Musings on Beloved...Continued From the Other Day

Does anyone actually like, I mean really like, the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison? I ask this after our discussion on dialect being used as a storytelling device the other day. It got a lot of feedback and most of that feedback that involved this particular book was negative. I’m not going to say it necessarily surprised me because I didn’t really like the book either, but it was curious. So I wanted to discuss it a bit further. And by "it" I meant this book.  

Now, I thought Beloved was a very important book to have read. I was glad to have read it. But I couldn’t say that I liked it. Interesting how that stuff works, isn't it? It's only happened with a few books. It was a very challenging and disturbing read. Any of you who have read the book I'm sure can understand what I mean. It's about a fugitive slave woman that kills her one daughter and attempts to murder her other children when she's caught by authorities and then spends the rest of the story haunted. See? Disturbing. And the dialect was very difficult to get through. More difficult than any other book that I can recall right now actually. But I cannot say that I particularly liked it.

But, if I recall correctly, the reason I picked up the book in the first place was because it had gotten so much critical praise. I mean, it won the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Times declared it to be the one of the best works of fiction in the last 25 years. It said these things right on the back cover.

But almost everyone I talk to thinks this is certainly NOT one of Morrison’s best works. So that begs the question then, what do the critics see in it that almost everyone else does not? Is it the subject matter? But it’s not like Morrison’s other books don’t deal in grim and disturbing subject matters as well. What do you all think? Or who out there agrees with the critics? Who thinks this IS her best book? All opinions welcome!

Dialect or No Dialect?

Quickly now, because I don’t have much time…how do you all feel about books written in dialect? I know some people that simply refuse to read books that are written this way which I think is ultimately a shame because they miss out on some sure winners but at the same time I understand because they can be difficult to read.

I recently (as in today) started The Color Purple by Alice Walker and so far so good, but of course it’s written using dialect and at first it was rather difficult to settle in. Now I think I’ve adjusted to this type of writing in the book so I understand what’s going on more but I must admit that the first several pages were somewhat of a blur.

I remember when I read Beloved over a year ago, that was some of the most difficult dialect writing I’ve ever come across. So, like I said, I can understand why people would avoid books that utilize this device of storytelling. What are your feelings? Do you like it because it makes the book feel more authentic? Do you feel it’s an unnecessary annoyance? I’m curious :)

Are These Really Classics?

So I'm making my post today from Wall-to-Wall Books’ post about this list of “New Classics” over at Entertainment Weekly‘s website (I don't know when the list was made because I can't find it, maybe in 2008?). I find it especially funny since they’re listed as being from 1983-2008 and so these would really be the classics of my lifetime…apparently.

Now, no offense to Entertainment Weekly, but this is not the website or magazine I go to when I’m fiending for book reviews/knowledge/tips/anything book related really (okay maybe that is a shot at Entertainment Weekly but the only books I’ve seen highlighted recently on there are Bristol Palin’s memoirs and the Twilight series).

Anyway, I’ve only read 11 books on this list of 100 “New Classics” but even still I can’t say that out of those 11 all of them should be on there. I thought The Daily Show’s book America was laugh-out-loud hilarious, but would I ever deem to label it a classic? Um, I don’t think so. Sorry Jon Stewart. I still love you! And while The Road is the only Cormac McCarthy novel I’ve read so far (and I did find it incredible) I’m surprised that’s the one that was picked of his works since I’ve heard so many people like other books of his better. In fact, of the ones I’ve read I can only really say there are two I fully agree with: The Handmaid’s Tale and Beloved. I fully see those being classics in 100 years. I want to say The Poisonwood Bible as well but I’m not quite done with it yet so I’m refraining. The Corrections? Yuck!

So here’s the list (along with the date of publication). I’ve bolded the ones I’ve read.


1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
36. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
47. World’s Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators’ Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)

So what do you all think of this lovely list of “New Classics?” Are there any glaring omissions? Any huge question marks looming in your mind? What did they get completely and utterly wrong?