Greatest Novel of All-Time

Even on a list of 16, I'm not sure it should. To Az's point, while I have nothing but good memories of reading To Kill a Mockingbird, I would place All the King's Men ahead of it.

 

To get your panties in a bundle about a single book's omission on a list that shitty is futile.

 

Good point, no more complaining from me.

 

The estates of messrs. Faulkner and Hemingway are going to send A. Huffington some very sternly worded notes this evening, I assure you. Very sternly worded indeed.

 

That's why I used my opening clause. I have a bunch of problems with choices on the list, but that doesn't mean All the King's Men should definitely be on it.

 

The Orwell estate assumes it's a conspiracy of censorship.

 

The Dick estate feels the list is a drug-induced hallucination.

 

On behalf of William Gaddis and Edith Wharton, Thomas Pynchon is driving crosscountry in an astrodiaper with a trunkload of duct tape and pepper spray in order to ask the creators of such a bracket 'WTF'?

 

The Foster Wallace estate doesn't exist and wouldn't care even if it did.

 

Some of the books on that list, I read in high school or college and didn't think they were anything special at all... Maybe that's what happens with great books when something is required reading.

I remember Lolita being an exception. The Great Gatsby was an exception. Moby Dick was an exception.

I'm stunned For Whom the Bell Tolls isn't on that list. Count of Monte Cristo was another one I read in school and loved.

 

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, The Count of Monte Cristo and Catcher in the Rye are three I would have expected to see on the list, based on its own standards.

 

I know it's considered cliche, but other than Mark Twain's masterpieces, "Catcher in the Rye" was one of the first "classics" that I truly loved.

I read it in eighth grade and I liked it so much that I started to try to read as many of the "classics" as possible, and more often than not, I was disappointed.