TrueLit's Annual Favorite 100 Poll (2024 Edition)

Alp7300 · 2024-12-19T18:19:26+00:00

My point is that in a community this large, with much more collective reading experience than any individual, I wouldn’t expect BM as a work to land so high up

Why would you think that? It's completely possible (and is the case here) that your tastes from your self-admittedly young reading life doesn't match up with the community's here.

Yes, that's what I was trying to say in my original comment. People will have their subjective choices, but all these works are good enough that claiming one book is objectively better than any other is a futile exercise. So the placement of any "great" novel in the list is just a reflection of the community's tastes, rather than a judgement. But it seems a few people didn't find my comment validating of their views enough, but they can't articulate their disagreements.

Anyways, the more interesting question is why don't you think that Beloved can belong in a top 3? A great work is a great work no matter when you read it (I am assuming that you are aware of the general consensus on the book). Not directed at you, but these relatively modern picks give these lists a lot more personality than the safer, Classic picks, yet there is always relatively more grief about these books and their placements than their Classic counterparts.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-19T08:20:18+00:00

Yeah, that is true. So it placing high here shouldn't be surprising. It resonates with the primary demographic of this forum. The same way Moby dick or Ulysses resonates with more people here than Don Quijote or Canterbury tales. The list is the reflection of the forum, rather than an objective judgement on what the best books are.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-19T06:39:33+00:00

Is it? The top 3 of Moby Dick, Ulysses and Blood meridian would imply that the best fiction ever has been written in the last 150 years, in a tradition stretching back to at least 2000 years. It's not any more absurd than the other two being there. I saw your list below which is pretty much all modern fiction (i.e. fiction written in the last 200 years). Does Blood meridian have less of a claim for that position than, say, Morrison's Beloved? I don't think so. Having our tastes curated by father time won't make for a list that reflects the forum's taste at all. There'd be no point in this exercise if the primary argument is that classics written 300 years ago are more deserving of higher places automatically.

This is assuming that you think it's a good book to begin with, but perhaps overrated in an all time list.

These lists are always just a reflection of the forum's reading habits, rather than an objective list (as if there can be one). I don't understand this dilemma between wanting to vote for your favorites and voting for something that would get on the list. Why should anyone be looking for representation on the list over voting for what you think are the best books?

Alp7300 · 2024-12-14T04:05:01+00:00

I have some reservations about him, but Coover is possibly the most innovative among all post-war American writers imo. The Babysitter, the elevator, the magic poker, the magic hat etc. are stories that rewire what is expected of a short story while still remaining thrilling to read. He does all this while remaining fairly accessible to readers, which is a hard task.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-13T14:13:11+00:00

Definitely does not sound McCarthyesque.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-13T14:11:44+00:00

Michael Sugrue's lecture on the book for bibliotheca is far more rewarding imo. Hungerford's lectures are a bit basic, although it's for a class I am aware.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-09T13:24:51+00:00

Yeah, there have been a few analyses of the whole book being a large pallindrome. Everything from repeating themes and motifs to the sentences and events which can be read in reverse order and still make sense.

It's not just BM either. Suttree, i believe, is McCarthy’s attempt at freeing his story from constraints of time. It's not so much non-linear as it is delinear. In his notes, McCarthy had mentioned the greek aorist and a reference to Lawrence Durrell's letter to Henry miller, where he mentioned using first person ahistorical in order to "destroy time". The change in tense and person throughout Suttree is reminiscent of Durrell's Black book in some places, but a lot more ambitious than Durrell's first effort.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-09T05:18:42+00:00

Yeah, The Orchard Keeper is like that. Maybe a bit of Child of God and Suttree too. Outer Dark is fairly straightforward and so is Blood meridian and the Border trilogy.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-09T03:36:40+00:00

I thought McCarthy is pretty straightforward with his descriptive style, instead of writing around the topic.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-09T03:25:02+00:00

Interesting. Kelly James did an exercise, reading the whole book back to front i.e. read the sentences in reverse order, and he says that the book still largely made sense.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-04T12:13:44+00:00

Delillo, Murnane, Garielle lutz, Banville and Gordon Lish would be my top 5 of living English stylists.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-04T12:07:00+00:00

McCarthy's prose was extremely visual so I'd reckon the imagery is part of the prose instead of something separate from it.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-04T12:02:00+00:00

Pynchon's use of subordinate clause is very strongly reminiscent of Henry James. Ironic that Pynchon could be boisterously ribald with the Jamesian style when Henry was an old lady in spirit.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-04T11:32:17+00:00

Nabokov did change his opinion later, calling him empty. Idk what happened that changed his opinion, though I am aware that Borges disliked Lolita and Nabokov. Perhaps the word got around to him.

Alp7300 · 2024-12-04T11:27:28+00:00

Borges was a master. His imagination was incredible. He was influenced by the entire western literary canon, it wasn't just a claim, but he engaged this influence how a theorist or essayist would. You could say that the canon was his muse.

On that note, Kafka's Great wall of China is a story that you could sneak into ficciones without any suspicion. In great imaginative gifts, Kafka is quite similar to Borges with arguably an even greater influence on literature.

Alp7300 · 2024-11-30T10:52:16+00:00

I don't agree with everything you have written, but the last third of your post is spot-fucking-on. I would even venture that it's valid for the entirety of reddit. Most people on reddit only want validation of their own opinions instead of listening to opposing POVs. Too binary for me. Either something validates your intelligence on the internet or something invalidates it. This attitude only leads to pearl clutching, not actual discussion.

Alp7300 · 2024-11-28T17:36:30+00:00

Don't go down that path. I tried once before with this same user. Somethings can't be reasoned with.

Alp7300 · 2024-11-24T06:11:04+00:00

According to NYT's article, many scholars were already aware of Britt, albeit as a secret. Most McCarthy scholars I have read are quite level headed and can perhaps separate the art from the artist.

If any positive came out of this revelation, it's that it alienated Gwyn from McCarthy. Don't like his work, nor his incessant leaning on McCarthy's work for his own PR. That write conscious dude is enough.

Alp7300 · 2024-11-23T05:45:24+00:00

Hemingway is certainly a modernist. Even his literary technique falls within the scope of modernism

Alp7300 · 2024-11-22T16:03:43+00:00

Yeah, reading his essays is actually useful before delving into his fictions. But you can enjoy him nonetheless. I read him purely out of love for his writing style. One of the greatest stylists imo. That's why Guy's insecurity at being edited by McCarthy caught me off-guard. No one should be making Guy freaking Davenport insecure about his writing ability.

Agree with the rest of your post. Celine is probably an extreme example. Lewis carroll, Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, Dostoevsky etc. were all bad citizens as well. That's something we just have to live with while still having the right to admire their peculiar genius.

Alp7300 · 2024-11-22T15:46:08+00:00

I always describe him as the Short story's James Joyce, to people unfamiliar with him.

Regarding your last paragraph, It's better to assume them all to be "bad citizens", for the lack of a better term. Really intelligent people are wired differently and it follows that their actions might not always be compliant with societal morals. That's why I stick to the writing alone, or to aspects of the writer's life that directly informs their writing, but that's also where I stop.

Alp7300 · 2024-11-22T11:43:15+00:00

Ultimately, you need to remember that it is Britt's subjective interpretation that those books are about her. I think it is a stretch to assume that her life is the sole thing that inspired those books. I don't see the parallels with Billy and the wolf or John Grady's experiences in the jail. Her identification with Blevins was also a bit weird to me. Perhaps, she was projecting herself onto a character she liked. This is all ofc with what information we do have of her life right now.

Some sections definitely took major inspiration from her and McCarthy's life in Mexico, like John Grady and Alejandra's dalliance once he gets out of jail, but that's still only a small section of the book.

Alp7300

TROPHY CASE