The NYT reports that Toni Morrison’s Beloved has been voted the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years. (How many of these stinking lists are there, and why do they all suck?) Mannion, Rob Farley, and Jedmunds are all over it.
I’ll just repeat what I left in a comment at Mannion’s place:
I consider Beloved, well, beloved, in no small part because it is so peculiar and unconventional—the same reason that lots of people who typically share my taste in literature didn't enjoy it. A strong appeal to wide general audience shouldn't be the only requisite qualification for a work of fiction to be considered one of the best, or else The Da Vinci Code would have topped the list. (Insert your own The Da Vinci Code is fiction? joke here.) Nonetheless, it occurs to me that maybe even if it's not the only qualification, it ought to be one of them. It pains me a bit to say that, because it sounds like I'm endorsing conformity and formula, but there are unusual, quirky books that have had wider appeal. (See: Irving, John.)
I don't know if it counts, since Jeffrey Eugenides currently resides in Berlin, but I'd probably give my vote to Middlesex. Or maybe Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Or Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Or Michael Cunningham's A Home at the End of the World. Or some other book that probably no one else would mention.
How about you?
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