Time has named its Best 100 Novels from 1923 to the present.
Interesting to note that both Jonathan Franzen and William Gaddis made the list. Whether this brings peace to Ben Marcus or causes his head to explode, it’s anyone’s guess.
Glad to see some of my favorites included, like Atonement, The Sportswriter, and somewhat suprisingly, Martin Amis’ Money, probably the funniest book I’ve read, even if the conceit’s a bit shabby in the end. It also contains one of my favorite descriptions:
“The birds of New York shivered and croaked among the bent branches. The birds of New York have more or less given up the ghost, and who can blame them? They have been processed by Manhattan and the twentieth century. A standard-issue British pigeon would look like a cockatoo among them — a robin redbreast would look like a bird of paradise. The birds of New York are old spivs in dirty macs. They live off charity and welfare handouts. They cough and grumble and flap their arms for warmth. Declassed, they have slipped several links in the chain of being: it’s been rough all right. No more songs or plump worms or flights to summer seas. The twentieth century has been a bad century for the birds of New York, and they know it.”
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