What is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years?
Cover of the Sunday NYT Book Review yesterday. The essay by A.O. Scott is pretty interesting. Scott’s most fitting commentary “I was surprised at how few of the highly praised, boldly ambitious books by younger writers – by which I mean writers under 50 – were mentioned. One vote each for “The Corrections” and “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” none for “Infinite Jest” or “The Fortress of Solitude,” a single vote for Richard Powers, none for William T. Vollmann, and so on.”
I preferred any of those books to the Top 5 from the survey.
May 22, 2006 12:27 pm 
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By DJ Cayenne, May 22, 2006 @ 12:50 pm
The baseball novella that begins Underworld should definitely be in the Top 5, because that is one of the greatest things ever written. I was also glad to see Confederacy of Dunces on the list for the same reason. It is hard to argue against DeLillo, McCarthy, Updike, and Philip Roth. I agree with A.O. Scott’s quote above as well. However, he just adds to the list of white guys. Apparently, no women other than Marilyne Robinson and Toni Morrison are worth mentioning. I would have liked to see a more diverse group. That said, I don’t think that the Known World should have been on the list.
By Dr J, May 22, 2006 @ 2:20 pm
The baseball novella (which appeared in Harper’s a few years before the publication of Underworld as “Pafko at the Wall”) is one of my favorite pieces of writing anywhere, on any subject. “He speaks in your voice, American” is an opening line up there with “Call me Ishmael,” as far as I’m concerned.
Here’s some trivia: in “Ball Four,” the best baseball tell-all, Jim Bouton remembers going to a NYG game as a kid, reaching for a foul ball in the stands, and having it snatched away from him by “a colored kid.” “I guess that colored kid just needed the ball more than I did,” he says. (Or something to that effect; I’m paraphrasing.)
This is just a throw-away observation apropos of nothing else in the book. But Bouton published “Ball Four” in the early ’70s. I’m convinced that DeLillo read that, filed it away, and then wrote “Pafko at the Wall” based on that one line.
Any of you kids out there need a subject for your PhD dissertation in an English department, come see me.
By Dr J, May 22, 2006 @ 2:21 pm
P.S. “White Noise” is better than “Underworld.”
By Nitro Nicole, May 22, 2006 @ 4:07 pm
Baseball, baseball, baseball….don’t you realize that I post on BGB to get away from my daily grind of baseball?? And DJ – why did you bring up Marilyn Robinson – I hated Gilead. Now Zadie Smith – that was a female that was overlooked.
By DJ Cayenne, May 22, 2006 @ 4:19 pm
Two things. First, read the beginning of Underworld, then dis’. Secondly, Zadie Smith is British, and therefore, she is presumably not eligible to be considered for the top American novels of the last 25 years. Ok, three things. I mentioned Ms. Robinson only because she made The List.