The British Guardian’s attempt to pick the so called best 100 novels of all time is an endeavour that’s stuff for a novel in itself. The exercise of picking and then exulting over the handiwork, exchanging mostly lame views over the picks made, is a spectacle as exciting as watching paint dry. However, since the Guardian seems so proud of its choices and process, one may even consider making a novel out of this bonfire of vanities.
The novels picked are mostly works in the English language, but a few books have been picked as translations. Does that mean that there are no other translations of some of the best works of literature in the world written in a language other than English?
Of course there are, since almost every literary work worthy of being considered good has been translated into English. But recent Nobel prize winning work, or other work from the plethora of output from South American, African and Asian writers have not been considered by the Guardian worthies.
If there was no paucity of translations of such novels in various languages such as Spanish and Japanese, the fact that only a few were considered for the list of the best 100 novels ever, can be put down only to one thing. The panel of judges or whoever was responsible for this list, consider work in the English language superior to novels in any other tongue.
That being the case, this best 100 works list of panel-picked novels is a farce worthy of a good work of parody that should poke fun at these masters of pretence. They seem to want to convince us that English language work is somehow superior, while a smattering of books in other languages deserve honorable mention.
Of course the Spanish wouldn’t care and the Japanese and the writers in Swahili wouldn’t give a tuppence, because this is a banal list with its rationale for selection so questionable that the compilation can at best be considered the ‘list for the dissatisfied’. This big pile seems to hanker after recognition for English writers who probably thought they should be considered the best by default because the British empire spread across a substantial geographical span, across several continents.
But most of these writers got no substantive global recognition in the grand scheme of things. For example most of the Nobel prize winners for literature in the last four decades or more are not Englishmen or women. In this context it seems this list of a smattering of losers is a lament for recognition.
The judges are perhaps harbouring a massive sense of grievance. But then they make no case that British novelists are after all the best. If they wanted to pass off English language novels as the cream of the pick, they should have at least been confidently assertive about it.
But being confident is probably not the strong suit of the particular section-editors of this staid British publication. So they merely make a few shuffling noises, state that some translations were picked anyway, and leave it to the reader to guess why a whole host of English language novelists are supposed to have written the best novels ever.
You have to say, oh these poor Brits. They cannot do this type of thing picking the best cricketers and footballers of all time, because there are legions of cricket and soccer fans who would die laughing. So they have to resort to literature, an esoteric pursuit in these times in order to try their larks. But at least with football any list of English teams as the world’s best ever would have been fodder for bar table or locker room talk.
But when the list is all about literature, scholars, intellectuals and people who do more than appreciate a kick in the grass would take note and have a good laugh. Of course if the list was indeed picked purely for laughs it wouldn’t have mattered.
But it wasn’t. The list was presented with great hoopla and all types of assertions that this is a serious compilation. So to that extent the comedy was purely involuntary, but the British have never anyway quite come to terms with the fact that the Empire was but a passing phenomenon at best.
