Was James Joyce the best writer of all time? The Modern Library thinks so...
One byproduct of our culture’s ravenous appetite for media is a serious and insatiable addiction to lists. Have you guys noticed this? We just love organizing and ranking things, we’re all secretly obsessed with the whole nerdy taxonomy of classifying and comparing. Just check out the most popular stories on Digg right now, I’m sure that a list recounting “The Top 20 Whatevers” is somewhere on there (at the time of this writing it was the “24 Coolest Steampunk Weapons from Another Era,” but I’m sure that it will subtly change to reflect my point as time goes on). Yes, lists are great, especially for blog posts; after all, by their very nature they foment discussion (give people an excuse to argue about things that are arbitrary and impossible to prove).
But oh man there is one list out there with the weight of a venerated publishing house behind it, a serious list that puts all our other compulsive comparisons to shame. I first encountered it on the inside jacket of a copy of Ulysses that I was reading in college, and I’ve been in awe of its ambition and badassedness ever since. I’m talking about the Modern Library’s list of the 100 Best Novels.
