In response to the publication of the Modern Library’s list of Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century, Erica Jong wrote an article for The Nation in which she discussed the relatively few number of books written by women that made it to the Modern Library’s list.
She also included a list of the Top 100 20th Century Novels by Women, compiled from votes cast by those “250 or so distinguished women writers and critics” and “about thirty male novelists, critics and poets” who Jong solicited directly and participants in “the rather lively writers’ forum” on Jong’s website. The results, while not scientific, would provide for some good reading. The list is in order of the number of votes received.
Those I have read are in red. Those on my TBR shelf are in blue. As always, if anyone has undertaken to read all the books on this list, I am happy to post a link to your progress reports. Just leave a comment with the link address.
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
Burger's Daughter by Nadine Gordimer
The Dollmaker by Harriette Simpson Arnow
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
My Ántonia by Willa Cather
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (reviewed here)
Fanny by Erica Jong
Obasan by Joy Kogawa
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Her First American by Lore Segal
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (reviewed here)
Anya by Susan Fromberg Shaeffer
Trust by Cynthia Ozick
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion (reviewed here)
The Group by Mary McCarthy
The Company She Keeps by Mary McCarthy
The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor
Anywhere But Here by Mona Simpson
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (reviewed here)
Mr. Fortune's Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter
Progress of Stories by Laura Riding
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Booker winner)
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Possession by A.S. Byatt
The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (reviewed here)
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (reviewed here)
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
Things Invisible to See by Nancy Willard (reviewed here)
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Civil Wars by Rosellen Brown
Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr
The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford
Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
The Mind-Body Problem by Rebecca Goldstein
The Children of Men by P.D. James
Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon
Collected Stories by Katherine Mansfield
Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis
The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (tried, gave up)
The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien
Realms of Gold by Margaret Drabble
The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble
The Locusts Have No King by Dawn Powell
The Women's Room by Marilyn French
The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai
The Drowning Season by Alice Hoffman
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer
NOTE
Updated on June 27, 2019.
OTHERS READING THESE BOOKS
If you would like to be listed here, please leave a comment with your links to any progress reports or reviews and I will add them here.
I suspect that the “250 or so distinguished women writers and critics” were all American as the list is predominantly so. There are a few British writers and a token Canadian but it's terribly skewed to American writers. I'm sure they wrote a number of the top books of 20th century, but surely there are more international voices that could be represented.
ReplyDeleteI recant: there are more British novelists that I realized on this list. and actually TWO Canadians. But, still . . .
ReplyDeleteI almost stopped reading at "Gone with the Wind." Really? How was "top novels" defined? That said, what's your take, since you've read so many of them?
ReplyDeleteDebbie: There's no question that the results are haphazard! Jong says in her article that she opened the discussion to anyone on her website, and the people she solicited directly were only those she had correct email addresses for. I appreciate her candor!
ReplyDeleteJG: Jong explained that respondents were frank because the responses were anonymous. "They apologized for liking certain books that they deemed to be important in their own lives – Gone With the Wind and Interview With the Vampire are two examples – but that they suspected Helen Vendler and Harold Bloom might pooh-pooh."
I understand. Gone with the Wind may not be high art, but I read it first in high school and again in college and I can't think of a book that did more to inspire my love of reading back then. And it did win the Pulitzer Prize in 1937.
My experience with the books on the list has been mixed. I loved Fear of Flying, Play It as It Lays, and Cold Comfort Farm, which I read because they were on this list. But I could have happily skipped The Bell Jar, Song of Solomon, and The Blue Flower.
Mostly I like the list for introducing me to authors new to me, even though I read different book by them, not the books listed. My favorite new-to-me authors are Mary McCarthy, Barbara Pym, and Fay Weldon.
I've never heard of this list and a lot of those on the list are unknown to me. Hmmm, American-heavy? I guess it is what it is. I did start Fear of Flying but DNF it at the time. I'll eventually read some Jong ... and maybe move on to her list :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Gilion! A list without snobbery (because it's anonymous) is an excellent idea and certainly removes the "shoulds" from what people might like or dislike. Your point is well taken - books serve different purposes, and one of the benefits of lists is to broaden our reading horizons. How nice that we can read and judge for ourselves.
ReplyDelete