Top 10 novels.

September 30th, 2007Filed under: BooksYour Say: 0

I don’t find it particularly difficult to pull together a list of top 10 albums or films, but deciding on the top 10 novels of all time is no easy task. There is always plenty of talk about movies at the office, or amongst friends, and your favourites are bound to turn up on television or warrant a re-screening at the cinema from time to time. At most, it only takes a couple of hours on a rainy weekend to revisit an old classic. And of course, it’s even easier to rekindle the joy of a favourite album from an era long past. Novels are less accessible. Even those that arguably shaped the very fabric of your life often end up as little more than dust collectors in the hidden folds of a forgotten bookcase. And should you find yourself one afternoon with a once loved dog-eared masterpiece in hand, the sheer investment in time and energy (and head space) required to retrace the story from cover to cover can simply be overwhelming (rereading an epic such as Anna Karenina is not something to be undertaken in a commercial break). However, i’ve thought back carefully over the years, and i consider the list that follows to be a fair assessment of the novels that have most profoundly fashioned my identity.

There are perhaps a few surprises in this list. I’ve opted for The Restaurant at the End of the Universe over The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I’ve also included the exceptional graphic novel by legendary comic book artist Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. There is a mix of the old school classics, with novels such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and Heart of Darkness, but there is also a brush of modernity with High Fidelity and The Virgin Suicides.

There’s limited room in any top 10 list, and it was with some pain that i was forced to omit a number of the classics, including Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Furthermore, i was hard pressed to identify a single standout performance from two of my most favoured authors, Isaac Asimov and Ben Elton; the consistency of their output ironically precluding any one of their novels from selection. And as i decided that no author should appear twice, i sadly had to pass over some of the all time great stories, including Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, and East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

It occurred to me as i compiled this list how focused my reading has become. I read more non-fiction than fiction, and when i do read novels, i tend to work my way through the complete works of a single author. I guess i’m not a particularly promiscuous reader. As such, i’m conscious of the fact that there are many great authors that i’ve yet to read. I suspect my tendency for author monogamy stems from the difficulty i have in discovering new material. A thirty second trailer may lead you to an otherwise unsuspecting film, and a half-heard sound bite from the radio may prove sufficient incentive for you to investigate a previously unknown artist. It’s not so easy with a novel. The blurbs on back covers are typically nondescript, and book cover design has become such a fine art these days, that even the most trite novella are adorned with irresistibly crafted dust jackets that aim to hide the rubbish within. How to choose?

In the absence of any clear methodology for discovering new authors, it’s amazing how many of the novels on this list foisted themselves into my life without rhyme or reason. I selected The Martian Chronicles from a second hand bookstore as a young boy on school break, simply because i liked the ribbed purple texture of the cover. I selected The Grapes of Wrath because it was named in the liner notes as a major source of inspiration for Bruce Springsteen’s masterpiece, and my favourite album, The Ghost of Tom Joad. And in the absence of anything else written in English, i read High Fidelity whilst riding on the back of a truck through Africa after fortuitously discovering the novel in some odd compartment under the trailer. It’s amazing how life works.

Here is the list, presented in no particular order.