Best 20th Century Literature

>Aside from the usual brickbatting that accompanies any list that tries to encapsulate a century, the Modern Library's rankings has rankled both women and people of color.

>I don't know if this is the last great gasp of the white patriarchal male literary establishment, or if we are just going to try and bury all the wonderful writers out there," says Linda Bubin, co-owner of Women and Children First, a Chicago bookstore that specializes in feminist and children's books.

>I am surprised that the committee chose to omit African, Indian, South American, and Australian writers, many of whom write in English," posted Micky Black. "Also, what about Arab writers? How about more women writers such as Doris Lessing and Isak Dinesen?

cnn.com/books/news/9807/21/top.100.reax/

COME ON PEOPLE IT'S 1999

The book was supposed to depict a relatively far future at the time it was written

So then why does it take place in the past?

>and Australian
Isn't there a decent amount of respected South American writers, anyways? Borges and Marquez come to mind.

>Ayn Rand
>Ayn Rand
>L. Ron Hubbard

Why is the USA so full of fanatic cult loving nutjobs?

You should read Paris on the 20th Century

The dentist's office.

>tolkien
>not trash

How much of his work have you read?

>Ulysses as the greatest novel of the century? Sure. And Plan Nine from Outer Space was the best movie of the century, too."

>Ulysses' is the biggest pile of gobbledygook ever perpetrated on the reading public. I defy anyone to make sense of anything in that (admittedly, sometimes poetic) flow of words, words, words.

C U R R E N T Y E A R

I READ AFRICAN BOOKS LOOK AT ME! Why aren't all books read by equal amounts of people?
P.S. I read Arab writers and Isak Dinesen (you probably haven't heard of her).

No, these are: spinelessbooks.com/mccaffery/100/index.html

In the cupboard to be honest

I'm pretty annoyed by the fact that "Their Eyes Were Watching God" is on that list. That book was utter trash.

It's a blandly written, poorly developed, hamfisted book. Orwell really should have stuck to nonfiction--that's what he kicked ass at writing.

>L. Ron Hubbard

But the list also has books by Gaddis, Gass, Barthelme, and Hawkes, which more than makes up for picks like that.

Every uncultured male teenager read him, I think. You must have an irrational emotional attachment to not realize it's poorly written.

So you have nothing to say but vague insults that could apply to every popular author you don't like

If you're going to call something shit at least put a tiny shred of effort into it

lol Modern Library's readers' list is fucking abysmal compared to the critics' list.

agreed, ER Eddison was much better. Tolkien is for plebs.

They have next to nothing in common besides being old fantasy

a tedious author, lacking any profound meaning, trite, overlong, and simplistic. the racial tensions are a poor substitute for characteristics. cardboard protagonists in a dull world filled with clumsy plot strings, and prose only an avid navelgazer would appreciate. one of the most overrated, bland, and incessant authors, that scraped by on his thefts from the nibelungenlied. an immortal bore.

that's the point. they have nothing in common. ER Eddison is wonderful, whereas Tolkien was utter pleb trash.

What racial tensions? What did he steal from the Nibelungied that wasn't purely aesthetic? Are you sure you're not just repeating memes?

>what racial tensions?
you're kidding eh? don't be so stupid. orcs vs. humans, for example, you fool.
>what did he steal from the nibelunglied?
oh please. the man wrote an entire ode to the poetic Edda, and oh i dunno, how about the cursed ring?

i mean the fucking nibelung are dwarves for fuck's sake. don't be so stupid.

>you're kidding eh? don't be so stupid. orcs vs. humans, for example, you fool.
The orcs aren't even a real race, they're just the semi-sentient servants of Sauron who only function due to his presence subduing their will. It's graphically described how they all go mindless once the Ring is destroyed. They're compared to ants once their queen is killed. So the orcs and who else?
>oh please. the man wrote an entire ode to the poetic Edda, and oh i dunno, how about the cursed ring?
The cursed ring and what else?

So having 2 things in common, one of which isn't even remotely unique to either, means Lord of the Rings is somehow a plagiarism of the Nibelungenlied?

okay then, the fucking racial tensions between elves and men, their secrecy and disdain for those who are mortal simply because that's how they were born. i mean fuck sake, gimli and legolas' friendship is amazing simply for the fact that a dwarf and an elf are friends. the whole character dynamic between them being of different races.

i just told you what else, the fucking dwarves. besides, this is a pointless argument, you're clutching at straws against a tide of boredom that is tolkien, nothing will change how feeble minded his fans are and how dull his books were.

You might find him more exciting if you didn't misread his books as commentaries on race relations

i said he coasted on the thefts from the nibelungenlied, along with much of Norse mythology. to not see the obvious parallels even from a cursory glance is to be dishonest. and i never said the entirety of it was a plagiarism, i said that those were the only strengths it had that made it enduring to the people who worship it. "oh i like dwarves and dragons and goblins and elves". oh well, what a surprise, all of those came from norse mythology.

There are no racial tensions between elves and men. Elves are either decidedly helpful or indifferent, never hostile. They hold no disdain at all towards mortals, at least not by the Third Age. Secrecy is also not an elven trait at all unless you count the spell protecting Lothlorien, which is ONE elven kingdom kept in secret because it's the last remnant of the beauty of the ancient world.

The friendship between Legolas and Gimli is not remotely unique, that's something the movies tacked on. Which I'm guessing is where your knowledge comes from.

And they've pretty much given up in life and freely accept mortals have rendered them obsolete. This isn't even subtle, they literally take ships into the afterlife to leave men in charge of middle-earth.

no, i didn't misread them as racial commentaries, i noticed the obvious use of their race to make them as characters seem appealing, it was a lazy way to say "oh this guy is bad, he's betraying the humans by giving information to the orcs" it's fucking boring. any excitement was dulled by long tracts of yawning boredom, and that's one of the few aspects that i came away with. The reason of this is not a lack of my agile mind, but rather the lack of intrigue fostered by the author himself. there was nothing worth remembering from the entire trilogy, and i read it cover to cover to cover to cover to cover to cover. I remember plenty of details of other books i read at the time, but interestingly, one of the few that left an appalling void was Tolkien, and i will happily treat him with the disdain i do.

that's the sad thing, when the film is more appealing than your books, even when you've seen the films after you've read the books, there's a problem. I think the movies were actually great in that they salvaged a poor poor excuse for an epic, and made it into something that renewed interest in a horribly dull series of dusty tomes. good on them for making a buck off of boring trash.

You know I'm not sure if you're unreasonably angry at an author whose writing you seemingly either didn't read to completion or forgot completely, or if I just got baited HARD and you're laughing your ass off.

Whatever floats your boat

at least there are plenty of authors out there worth remembering. too bad your wrifu isn't one of them :^)

>lolita
>top 3 book of the 20th century

are you retarded lol

kys

no u

impostor.

tolkien is the single greatest author to have ever lived in the 20th century, bar none.

1984 is a work of art. Lower quality art, but still art.

And it's so important it remains a must-read.

Let's say no.

No. Libertarianism and scientology (founded by L. Ron Hubbard) are both cults and likely put forth organized efforts to have their writters win.

Think I'm crazy? In the past, scientologist insividuals have bought hundreds of the same books by L Ron Hubbard just to get him on best seller lists.

Dianetics.