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It's not a bad list, and it being 1998-1999 there's nothing to be made of certain omissions, but wow to miss Moby-Dick and Blood Meridian. Midnight's Children at least made it, but at #90, lol. Then for the lesser misses, Gravity's Rainbow, and even less so, one of Dick's works, probably Ubik--though remarkable for prescience rather than prose. But it's not like people don't know those books, and also they all made one of Time's lists. Ignoring Neuromancer is probably a miss too, but I say that looking back from 2024.
Speaking of Gibson, and the only point I could say of this, thinking of him reminded me of his short story Burning Chrome. If you (anyone reading this) are familiar with Cyberpunk 2077 but not Gibson's work, read it. A quite short story, published in 1982, and Gibson's the rare science fiction author with real chops for prose.
Note that Moby Dick came out in 1851.
I thought that, but the header text says
Maybe whoever wrote the header forgot that bit, as I'd assume it'd have an obligatory mention.
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Hot take: Moby Dick is unreadable. It's most notable for being good source material for adaptations.
(doesn't excuse the list, which has Ulysses at the top. Ulysses is famous for being unreadable).
Moby-Dick is actually good. Really good. It's also casually unreadable.
There's a stupidly multilayered structure. Under the whale lore and purple prose, it's psychological. Under that it's more Jungian, archetypal. Under that, some sort of Manifest Destiny, Americana, man-vs.-nature primal thesis. You could make one of those iceberg memes or crazy masonic conspiracy diagrams out of stuff that is really, unarguably buried in the book.
But the cruft is there on purpose. The allusions, on purpose. Melville basically inhaled Bible prose for decades and then breathed it into this book, because he wanted to invoke the mythic style. People joke about the homoeroticism, except that's also an intentional move, one that complements the whole indomitable-American-spirit theme, and it's just...The more you pick at it, the more convinced you get that it's all on purpose. Melville was definitely capable of writing a tighter novel, but he wanted to write an epic. It's layered.
I can't do it justice. I really can't. I'm basing this off a really rewarding college class. Yeah, I realize that sounds both stupid and pretentious. But I swear, I god something out of it. It's not just cope. It's not! There's something great in this book.
If I could find the reading list or at least syllabus I'd share it. There has to be a good study guide out there. I hope I can find it.
Moby Dick and Bood Meridian (aka Moby Dick on land) are two of the few books I'll do a focused planned reading day on.
Get up. Breakfast. Read straight and take notes until Lunch. Repeat until Dinner. If mental energy still available, continue until bedtime. No work, no TV.
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And it has Finnegan's Wake later in the list as well.
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