Greatest Novel of All-Time

[waterytart]

One advantage of beginning early is seeing your reactions change.

When I was 15, Heathcliff was desperately romantic. At 45? What a shmuck!

 

[Azrael]

Another one. 'Greatest American Novel Since WWII'?

www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/booming/21friday-booming.html?smid=tw-nytimes

 

[Dick Whitman]

Another one. 'Greatest American Novel Since WWII'?

www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/booming/21friday-booming.html?smid=tw-nytimes

"Lolita"?
"Catch 22"?
"Garp"?
Another Irving: "Owen Meany."

Are short story collections eligible? If so, there's "Cathedral" and "The Things They Carried." And, just a personal favorite, "This Boy's Life."

 

[The Big Ragu]

John Irving is my guiltiest pleasure, and I love Owen Meany, but even I will put foot down and say that no way anything he has done belongs in any greatest book list, even if you limit it to the last 50 years. You want to argue for Michael Chabon, OK. Or a Cormac McCarthy, fine. But no way on Irving, in my humble humble.

 

[doctorquant]

Another one. 'Greatest American Novel Since WWII'?

www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/booming/21friday-booming.html?smid=tw-nytimes

"Lolita"?
"Catch 22"?
"Garp"?
Another Irving: "Owen Meany."

Are short story collections eligible? If so, there's "Cathedral" and "The Things They Carried." And, just a personal favorite, "This Boy's Life."

Slaughterhouse Five
A Confederacy of Dunces

 

[EStreetJoe]

I call bullship. Now way kids these days would put in the time and effort it takes to properly burn a book.

Would the modern-day equivalent be hacking into the sites selling the e-reader form and deleting from the seller's inventory or doing a browser highjack anytime someone tried to download it?

 

[EStreetJoe]

Huffington Post has the bracket up and is asking people to vote:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/16/best-novel-of-all-time_n_1792173.html?ir=Books

Six pages and nobody's mentioned my error?
Huffington is calling it best novel and in my thread title I called it greatest novel.

 

[Zeke12]

Another one. 'Greatest American Novel Since WWII'?

www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/booming/21friday-booming.html?smid=tw-nytimes

"Lolita"?
"Catch 22"?
"Garp"?
Another Irving: "Owen Meany."

Are short story collections eligible? If so, there's "Cathedral" and "The Things They Carried." And, just a personal favorite, "This Boy's Life."

If The Things They Carried is a novel, then it's that.

Do we think it's a novel?

 

[Double Down]

It's definitely a novel.

 

[Azrael]

I'm never sure. A 'composite novel' or a book of 'interrelated shorts stories'?

Is 'Winesburg, Ohio' a novel or a short story cycle?

 

[Dick Whitman]

More recently in that vein, "Olive Kitteridge."

 

[Azrael]

Could say the same of Diaz's 'This Is How You Lose Her.'