some quotes
Posted by Jane on July 28, 1998 at 22:45:08:
In response to 100 greatest books, written by Jane Elizabeth on July 28, 1998 at 13:40:08
] If you've been following the brouhaha about the Modern Library list of 100 greatest English-language novels of the 20th century, you may appreciate an article in today's NY Times.
Most gratifying article by Richard Bernstein, who I guess is one of their book critics.
"Comparing Virginia Woolf with Jane Austen, in my view, is similar to
comparing Samuel Richardson of "Clarissa" with Henry Fielding of "Tom Jones," as Samuel Johnson did. "There is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson's than in all 'Tom Jones,' " Johnson said.
I would say that there is more literary genius in every chapter of Austen than there is in the entire oeuvre of Woolf. "To the Lighthouse" is a fine but somewhat precious and dull work, certainly not one to be mentioned in the same breath with "Pride and Prejudice"...
Maybe it's time to read Clarissa....
"Among the other 19th-century novels that would crowd out most of the 20th-century selections: "Vanity Fair," by William Makepeace Thackeray; "Billy Budd," by Melville; "Middlemarch," by George Eliot; "Far From the Madding Crowd," by Thomas Hardy, and at least six books each by Dickens and Austen."
This link may get you to the article after today, but the site still has the infamous list and various links.
- Thanks, Jane Jane Elizabeth 13:30:24 7/29/98
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