Reviewing the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century
by
Annette Ferran
Brideshead Revisited and others
Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn
Waugh, #80 on the Modern Library’s list) is a very well known novel of great
reputation. Also on the list of
100 Best Novels, by Evelyn Waugh, is Scoop
(#75), a slight and satirical novel about the newspaper business, and A Handful of Dust (#34), a substantial
novel that starts in familiar territory and then takes a surprising and
disturbing turn.
I
don’t know why Scoop made the list, especially
when so many outstanding novels of the 20th century were left off. Part of the fun of reading through this
list is trying to surmise what the criteria for “best novel” might have
been. Scoop is amusing but lightweight. Any greater significance it might have had is lost on this
reader.
Brideshead Revisited, on the other hand,
is a novel that should always be described as “marvelous.” Long after you’ve read it, the
character of Charles Ryder will stay with you, as if he had been your own
childhood friend, witness to your family’s private disturbances, or as if he
were you, absorbed into a friend’s family, learning to ignore the little pangs
of doubt about where you belong. Brideshead Revisited is a
straightforward narrative of the most comfortable sort, a quality that no doubt
contributed to its successful translation to film, but a quality also that
leaves plenty of room for diving deep into feeling. This is a novel of depth and substance, an appealing and
engrossing read, a story that sticks.
What
is going on in A Handful of Dust is
more puzzling. The story takes a horrifying turn at a certain point in the
protagonist’s adventuresome life, and his fate is hard to reconcile with the
novel’s attitude at its outset. He
starts out a typical Englishman of the upper classes who because of various
dissatisfactions decides to go on a journey. He ends up in a place that seems like it has been lifted
from a Joseph Conrad novel. I have
not read any critical analysis of this novel. I like to connect with a book on its own merits, though
there are some for which the experience is enriched if
you have an understanding of the author’s intentions or the social or political
context. Maybe scholars have
better insight than I do into this novel—is it meant, for instance, to be allegorical?
Perhaps a statement on British imperialism? Or good old human hubris? This story sticks, too, but for
different reasons. In fact, it doesn’t so much stick with you as haunt you.
This
trio of novels demonstrates not only the range of this talented novelist but
also the range of the novel. All
three are recommended reading: a
variety of books for a variety of moods.
Annette
Ferran lives in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and
works in Philadelphia as an editor for a medical publisher. She is also an editorial assistant
for 10,000 Tons of Black Ink, a
Literary Writers Network publication. She has a degree of dubious practical
use, in German, and is a lifelong avid reader of fiction and lover of lists.
She has had a few short stories published, most recently in RE:AL.
