Best novel of the 20th Century?

[Cindy87]

My nomination is The Bell Jar.

Lolita

Animal Farm.

The Waves

To Kill a Mockingbird

100 Years of Solitude

Wow what a question. Three mentioned above would be in my top ten.

Love in the Time of Cholera, Memoirs of a Geisha or Rebecca make up another three but I will say

The Handmaid's Tale

@HoundOfTheBasketballs

100 Years of Solitude

Agree!

A Suitable Boy would be a close second

Proust’s Á la récherche. With honourable mentions for To the Lighthouse, Beckett’ trilogy, Ulysses, and Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day.

Isn’t great literature something everyone wants to have read but no one wants to read? 😆

Oryx and Crake for me

I think that's impossible to answer, and very difficult to describe. What is the definition of 'best'? Or even 'novel'? And as can be seen already most people choose white european males because those are the books we see in the bookshops, winning prizes and on the reading lists at school and university.

To Kill A Mockingbird.

For the 19th century, it’s Middlemarch, although Pride and Prejudice is a strong contender.

For the 21st I’m torn between The Silence Of The Girls and Wolf Hall.

Ha, not a male writer among them.

@JaninaDuszejko

I think that's impossible to answer, and very difficult to describe. What is the definition of 'best'? Or even 'novel'? And as can be seen already most people choose white european males because those are the books we see in the bookshops, winning prizes and on the reading lists at school and university.

And yet Sylvia Plath, Daphne du Maurier, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel and Pat Barker have been mentioned already.

Impossible to answer - a book that maybe spawned a genre - one hundred years of solitude.

A book that was ahead of its time and uncompromising - Jane Eyre maybe.

A book that defined an era - Martin Amis Money

A book that told a great story - A tale of two cities , Kane and Abel, A woman of substance

A book that takes your breath away - The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The definition of great or best is so broad it’s impossible to pick one

Midnight's Children. It's not a book that I particularly enjoyed reading but in terms of its literary craftsmanship it's outstanding.

If I were to put actually enjoying reading it into the equation, I would say A Fine Balance. Mistry was robbed of the Booker Prize for that.

@MindtheBelleek

Proust’s Á la récherche. With honourable mentions for To the Lighthouse, Beckett’ trilogy, Ulysses, and Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day.

We need to be friends!

Middlemarch

Gosh, tricky. Books I've enjoyed and have re-read many times are Catch-22 and Bonfire of the Vanities. Both light reading but sum up the idiocy of aspects of life mid-century. But I think my all time favourite is Titus Groan. Mervyn Peake was a troubled but outstandingly talented author.

1984. No contest: the winner by miles.

Isn’t great literature something everyone wants to have read but no one wants to read?

Oddly enough, no it isn't.

The Grapes of Wrath

@Toilenstripes

Isn’t great literature something everyone wants to have read but no one wants to read? 😆

Nope.

And yet Sylvia Plath, Daphne du Maurier, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Bowen, Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel and Pat Barker have been mentioned already.

All white, all ethnically European. This is a female dominated forum so I'd expect there to be more women recommended here but MN does not reflect the wider world. Most published books are written by men, most nominees for and winners of literary prizes are men and 'best 100 books' list are always dominated by men. This all despite middle aged women being the biggest consumers of books.

The White Hotel - DM Thomas