I.
In the aftermath of the Best Fiction of the Millennium series – given that none of my own favorite five made the list, either the “professional” list or the readers list – I am thinking about awards, recognition, popularity; and how reading (and critiquing) fiction is, on the one hand, a communal activity; but also a highly personal one.
Of the Pros’ 20 (the list to which my votes were applied): I’d read seven; two were on my serious to-read list; two were on my “if I can get to them or if a strong personal recommendation comes my way” list; three I’d heard probably way too much about, and so had decided to pass. About the remaining six, I had no particular feelings one way or another. Among the seven I’d read: two were among my favorites, though not my top five; one I found “just fine;” one I had strong negative feelings about; one I found disappointing relative to my expectations; and two I struggled to get through, for reasons I’ve yet to precisely identify.
So much of the joy of reading is, I think, what the reader brings to the work, and the particular alchemy that happens when reader and book collide. I myself would be hard pressed to ever pursue book reviewing in any serious way, because I could see each review devolving into maudlin hand-wringing and tedious qualifying, the prose overwhelmed by appositives and parentheticals, detailing how most of the reasons for why I did or did not connect with the book have to do with my station in life, my mood this week, the book I read previous to this one, the way in which the protagonist reminds me of my cousin Josephine, etc.
II.
My Top Five works of fiction since 2000, for the record:
Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany
The Name of the World by Denis Johnson
The Maytrees by Annie Dillard
Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño
Jim the Boy by Tony Earley
My #6 (a backup, because initially I didn’t know if short fiction (my Bolaño choice) would qualify) was The Tutor of History by the Nepali novelist and essayist Manjushree Thapa. Published by Penguin UK, Tutor — the first major English-language novel by a Nepali writer – was not released in the U.S.; and so not many American readers know of it. But this was a book that got me out of a reader’s slump (as described by Lydia Kiesling in an essay earlier this summer)—a slump that was composed, as it turned out, of three award-winning novels.
IV.
Why did Rachel Kushner’s Telex From Cuba, Lily Tuck’s The News From Paraguay, and Ali Smith’s The Accidental all come to feel more like required classroom reading than the vivid and continuous dream (in John Gardner’s words) we hope for when we read fiction? Here, after all, I had a triad of major award-winners – National Book Award finalist, National Book Award winner, and Whitbread Award winner (and Booker Prize shortlisted), respectively. And yet I found myself, midway through each, trudging through, sighing deeply, and saying to myself like a quarterback who’s been sacked one too many times, “Ok. I’m going back in.”
It struck me that the three books happened to share a common feature: shifting point-of-view. By my count, Telex, which takes place in the American expat community in Cuba during the years leading up to Castro’s revolution, is narrated via eight different points of view — four of which are major characters, the others minor — alternating chapter by chapter. One of these is a first-person voice, that of KC Stites, the bland younger son of a United Fruit Company executive. In Paraguay, which is also based on historical events, point-of-view shifts from paragraph to paragraph, in clipped, episodic fashion, among a wide-ranging cast of characters, including Francisco Solano Lopez (Franco), Paraguay’s heir-dictator at the middle of the 19th century; his Eva Peron-esque mistress, Ella Lynch, an Irish beauty; Ella’s wet nurses and maidservants; Franco’s fat and petty sisters; a self-righteous American minister; a disgraced American doctor; and dozens of other characters including assorted diplomats, soldiers, and Franco’s Brazilian and Argentine adversaries. Ella is the one character who comes to us in (pseudo) first-person, via her diary entries. The Accidental tells the story of the affluent, discontented Smart family, on holiday in contemporary Norfolk, England. Again, sections are narrated from alternating points of view, by each of four angst-ridden family members—two adults, two teenagers—as their lives are disrupted by Amber, a seductive hippie-girl stranger, who, in a familiar trope, shows up out of nowhere and Changes Everything. Amber is the one character (the fifth point of view) who narrates in first-person – an abstract, sinister voice that may or may not be hallucinatory.
“Ambitious” shows up frequently in reviews of these novels, along with “heady” and “inventive.” Each aims to bring to the reader not a conventional journey-through-transformation-with-protagonist, but rather a kind of collective psyche of place and time; hence, the diverse points of view on a single set of events. As readers, we’ve become accustomed to this fragmented, collaged approach to narrative (Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction arguably brought this expectation fully into the mainstream), embracing the notion that truth is relative, and thus the more versions and perspectives – i.e. the more prismatic the presentation – the closer we come to the whole truth.
But the overlay of a complex point-of-view structure onto an already thorny narrative canvas seemed to generate too much static in the reception. And by the time I came to the end of my summer reading, I was tempted to think that the plural-main-character device just doesn’t work (note: apart from my disappointment with the reading experience, this was an especially low moment, since my own forthcoming novel features an ensemble cast and shifting points of view). In each case I felt that the sort-of main character – the one first-person narrator – was the least compelling; and that there was too much competition between character-as-protagonist and setting-or-ethos-as-protagonist. Ultimately, place and time and culture wreaked havoc, while characters became mere casualties of the battle of ideas and historical forces, chewed up and spit out with marked detachment. As Joanne Omang of The Washington Post wrote in her review of Paraguay:
The sheer sprawl of Tuck’s subject matter seems to have overwhelmed her; she has put it all into her story without focus, rather than pruning away the undergrowth… We emerge with neither a grasp of the historical period nor any feeling for its shapers, real or fictional… Perhaps this frustrating approach is meant to evoke the disjointed nature of human experience, the measuring out of lives in coffee spoons, the inadequacy of memory, the sheer coquetry of chance and life and death, etc. If so, it is certainly just as frustrating as real life can be — for example, when one is hoping to sit down with a vivid story and learn a little something about how to be a full human being while yet surviving during violent and turbulent times.
A strong protagonist, I thought; that’s the bottom line. Likable, unlikable, whatever; we – emotionally-ravenous readers (which is a redundancy, really) – we need a through-line, not just a complex or dynamic set of circumstances. In stories of and about shapelessness, we need a primary shaper. Maybe, I thought, as readers, we are fundamentally monogamous.
V.
But then. The Tutor of History raised the lid off of my airless resignation. In Tutor, Thapa has done what I had longed for Kushner, Tuck, and Smith to do—what seems deceptively simple but clearly is not, given the caliber of these writers—which is to bring us both the story of a society in chaos, i.e. the bustling Nepali town of Khareini Tar (circa late 1990s); and the beguiling individuals who people that society. She has sacrificed neither a sense of political-societal complexity, nor depth and sympathy of character. In the end, I wanted to both visit and study this obscure and politically turbulent corner of the Subcontinent, and to sit down with each character over tea.
The book blurb identifies four main characters; I would cite eight: Rishi, the eponymous tutor, a rebellious drifter and disillusioned communist who gives private lessons in history for his livelihood; Giridhar, the alcoholic chairman of the People’s Party’s district committee and an administrative man who suffers from thwarted political ambition; Om Gurung, a large-hearted former British Gurkha, who works along side Giridhar on the campaign; Binita, a reclusive young widow on the margins of society as a result of her manlessness, who runs a small tea shop where the campaign committee congregates; Binita’s beautiful and fatally prideful niece Sani, and her brother-in-law, the famous cinema actor Nayan Raj, who becomes the Party’s well-meaning if a bit misguided candidate for the local parliament seat (driving Giridhar deeper into drunken misery); Harsha Bahadur, the ugly, undernourished Khadka boy who ruins Sani’s reputation by declaring his love for her; and Chiranjibi, a successful businessman who undergoes a quiet conversion to community organizing and political idealism.
There is something here for everyone – idealism, petty corruption, personal rebellion, despair, ambition, beauty, ugliness, opportunism, loneliness, family, feminism, even romance. There are numerous characters, a slate of political parties and bureaucracies, and unfamiliar (to Westerners) cultural references to keep track of. And yet the novel never feels crowded nor impenetrable. How has Thapa accomplished this? I dare say, by keeping it simple. No stylish tricks of narrative episodism, or ambivalent structural gestures toward a sort-of main character, or experimental abstraction. The Tutor of History, while equal in ambition to these other “inventive” and “heady” novels, and sharing their broad goals, succeeds, at least partially, by virtue of fidelity to old-fashioned narrative omniscience. In a brief conversation with Thapa recently (over coffee, not tea – this was in New York, after all), she laughed at herself good-naturedly and confessed: “When I was studying fiction writing, I was doing all this avant-garde experimental stuff; and here, I ended up writing essentially a Victorian novel.”
VI.
The comparison is not far off in that Tutor imagines and renders the human experience as one of both self-determination and connection—each of the character’s fates is intimately entwined with that of the others—and in this sense is also concerned with inviting the reader into the novel’s moral world. It is, I suppose, a bit of a throwback in contemporary literary fiction to envision the reader not as detached auditor but rather as moral investor. Is it valid to evaluate books based on the writer’s awareness of the reader at all? Perhaps not. But I’ll say that I came away from my summer reading triad feeling distinctly stiff-armed by a kind of insularity of intelligence. These books seemed to me written by the writer, for the writer—more of an intense conversation with self (and, in the case of Telex and Paraguay, with history) than with reader. Stephen Elliott said recently in an interview, “Some readers read to escape; I read to connect.” My summer reading efforts afforded neither escape nor connection, but something more like chin-stroking, head-nodding reverence. Well-played; yes, indeed. Remarkable oeuvre you have there. There is certainly something to be said for heady novels written by women, when so much of “women’s fiction” is about inner emotional lives and domestic relationships. But it does make me ask the question of why we write and why we read; and what it means when a book strikes you more as an intellectual feat than an experience.
The Tutor of History is a novel I will likely revisit, again and again. And like the old Choose Your Own Adventure books, I believe that each time I read it, a different character, a different storyline, will come into relief as my protagonist and through-line; depending on what I am obsessed with or trying to understand at the time (I say it again: reading is highly personal). In the shadow of the Victorians, Thapa employs a bit of EM Forster-ism here (“only connect”), adhering to mature realism (Thapa is also a journalist who’s written extensively on Nepali society and politics and thus sees her characters and their context with unsentimental eyes), while lacking the contemporary Western novelist’s relative disregard for the enduring organism of community. An Irish mistress in Latin America, American expats in Cuba, bourgeois Londoners shuttling between city and country – they ultimately come and go at will, once upheaval has run its course. But for the townspeople of Khareini Tar, this is it; this is where their lives will be lived out. Some characters are handed their place in the community, others must make their own; societal position is no doubt a persistent source of hardship. And yet, we understand in the end that it ain’t nothing, this placeness, this connectedness. There seems even to be a place for the reader.
I loved this book as much as anyone else, and it’s one of my favorites to be sure, but I don’t agree it is the #1 example of exceptional writing of the decade. And, after reviewing your entire list, I have to ask, why didn’t Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ even make a showing? I mean, did you read it?
I agree with d. Good novel and all, but an underwhelming choice for #1.
No.
Didn’t see that coming. I’m glad I read the book, but it wouldn’t have even made the top ten.
Are you fucking kidding me?!
Yes, it’s all an elaborate ruse.
I kinda saw this coming. While the list was being dribbled out I kept wondering when I’d see _The Corrections_ pop up. And here it is. Probably my favorite book of the decade.
I wouldn’t have thought to include short story collections on my very own personal best-of list, but maybe that’s why _Oblivion_ didn’t do as well. Or, to be completely honest, maybe _Oblivion_ wasn’t 100% awesome. Because it wasn’t. It was good, but not even _Brief Interviews_ good.
As for Mr. J. S-F… I thought his first book (_Everything Is Illuminated_) was much better than _Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close_. But that’s just me.
Finally, regarding _Tree of Smoke_ (which I’m currently reading); maybe it’s just too new? Too recent? I’m about 100p into it and so far it doesn’t crack my top 10 list, but maybe it gets way better or something.
So not! I’d be willing to see this on the list but number 1? No way. It’s a good book (I guess–personally, I prefer Franzen’s essays) but not at the top. On the other hand, it is silly, as Lydia mentions, to assign merit numerically. Compelling–and I was glad to be a part of it–but I need to remember that part too.
Keep in mind that this #1 slot goes to the book with the most votes. Everyone picked their 5 favorites, in no particular order. This just means that the most people had The Corrections on their list. Whether it was anyone’s favorite, #1 book, we can’t know.
You made the right choice. There has been a backlash against the book, really more against Franzen personally than the novel itself. It’s true that he handled the whole Oprah thing in a way that made him look like something of an ass, and some of the non-fiction stuff he’s written since has been, at best, ill-advised. But the novel itself is just simply remarkable and deserves its place at the top of your list. Considering said backlash, a brave choice.
Margot, since everybody else seems to want to use the comments to grind their ax against Jonathan Franzen, I will point out that you’ve written the best piece of the 20 on the list, in my opinion. Beautifully written and summing up much of the excitement that surrounded the book, a book by an author, who, at the time, wasn’t considered a master.
I was working at an independent bookstore when The Corrections was released, and I’d just started to think of fiction as something more than a diversion. This was the first book that I remember being excited about in advance. A storm is an apt metaphor, I suppose.
(As an aside, I remember seeing the galley in the back office in the owner/buyer’s pile. Attached was a note from the sales rep. It said, “I know you don’t think you can sell Franzen, but don’t overlook this one.” Things have changed, haven’t they?)
Ugh. Disappointing number one. Maybe try a different system in 2019?
Oh come on.
“People who were listening” to what, the marketing copy in the New York Times? This was the most pre-hyped novel I’ve ever seen, and the biggest disappointment.
First page, thrid paragraph: “Ringing throughout the house was an alarm bell that no one but Alfred and Enid could hear directly. It was the alarm bell of anxiety.”
That’s not writing, that’s posing. No one with taste above the level of a high-school poetry class could continue reading past these two sentences. The Corrections is crap.
Well, yes it was hyped, but think back to when it came out. It was published on September 1, 2001.
I read my review copy in the days immediately following 9/11. Despite the competition for my attention from real world events, I finished it. But because of its association in my mind with 9/11–an acute visceral association–I could never bring myself to re-read it.
Strange to say, when fall rolls around I tend to pick up and re-read Moby Dick, if only a few chapters.
In other news, the Academy Award for Best Picture doesn’t always go to the best picture! Usually I’m happy if the winner is in my top fifty. The Corrections is on my list of top fifty fiction books of the decade, somewhere in the middle, but more importantly, it’s funny. If you’re going to single out an American book, it might as well be one with good jokes.
I’m still more interested in the list of also-rans, since this seems likely to turn up a higher proportion of oddball picks.
This is an excellent novel and a worthy pick. Works like The Corrections make me stand up and cheer for the future of literature. It’s not perfectly written but it takes taste “above the level of high school poetry” to appreciate this novel’s important place in contemporary literature. Good choice.
The Corrections #1? Ahead of The Cloud Atlas and 2666? No way. Sorry. Corrections is well written and mildly diverting, but it’s really just a family soap opera. You have other books on your list far more daring and well written.
Enough with the lisiting and the besting. Unless you’ve read them all, you’re just burping in a whirlwind of presumptuous narcissism.
Cynthia writes, in part: “you’re just burping in a whirlwind of presumptuous narcissism.” Seems like a pretty good description of Franzen and the novel. And you don’t have to read every novel to recognize the deficiencies of any one of them. Logic fail.
This is a funny choice, because it’s so safe and predictable.
This is a deserving choice, but I’m a little surprised, because it somehow seemed to have become cool to dislike this book (probably because of Franzen’s public persona).
The biggest miss on the list in my view is Wallace’s Oblivion. This book is hugely underrated right now, but I think people will look back on it as a genuine step beyond Infinite Jest (whereas Brief Interviews was more of the, admittedly brilliant, same). Everything depends on The Pale King of course – it’s too early to understand the shape of Wallace’s career, but for the best writer of his generation not to appear on this list is a shame. Especially when Pastoralia, from a similarly-minded, very talented, but manifestly lesser writer than Wallace, is so high up on the list.
… The backlash is funny. Great book.
Interesting how the DFW fans continue to beat the drum. And he’ll always be free from backlash a la lil Kurt Cobain as it’s not good to criticize the departed.
Great list no matter what the muckrakers say. Anything that gets the conversation started is worthwhile. The publishing business is suffering.
I decided to read The Corrections because I had heard it was “serious” in some sense — seriously literary, I suppose. I thought it would be hard to read. Not hard, but tedious, for me. The commenter above who calls it a family soap opera was not far off the mark. Words that I’d use to describe The Corrections (and I carry no feelings of vitriol for Franzen — I can separate my opinions about the Oprah brouhaha from his work) include funny, peculiar, unpleasant, interesting, and at times memorable. But not great literature, and certainly not something I’d put on this list.
I was pleased to see the short story collection, which I loved.
The real problem with Franzen’s book is that its themes and topics are so trite. Oy! My family is so crazy! You should see! Compare with the themes of 2666 and The Cloud Atlas (and others), and there’s just no comparison. It’s like comparing an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with Gravity’s Rainbow. And by the way, I’m not a DFW fan and hardly consider him beyond reproach.
I loved this book!
I thought “The Corrections” was a good book. Not the greatest ever–the voyage to Eastern Europe at the end was more adventure shlock than anything, to me–but if I were going to write up my own list I’m sure it would make my top 5, too, so I won’t much argue.
And then I’m just going to throw this out there: DFW, way overrated. Although I’m very sad he killed himself, I’m even more sad that his death is creating a cult of worship around him, as if his imaginitive powers were anywhere near those of a Roberto Bolano or David Mitchell.
I do have to ask, however: how did Margaret Atwood not make this list between The Blind Assassin and Oryx and Crake? Is there a greater novelist alive today than Margaret Atwood?
I’m a little late to this conversation, but I think a lot of the language used to deride Franzen’s book is very interesting. I read it and found it interesting, although not my favorite by a long shot. And I loved Cloud Atlas, for one. But to claim that Cloud Atlas is better because it deals with quote unquote major themes, while The Corrections is simply a “soap opera” is insulting. The idea that the family novel is lesser has been around for a long time, used to discredit much of the literature written by women, and, ironically, is what Franzen was trying to distance himself from when he turned down Oprah.
I think that the other line of inquiry going on here, about conventional novels vs. those that push the envelope of the genre, is very interesting. But to say that Franzen’s themes are somehow lowbrow or pedestrian is silly.
The CLoud Atlas and 2666 are not better books simply because they pursue grander themes than The Corrections, though that is one reason they are both better books. Remember, we’re talking about the best book of the millennium, not just books we happen to like or don’t like. In that contest, a certain amount of conceptual daring counts for a lot, if the execution is also well done. There’s nothing original about writing about a messed up family. Franzen isn’t trying anything different or difficult. He’s just doing a good job at telling a very conventional story. Stephen King does the same.
And it’s certainly not inherently lowbrow artistically to write about family life. One can write very deep, surprising novels about family life. I hope one day Franzen gets around to writing such a book.