Universally Acknowledged

Some of you may have read this new list of the best 100 first lines in literature. It's basically all over the place, with some excellent choices and some bad ones. Anyway, Jane came in at 2 with "it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife," which is pretty much universally acknowledged to be a damn good first sentence. But it's become so overused, so shorthandish, that sometimes it's easy to forget WHY this sentence works so well. Here is what i said in its defense over at Numero Cinq:

Austen’s sentence has become a cliche, but it’s actually so perfect, so laden with irony (Her “truth” is in fact, not universally acknowledged but rather assumed to be so by her characters. So the statement that it is universal is, itself, a specific non-universal viewpoint. This is how people talk when they’re unable to justify their weird social ideas–they assume “everyone knows” x or y). It sets the tone for her playful use of free-indirect discourse, the way she never lets you stay comfortable knowing whether there’s an omniscient narrator or she’s taking the limited viewpoint of her heroine. And it also introduces he themes of her book: the flawed perspective of individuals, the absurdity of social assumptions. All in all, a job well done.
Never question Saint Jane!

And here is what Simon said, helping me formulate the above argument. As you can see, I spiced up my own argument with his brilliance.

Simon: it's a well constructed sentence that flows very nicely

me: also it's not universally acknowledged

Simon: there is a level of subtly accomplished irony

me: thats the whole point

Simon: the statement that it is universal is, itself, a specific non-universal viewpoint

irony!

1:01 PM exposes the way people talk

assert things as givens when they don't want to (or are unable to) explain their reasoning

attempt to just establish certain mores/assumptions as fact

and since clashing perspectives and mores are the major theme of the book, it sets that out quite nicely

1:02 PM but these things only become clear once you have read the book and become acquainted w the characters

hence, good sentence

me: this is in line with what I'm writing

Simon: WORD

1:03 PM the book is all about why people say certain things at certain times, and how that lines up with what they actually believe / what is actually true

Readers, why do you love this sentence, or any of Jane's first sentences (they're all gems, as far as I'm concerned, particularly Emma, Persuasion, P+P, NA)?

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How Many Books Did You Read in 2009?

Here's my final tally: 57! I kicked my own ass, after being inspired by commenters last year who read way more books than I. This list includes 10 Sookie Stackhouse books, 2 Alexander McCall Smith novels, 12 PW review books, a goodly number of thick feminist books, three 19th century novels, one 18th century novel, FIVE Pulitzer winners, two obscure Edith Wharton novels, and a sprinkling of insanity!
How would you rate your year in reading, numerically or otherwise? Happy almost New Year, readers!

1. Morality for Beautiful Girls, Alexander McCall Smith
2. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, Michael Chabon
   
4. The Lake Shore Limited Sue Miller 2010
5. March, Geraldine Brooks
6. Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell 2009
7. The Blythes are Quoted, L. M. Montgomery 2009
8. Lost: A Novel,Lichtenstein, Alice 2010
9. Push.,Sapphire 2000
10. Whitethorn Woods (Vintage), Binchy, Maeve 2008
11. When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, Gail Collins, 2009
12. Living Room: A Novel, Rachel Sherman 2009
13. Netherland (Vintage Contemporaries), Joseph O'Neill 2009
14. The Solitude of Prime Numbers: A Novel, Paolo Giordano 2010
15. A Touch of Dead (Sookie Stackhouse: The Complete Stories), Charlaine Harris
    
16. Dead and Gone (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 9), Charlaine HarrisHarris, Charlaine 2009
17. All Together Dead (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 7), Charlaine Harris
18. From Dead to Worse (Southern Vampire Mysteries, No. 8), Charlaine Harris
19. Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 4), Charlaine Harris
20. Dead as a Doornail (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 5), Charlaine Harris
21. Definitely Dead: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel (Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood) Charlaine
    
22. Club Dead, Charlaine Harris
23. Vinyl Cafe Unplugged, Stuart McLean 2009
    
24. Living Dead in Dallas, Charlaine Harris 2009
25. Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, Jon Krakauer 2009
26. The Kingdom of Ohio, Matthew Flaming 2009
    
27. The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday (Isabel Dalhousie Mysteries), Alexander McCall Smith
28. Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, Lizzie Skurnick2009
    
29. The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Classics), John Steinbeck
30. Jamaica Inn, Daphne Du Maurier
31. That Old Cape Magic, Richard Russo 2009
    
32. Shanghai Girls: A Novel, Lisa See 2009
    
33. The Glimpses Of The Moon Edith Wharton
34. Picking Bones from Ash: A Novel, Marie Mutsuki Mockett 2009
    
35. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn 2009 (50%)
    
36. Dead Until Dark (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 1), Charlaine Harris
37. Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri
38. Breathing Lessons: A Novel, Anne Tyler
39. Moby-Dick: or, The Whale, Herman Melville
40. New World Monkeys: A Novel, Nancy Mauro 2009
    
41. Day After Night: A Novel, Anita Diamant 2009
    
42. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout
43. Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded, Samuel Richardson
44. The Broken Teaglass: A Novel, Emily Arsenault2009
    
45. The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
46. The Buccaneers, Edith Wharton
47. A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx, Elaine Showalter (50%)
    
48. Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, Kathryn Joyce (50%)
    
49. The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World, Michelle Goldberg (50%)
50. The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women, Jessica Valenti 2009
51. I'm So Happy for You: A novel about best friends, Lucinda Rosenfeld 2009
52. Wetlands, Charlotte Roche 2009
53. Taking Back God: American Women Rising Up for Religious Equality, Leora Tanenbaum 2009
    
54. On Writing, Stephen King
55. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz2008
56. Hello Goodbye: A Novel, Emily Chenoweth 2009
    
57. Follow Me: A Novel, Joanna Scott 2009
    
58. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
    
59. On Beauty , Zadie Smith
    

"Best" lists stink: Worst books of the decade?

What were your worst books of the decade?: "

It's all very well to make lists of the decade's best books, but surely the worst books would give future generations a truer glimpse of the 'noughties. Let's name and shame.

Thus asks Sam Jordison at the Guardian, who adds that he'd put nearly every single Booker Prize-winning book on his list! Harsh.

So have at it, readers. What books, published between 2000 and now, have been terrible, or overrated, or otherwise unreadable?

Best Last Lines in Literature

We love talking about first lines, but now (thanks to political blogger Matt Yglesias) here's the American Book Review's list of 100 best last lines, as a PDF. It's a little heavy on the po-mo but a GREAT conversation starter.

Here's how I'd arrange my top 15 on the list, based on books I've actually read, and last lines that have made me gasp, sob, cry, shake my head, or think. (The ranking #s from the official list precede them) I think it makes my populist/Victorian/feminist taste very clear. There's a lot of Joyce in here because he's such a master at building you up to a crescendo and then making your brain explode with his last words.

3. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
–F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) [You win, Scotty]

4. I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. –James Joyce, Ulysses (1922) [YES! the actual last sentence goes on for pages and pages. I copied out a bigger chunk of the soliloquy here]

11. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the
universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. –James Joyce, “The Dead” in Dubliners (1914) [utterly perfect, comes to mind all the time]

29. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive:
for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that
things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the
number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. –George
Eliot, Middlemarch (1871–72) [A tear-jerker and profound, too. I've written about this one here]

5. But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt
Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there
before. –Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) [Just brilliant last line. I <3> Huck.]

14. Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity! –Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener (1853) [My HLP was just talking with me about how Bartleby is the first countercultural hero in Am-Lit]

45. Are there any questions? –Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1986) [Um, yes, there are a ton. So ironic.]

46. It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just
circles and circles of sorrow. –Toni Morrison, Sula (1973) [This one made me cry, too. Wrote about this here]

77. “Tomorrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.” –Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (1936) [A cliche, but true.]

99. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see. –Zora
Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) [Really triumphant, life-affirming last line, for a heroine who's seen so much death]

56. He knelt by the bed and bent over her, draining their last moment to its lees;
and in the silence there passed between them the word which made all clear. –Edith
Wharton, The House of Mirth (1905) [Wrote about this here--NEVER fails to make me cry]


64. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the
rain. –Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929) [Wahhhh]

52. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. –J. D.
Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951) [Wahhhh, part 2]

59. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead. –James Joyce, A
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) [So clear, yet so mysterious, a great line to utter when you're on the cusp of a new beginning or endeavor]

41. I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering
among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the
grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth. –Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847) [gee, Mr. Lockwood, how could anybody ever imagine such a thing? Maybe by reading the last 300 pages?]

Another Top Ten Book List Sans Les Femmes

While things improve slowly, we've certainly seen this before.
This time, the culprit my (otherwise wonderful! really!) occasional employer, Publishers Weekly.

Here's the list. Fact-check me if I'm wrong about the complete lack of estrogen here.

Previously:

Another Book List Leaves the Ladies Out: WSJ Edition

Another Book Listie Leaves the Ladies Out

National Book Award: Testosteroney

Anti-feminist book critics review feminist works

Times' Gender ratio improves

Pulitzers: kinda testosteroney

Literary Linkage--Emma and Booklists

• Via bronteblog, Penguin has announced a new shtick to encourage reading the greats: "ten essential classics," a new list which includes some EBC faves. Check out the site here.

• Mags' UK readers at Austenblog submit their VERY mixed reviews of Emma '09, installment 1.

Question of the Week: Which Books Would You De-Canonize?

Via Jacket Copy, I came across this literary site that's decided on ten classics NOT worth reading, including a bunch of books that I kinda agree are overrated, at least literarily speaking, and some that I think are definitely not. IMHO, the sage tomes they chose to eliminate include works by Woolf, Dos Passos, DeLillo, even Kerouac. I also agree that A Tale of Two Cities is not Dickens at his best, at all (he's better as a revolutionary himself than a reactionary!) However I'd question other excisions they made--The Road rocks! Maybe my readers vehemently disagree, though.

Anyway, take a look at their post, and then come back here and let us know which books you'd clip from the universal "must read" list. Wish you could get back those hours you spent pushing through the dense prose of a vaunted classic? Get your revenge below.

Another Book Listie Leaves the Ladies Out: WSJ edition

via twitter-er frausallybenz:

Ahh, summer. When a massive chunk of the books people want to read on the beach have bare legs on the cover and feature pink and blue lettering, but are not worthy of mention by the tastemakers. Or something like that ;)

Today's culprit: the venerable, yet stuffy, WSJ. Although the Wall Street Journal summer book list has some good options, only two out of the nineteen are penned by she-folk. And they are both in the fiction section. Come on, people! This is getting ridiculous. Also, it looks like VERY FEW are written by POC, although obviously you can't tell that by names alone. Sigh.

Previously in this category:

Another Book Listie Leaves the Ladies Out

National Book Award: Testosteroney

Anti-feminist book critics review feminist works

Times' Gender ratio improves

Pulitzers: kinda testosteroney

Another Book Listie Leaves the Ladies Out:

Carolyn Kellogg at Jacket Copy takes on yet another "100 best books of the century" list that has only 7 female-authored tomes in its ranks. This one is a list curated by Dick Meyer at NPR, who admits to its being "male" and "parochial".

Says Kellogg:

---

it's certainly not my list. While I wouldn't call it parochial, I would say that a lot of the books are the kind that were assigned to be read in school, which indicates a kind of incurious reader to me. Misspelling Nathanael West's name (as Nathaniel), and including two books each by Philip Roth, John Le Carre, Richard Ford and John Updike doesn't help to convince me otherwise.

But truly astonishing is the fact that only seven books by women make the list. And number 100 — Nicole Krauss' "A History of Love" — was published in 2005, so it doesn't even belong in a list that spans 1900-2000. Which would cut down the number of female authors to six.

---

This nonsense is why the Radcliffe list is so awesome and fun.


Previously in this category:

National Book Award: Testosteroney

Anti-feminist book critics review feminist works

Times' Gender ratio improves

Pulitzers: kinda testosteroney

It would be remiss of me not to mention

as someone on my feminist list-serv did, that the National Book Critics Circle Awards, given this week, had absolutely ZERO female winners, despite there being many uterine-Americans among the nominees.

I cast no aspersions, I just think it's important to keep pointing this out.

Previously:

Anti-feminist book critics review feminist works

Times' Gender ratio improves

Pulitzers: kinda testosteroney

Book Lists

As a rule, I've never met a "top # of anything" list that I agreed with. But just like those old VH1 countdowns, lists are great for stimulating discussion and reminding us what holes  we may have in our movie/book/music consumption. So for kicks, I've posted two lists that I use to help occasionally guide my reading. One is a list of 20th century novels in English--its compiled by the Radcliffe publishing course, whatever that is, in response to the white-man-heavy Modern Library list. 

The other is modified by me from a Columbia concentration on the 19th century british novel. It shows me which major novels in that category I have yet to read ("Barchester Towers, for one, and the non-"Vanity Fair" Thackeray stuff). I put them on the web with the novels I've read highlighted, so you can see the embarrassing gaps  and impressive things I've read.

Now I need to find a list of 50 or so pre-1900 American and European classics to round it out. Are there any?

Here's the 20th century one.

And the 19th century british ones.

Hurrah! The Times publishes its ten best books of 2006 list...

fairly boring, as always. They omit Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, and Updike (all of whom make it onto their "100 notable books" list) but include Richard Ford's latest. And they do love Marisha Pessl very very much, which threatens to arouse my dormant catty jealousy. But no! Down girl. I'm sure she's lovely, and very deserving of this praise. Really.

Here's the 10 best list, ladies and Gs.