Megan Stielstra's Blog

Time magazine released their list of the top 100 novels (written between the years 1923 and the present. I wonder, why 1923? Why not 1924 or 1922?). I have mixed feelings about such lists. I remember five or so years ago when the Modern Library published their top 100, I got all bent out of shape (along with lots of critics and, well, most everybody who reads) because of everything that had been left off. Then, I counted up and realized that I’d only read twenty-eight of the books on the list (thirty-four off the Reader’s list) (actually, twenty-seven and thirty-three, respectively. I couldn't get through Tropic of Cancer to save my life) so how could I be whining that there were better books when I wasn’t familiar with the competition? I could, however, whine because everyone on the list was male and white and dead, and I did, and I do, and I think (I hope!) that’s (slowly, slowly) being rectified.

So here comes the Time magazine list, of which I’ve read thirty-eight, and initially I felt pretty damn good about that, but then I did the math (this is so fifth grade story problem! If Megan has read thirty-eight books out of a hundred, how many does she have left to read? What fraction of the top 100 books has she read? What happens of you subtract Tropic of Cancer, which, seriously, she’s not going back to?) and I’ve got a lot of work cut out for me. Why bother, you might ask, and I’d answer like this: “Because I still want to bitch and moan about all the great books NOT on the list, and I hate people who bitch and moan without making informed decisions (unless they do so on their blogs, which are somebody’s personal space so, by all means, bitch and moan, but the point is, I don’t just want to bitch and moan on my BLOG about these lists, I want to bitch and moan on very public space where intellectual dialogue is supposed to occur!) thus I feel compelled to be informed and see what’s really up with the sixty-two books I haven't yet read."

More math: I am thirty years old. I started reading seriously when I was about sixteen, so let's say it's taken me fourteen years to read the thirty-eight I've read off Time's list (excepting, of course, Are You There God it's Me, Margaret, which I read when I was ten and am thrilled to see it made a list. Any list. It's list material for sure). If that's the rate I'm going at (not counting all the Non-List-making reading I do which includes, yet is not limited to: contemporary fiction of both the mainstream variety and, more and more these days, the independent press. Nonfiction. Lit journals, online journals, blogs, news media, periodicals both good and horrible (I'm trying to say here that I read US and In Touch and all that shit) student work, soooo much of which is awesome, and then--THEN--there's all those novels deemed "classics" which apparently aren't worthy of lists. For example, Anna Karenina, which is so fucking good I die a little bit whenever I read it) it'll take me (approx.) twenty-six years to read the remaining sixty-two books on Time magazine's list. I'll be fifty-six years old. And by that time, there'll be NEW lists, MORE lists, a thousand lists of thousands of books for me to read!

It's a little bit daunting, but I'm up for the task. Check back in twenty-six years.