It's On...Again

For those of you who have kept up with my other blogs in the past, you will be familiar with my failed attempts at the ML Challenge.  For you newcomers out there, I will explain to you what this is:  The ML Challenge is an attempt to read all the works listed on one of Modern Library's sponsored "100 Best" Lists.  One can choose from the "Board's 100," the "Readers' 100," "100 Non-fiction," or even the "Radcliffe Rival 100."  Last summer I tried the "Board's 100" -- the 100 Best Novels of the 20th century as selected  by the Modern Library Board -- and failed.  That list began with The Magnificent Ambersons, followed by The Ginger Man, which I simply put down one day and never picked back up.  This semester, however, my reading load is light as seems by general work load, so I am attempting to plow through the "Readers' 100," the 100 best of the 20th century as chosen by the general populace who voted on ML.com.  Democracy at work.  Check below the cut for my progress so far, the problems inherent with the list, and a link to the list itself.  

MY PROGRESS


I started this process on Tuesday, February 8, 2010 and am currently on page 149 in Part Three of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses -- No. 100 on the Readers' List.

MY PROBLEMS


I am prone to complaint, but I will try to keep these problems as reasonable as possible.  First of all, in every republic we find that democracy has its drawbacks.  In this case, these drawbacks take the form of all of the science-fiction twaddle that appear on this list!  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind Robert Heinlein at all, but I think that seven Heinlein novels (alongside about 5 Hubbards -- inlcuding the 10-volume Mission Earth -- and about 10 de Lints) is cutting it too thin.

THREE Hubbard books broke the Top 10, beating out Joyce's Ulysses, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, all of which make the cut in the Board's List.

THE LIST


Rather than transcribe the whole list here, you can follow this link to access both the Readers' and the Board's Lists as well as the Radcliffe rival list.