Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. A hell of a mystery, alternately soaked in pathos and hilarity. Probably the most influential “Unreliable Narrator” novel written, and one of the most effective. The poem that Nabokov wrote for the book - Shade’s poem that the “author”/narrator is dissecting - is absolutely masterful, with some of the most amazingly gorgeous couplets existing in any poetry - “I was the shadow of the waxwing slain/by the false azure of the window paine…”
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges. Short stories as math problems, as paradoxes, as puzzles, as optical-literal illusions, as theorems given flesh. Untouched by anyone attempting to do the same thing.
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Alternately hilarious, denser-than-dense, full of allusions to literally everything in human history, from music to literature to 14th century politics to comic books. Transformative and mind-reprogramming; text as mind-altering drug. Epic. Kierkegaard reference in one sentence, potty humor in the next. Somehow completely different every time you read it. An unreadable book that’s simultaneously a page-turner. The book that “Ulysses” wants to be when it grows up.
I think you’re safe with this one, since it’s about WWI and so was definitely written in the twentieth century. I’m sure you knew that though, so I will just casually toss off that it was published in German in the late 1920s and translated into English soon after that.
I’m not sure who else is going to agree with me with the next two suggestions, since I haven’t met too many other people who enjoyed these books as much as I did, but to hell with that. Epistolary novels are an on-again/off-again passion of mine, and these are two of my favorites.
Possession by AS Byatt – Told partly through diary entries and letters from the nineteenth century, this is a story of entangling romances and family secrets and a billion other delicious things. It’s kind of a Victorian novel set in late 1980s England, but it’s Victorian without the treacle. Naturally, much better and more subtle than the movie based on it. Byatt has a beautiful prose style that matches the topic and themes of the book perfectly. The only criticism I have of it is that it the ending relies upon coincidence, but that’s appropriate considering the nineteenth century influence.
Freedom & Necessity by Emma Bull and Steven Brust – Totally an epistolary novel, the authors absolutely nail the voice of the characters. Each one is separate and distinct in the letters and journal entries, which is no mean feat. Class struggle and Corn Laws and Frederich Engels, all set during the period England was closest to a real revolution. The saddest part about it is that it was marketed as a sci-fi/fantasy novel, as Brust and Bull usually write in that genre, but it’s almost pure historical fiction. Easily one of the best books I’ve read.
Here’s one I can’t imagine many people arguing with: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. Probably the best and most effective use of the epistolary technique in the 20th century. Definitely the most well-known.
I’m tempted to suggest The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, just because it’s really, really good, but I’m not sure it has enough “literary” force to propel onto the list.
A couple of more nominations (And bumping the thread for the work week crowd.):
Last Call, by Tim Powers. A fascinating book, taking the Fisher King legend, the Tarot, mystical powers, gambling, and math all as fodder for this story of redemption and struggle. I’ve been re-reading it every four or five years since I first discovered it, and always find something new to fascinate me in the prose, and story.
The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. (How did I forget it in my original suggestions?) Do I really need to say more? Seriously, a charming, simple book that is about so much more than it appears. Another book that rewards rereading, and simply refreshes the spirit.
The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis. Another wonderful epistlatory novel.
Since I’m the OP, I’m also going to twist the definition of ‘novel’ to allow me to put The Lorax by Dr. Suess on this list. Good propaganda goes down the reader’s mental throat without a hiccough - just sits there lurking, and adusting the way the reader then views the world. The Lorax, I think, is likely to prove, in the end, even more influential and important to modern environmentalism than even Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.
Animal Farm by George Orwell- one of the few books I know that I can appreciate both when read to a 12-year-old child and when discussed by an English Lit. class. Actually, nearly anything by Orwell is really good (Down and Out, Homage to Catalonia, Burmese Days)
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. A serious work of brilliance, probably the best Dick novel I’ve read, and grossly underappreciated.
Starship Troopers Probably in the top 5 sf books of all time, and also in the bottom 5 film adaptions of all time. The only piece of sci-fi to be on the reading list of all five US military academies (according to Wikipedia), and a powerful discussion of what it means to be a citizen.
I would lean heavily toward “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee as a nearly perfect work.
Translated works opens a huge can of worms and personal preferences. I would lean toward S.Y. Agnon, though I really can’t pick which of his works to include.
If we can include Poetry, I vote for “Transformations” by Anne Sexton as a must read from the 20th Century.
Something I love about this board:
Answers like my favorite the Lord of the Rings are very common but I have seen many people put “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee up and yet of all my IRL friends only one has even read it. I like that **ddgryphon ** also thinks it is near perfect. This book was never required reading in school that I know of and yet many people on the SDMB have found and read it.
I think I’d prefer to keep both poetry and plays out of this. I know that will cut Anne Sexton’s works out from consideration, as well as Jean-Paul Satre and George Bernard Shaw. But my reasoning is that a proper play is supposed to be more than just words on the page, but an interactive creation with people other than the author getting involved.
Poetry is so subjective as to make concerns about translations trivial. If we get to arguing poetry, or even trying to nominate poetry, we’ll end up with a contingent of people pushing Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot. And others pushing Ogden Nash. And there just seems to be no room for compromise between the two camps.
On preview: Jim, I have to burst your bubble - I got TKAM in HS reading.
The Great Gatsby is perhaps the most beautifully written of the great American novels. Every time I read it I’m just stunned all over again by the language.
Catch-22 is so good that I have to deliberately keep myself from going anywhere near the book, because every time I open it I reread the whole thing.
To Kill a Mockingbird is about children, race, law, and culture. The logical successor to The Adventures of Huck Finn as the great American novel.
Now for choices others haven’t already mentioned.
E. L. Doctorow has done a string of distinguished books but he never topped the one-two punch of The Book of Daniel and Ragtime.
Ralph Ellison poured everything he had into Invisible Man. So what if he never published anything else.
Salmon Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, winner of the Booker of Bookers, the seminal novel about the Indian nation and the endless unfulfilled possibilities it suffers with.
A couple of more recent books that I think will attain classic status:
Cloudsplitter, by Russell Banks, a huge fictionalized life of John Brown that captures the pre-war U.S. in powerful precise detail.
Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson, another huge book, sprawling, exhausting, but more richly imagined than any other recent novel.
I’m going to vote for My Antonia by Willa Cather. It’s a wonderfully elegiac book, and perfectly captures that pioneer era that lasted for about a nanosecond before the land was filled up and tamed, and before the ethnic stew of the pioneers was boiled down into Americans.
And just to give a nod to non-American authors, I’m a big admirer of The Radetzky March, by Joseph Roth. As with My Antonia, it’s an elegiac look back at a world that couldn’t last – in this case, the world of the Austro-Hungarian empire just before World War I. Its nostalgia is shot through with a sense of decadence and doom. I like the translation by Eve Tucker, but unfortunately it’s out of print.
But neither is up to John Barth’s LETTERS, an old time epistolary novel by seven fictitious drolls & dreamers, each of which himself himself factual. Barth takes the letters of seven different characters, most from his previous novels, and weaves them amazingly. For instance, the first letter of each letter, if placed on a calendar turned sideways according to the date they were written, spells out LETTERS and the subtitle of the novel
I’d pick Sot-Wee over it as Barth’s entry, but if you like that sort of thing, take a look at Letters.
Well, considering that I said nothing for VC03’s nomination of Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges, I think I’ll have to allow short story collections. (Or at least novellas… yeah, that’s my figleaf - novellas.)
Seriously, let’s put Youth by Joseph Conrad on the list.
I’ve read it! (who you callin’ noone??) Okay, yes it is indeed a slough, and doesn’t seem like it has any direction for most of the novel, but I will say by the end of the book I hadn’t gotten so into the rhythm of the prose that it was tough reading anything else, without it sounding simplistic & juvenile. In that way, it reminded me of “100 Years of Solitude” - I didn’t realize how much I liked the book until after I’d finished it.
Anyhoo…some books I didn’t see listed yet:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey - It not merely captures the hysteria & revolutions of the 1960s, it predicted them. That was quite a literary feat - to realize ahead of time the social upheaval that would take place.
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood - Forget the Handmaid’s Tale, this is her best book (IMO).
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin - Anyone who felt moved to tears by ‘Brokeback Mountain’ - either the book or the movie - really ought to check out this earlier, much better story on the same subject matter.
Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil by Mark Berendt
Go Ask Alice by anonymous dead teen - ahahahahaha, just kidding.
I didn’t mean to hit “submit” so soon. I wasn’t finished with my post.
Actually, I just realized “Midnight” wouldn’t be eligible since it’s non-fiction. Sorry, I withdraw it.
the Phantom Tollbooth and A Wrinkle in Time are both aimed primarily at young audiences, but great novels nonetheless (and if "Harry Potter’ can be considered for this list, well then so can these two books!)
Would Breakfast at Tiffany’s count? It is typically considered a novella rather than a short-story.
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger - I didn’t see this mentioned.
On the Road by Jack Kerouac - also seems to be neglected.
Seriously, a charming, simple book that is about so much more than it appears. Another book that rewards rereading, and simply refreshes the spirit.