100 Best Novels: Really ?

Here’s the Modern Library Association list of 100 best novels.  You have to chuckle at how this list would change if given to you, or to him or to her, or to me.

100. Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons
99. J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man
98. James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice
97. Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
96. William Styron, Sophie’s Choice
95. Iris Murdoch, Under the Net
94. Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
93. John Fowles, The Magus
92. William Kennedy, Ironweed
91. Erskine Caldwell, Tobacco Road
90. Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
89. Henry Green, Loving
88. Jack London, The Call of the Wild
87. Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives’ Tale
86. E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime
85. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
84. Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart
83. V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
82. Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose
81. Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March
80. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
79. E.M. Forster, A Room with a View
78. Rudyard Kipling, Kim
77. James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
76. Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
75. Evelyn Waugh, Scoop
74. Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
73. Nathaniel West, The Day of the Locust
72. V.S. Naipaul, A House for Mr. Biswas
71. Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica
70. Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandra Quartet (Four books: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea)
69. Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
68. Sinclair Lewis, Main Street
67. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
66. W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
65. Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
64. J.D. Salinger, A Catcher in the Rye
63. John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle
62. James Jones, From Here to Eternity
61. Wilia Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
60. Walker Percy, The Moviegoer
59. Max Beerbohm, Zulieka Dobson
58. Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
57. Ford Maddox Ford, Parade’s End (Four books: Some Do Not…, No More Parades, A Man Could Stand Up…, and Last Post)
56. Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
55. Jack Kerouac, On the Road
54. William Faulkner, Light in August
53. Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
52. Phillip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint
51. Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
50. Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
49. D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love
48. D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow
47. Joseph Conrad, Nostromo
46. Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent
45. Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
44. Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point
43. Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time (12 novels: A Question of Upbringing., A Buyer’s Market, The Acceptance World, At Lady Molly’s, Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant, The Kindly Ones, The Valley of Bones, The Soldier’s Art, The Military Philosophers, Books Do Furnish a Room, Temporary Kings, and Hearing Secret Harmonies)
42. James Dickey, Deliverance
41. William Golding, Lord of the Flies
40. Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
39. James Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain
38. E.M. Forster, Howards End
37. Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
36. Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men
35. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
34. Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust
33. Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
32. Henry James, The Golden Bowl
31. George Orwell, Animal Farm
30. Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier
29. James T. Farrell, Studs Lonigan (Three books: Young Lonigan, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan, and Judgment Day)
28. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night
27. Henry James, The Ambassadors
26. Henry James, The Wings of the Dove
25. E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
24. Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
23. John Dos Passos, USA Trilogy (Three books: The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money)
22. John O’Hara, Appointment in Samarra
21. Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King
20. Richard Wright, Native Son
19. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
18. Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
17. Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
16. Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy
15. Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
14. Robert Graves, I, Claudius
13. George Orwell, 1984
12. Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh
11. Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano
10. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
9. D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers
8. Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon
7. Joseph Heller, Catch-22
6. William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
5. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
4. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
3. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
1. James Joyce, Ulysses