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not.~ John Galt – Atlas Shrugged
And this you can know—fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.- Narrative - The Grapes of Wrath
…for the wicked are not so easily disposed of, for God seems to have them under his special watch-care to make of them instruments of his vengeance. ~ The Count of Monte Cristo
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.~ Atticus Finch – To Kill a Mockingbird
They aim at justice, but denying Christ, they will end by flooding the earth with blood.~ Father Zosima – The Brothers Karamazov
Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not.~ A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Mrs. Poulteney believed in a God that had never existed; and Sarah knew a God that did. ~ The French Lieutenant’s Woman
All he did was smile and say, “Take care of yourself, Denver.” But she heard it as though it were what language was made for.~ Beloved
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.~ Opening line from One-Hundred Years of Solitude.
I chuckled over it from time to time for the whole rest of the day. Because it does look very funny, you know, to see a black and white cow land on its back in the middle of a stream. It is so just exactly what one doesn’t expect of a cow.~ John Dowell – The Good Soldier
Best Film Renditions:
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)
Gone With the Wind (1939)
Beloved (1998)
Deliverance (1972)
Worst Film Renditions:
Animal Farm (several renditions, none of them good)
Atlas Shrugged (2011-2014)
Lord of the Flies (several renditions, none of them good)
Now what? I will continue reading and blogging, but I’ll expand to other categories of literature. I have TBR lists for: Short Stories; Plays; Epic Poems; Poetry; Tales, Myths, and Legends; Graphic Novels; Tolkien; Shakespeare; Sherlock Holmes, and Biographies, as well as over 1200 more novels. I might even occasionally read something not on any of these lists which could inspire me to create a new list. I love lists. By the way a lover of lists is an albumiphile – a term I created. You read it here first.
Quite obviously, I won’t finish my TBR in this lifetime. I have no idea what the Heavenly library is like, so I make no promise for the next. There are a few authors I hope to talk to though.
And finally...here are the 100 Novels (reviews in orange hyperlink)
And finally...here are the 100 Novels (reviews in orange hyperlink)
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1948)
3. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (1951)
4. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)
5. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)
6. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)
7. Animal Farm by George Orwell (1946)
12. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)
13. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927)
15. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
17. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
19. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1963)
20. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899)
21. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kessey (1962)
28. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1877)
31. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
35. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1856)
36. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (1916)
37. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster (1924)
39. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (1936)
40. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles (1969)
41. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
42. I, Claudius by Robert Graves (1934)
46. The Trial by Franz Kafka (1925)
47. The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (1961)
48. Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
49. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1953)50. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850)
52. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (1915)
54. Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)
55. The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West (1939)
56. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis (1954)
60. Light in August by William Faulkner (1932)
61. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961)
62. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (1929)
68. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
73. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957)
75. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (1943)
76. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James (1902)77. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862)
78. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866)
79. The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene (1948)
80. Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara (1934)
81. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray (1848)
82. The Golden Bowl by Henry James (1904)
83. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (1881)
84. Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne (1759)
85. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh (1934)
86. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1946)
87. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890)
88. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915)
89. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (1927)
85. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh (1934)
86. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1946)
87. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890)
88. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915)
89. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (1927)
90. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (1956)
91. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (1931)
92. The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal (1839)
93. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin (1953)
94. U.S.A. by John Dos Passos (1936)
95. Native Son by Richard Wright (1940)
96. Deliverance by James Dickey (1970)
97. The Stand by Stephen King (1978)
98. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1869)
99. A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell (1951)
100. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams (1980)
91. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (1931)
92. The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal (1839)
93. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin (1953)
94. U.S.A. by John Dos Passos (1936)
95. Native Son by Richard Wright (1940)
96. Deliverance by James Dickey (1970)
97. The Stand by Stephen King (1978)
98. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1869)
99. A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell (1951)
100. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams (1980)
.
