Reviewing the 100 Best Novels of the 20th
Century
by Annette Ferran
Why Conrad?
Number
1 on the Modern Library’s list of best novels (and on many other similar lists)
is Ulysses, by James Joyce. Number 3
is A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man, and number 77 is Finnegan’s Wake, both also by James
Joyce. I have no intention of
reviewing these novels (well, maybe Portrait
of the Artist), but bring them up only to point out that this well
acknowledged best English-language novelist ever is represented three times on
a list of 100 entries. D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, and Henry James also appear
three times each. The powerhouses
of American literature—Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck—appear
three times, three times, twice, and once, respectively.
Joseph
Conrad appears four times (The Secret
Agent, #46; Nostomo, #47; The Heart of Darkness, #67; and Lord Jim, #85). This strikes me as an
overrepresentation.
Not
that Conrad doesn’t belong on this list.
The Heart of Darkness, in
particular, is without question a great novel. Likewise Lord Jim. Conrad has a distinct style, unique
among his contemporaries or, really, any other writer on this list. He wrote in English, which was a
foreign language to him. He creates
in his writings indelible atmospheres and profound depths. With The Heart of Darkness you get sucked into the very mire of the
scene, captured and entwined into the stinking, cloying natural elements of the
journey. In all of the novels you
come away with the sense of having been absorbed into an impenetrable mystery—what
is it all about? Part of this is his way with the language. Part of it is the exotic and oppressive
settings of the stories. Part is the plots. “Squalorous” is a word aptly
applied to any of his novels.
Conrad
left his mark on the history of literature throughout the 20th
century. The four novels of his on
the list were published in 1899, 1900, 1904, and 1907 (the first, The Heart of Darkness, was published
serially first and then in a volume in 1902, which presumable qualified it for
this list). The dark themes of his novels are harvested by subsequent writers—see
Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene. See—it hardly bears mentioning—Francis Ford Coppola’s
masterpiece film, Apocalypse Now. His contributions unquestionably
enriched our literary canon.
But
who reads Conrad now?
An
admittedly small and informal survey reveals a generational pattern to Conrad’s
inclusion on required reading lists, applying not only to age but also to the
educational ideologies of schools.
The generation above mine remembers reading several of Conrad’s
novel. The generation below seem
never to have heard of him (with the exception of those whose schools follow a
classical education). All those
surveyed recall a less than enjoyable experience. If we only get 100 slots, why do some (albeit great) writers
show up so frequently while others are passed over completely? Where is The Golden Notebook (Doris Lessing), or Waiting for the Barbarians (J.M. Coetzee), or The Awakening (Kate Chopin)?
The Heart of Darkness is worth
reading. It is an enthralling and
disturbing—perhaps even disturbed—novel. It is worth reading because it delves
into the deepest reaches of the human psyche and experience through the
metaphor of journey through a dark and challenging landscape where people are metamorphosed
from socialized humanity to something raw and frightening though none the less
human. It is also linguistically
challenging and dark, edifying from a writerly standpoint. Read The Heart of Darkness and you may feel inclined to explore Conrad’s
other works for the draw of their strangeness. But you don’t need The Modern Library to lead you there with
four—count ‘em, four—entries.
Annette Ferran lives in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania,
and works in Philadelphia as an editor for a medical publisher. She is also the Associate Editor
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.
