Ever since the appearance of the NYTBR's Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years, I have been mulling over its premise, promise and results, quietly trying to figure out exactly why I found it as perturbing as I did. I'm hardly alone. Almost as soon as the list was published, debate began. First there was the scandalized assertion of omissions: how could [insert author name here] not make the list? Then came the scrutiny of the list of judges: what influence did gender and race have on the results? But for me, the most potent indignity has been the homogeneity of the selections: six books by Philip Roth? three by DeLillo? (Essentially) four by John Updike? These are all great choices, but it bugs me, for lack of a better term, that with an entire panopoly of American literature at our fingertips, we came up with such an exclusive and repetitive list of books.
Over at Bookslut, Eryn Loeb has been thinking about the column too, and considering what motivates our futile compulsion to try and single out the "best" examples of works of art using vague criteria and uneven samplings:
"I guess the logic is that if we can all agree on the best movie of the past fifty years, or the top ten records, or the next manufactured pop star, these will stand as common ground for a culture largely lacking in it. Maybe the hope is that anointing the best of a particular medium will encourage a sense of community. But I doubt it’s as conscious as that."
Perhaps that explains John J. Miller's surreal list of "The 50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs" in The National Review. I'm not sure rock music is really the unifying, community-building medium conservatives are looking for, though. (The Beatles?! U2?! THE SEX PISTOLS?!?!) Why not just stick with The 50 Greatest Investment Firms or 25 Tax Shelters of Note?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Here's to hoping that the conservative list is satirical... I mean c'mon! Also, I highly disagree with some of the titles on the book list. I also agree with your sentiment that more variety would be nice in choosing the best books of the past 25 years. I've read Sabbath's Theatre and it was deeply ok.
I'm glad I'm not alone on the vague feeling of dislike for the list. Of course, I felt as if I had missed out because I had only read a sampling of the choices.
In some ways it feels as if the time hasn't come to pick out the best of the last 25 years yet. There is this great sense that we are still too close to define anything at all at this point. On the other hand, one of the things I enjoy about contemporary literature is the great variety and interstitial nature of it. Where are the magical realists, etc on this list? It did feel homogeneous in a time when literature feels as if it is somewhat breaking away from that sameness of theme, ethnicity, style, etc.
I've also felt that the NYTBR has never been very represenative of my own tastes in literature. I'm always somewhat interested to see the reviews because of the influence it has on certain American tastes. Otherwise, always with a large grain of salt.
Post a Comment