Did you miss out on the NCAA Basketball tournament because you were reading Middlemarch? Have you ever argued with friends about the merits of Pale Fire versus Gravity’s Rainbow? Then this tournament is for you.
Click to Download Brackets
Sixty-four novels compete in a six round competition to determine the Greatest Novel of All Time. Each round of voting, one round per day for the next six weekdays, will begin at 9:00 am and end at midnight.
Choose your favorites from the selection below. Be sure to check back every day to see the updated brackets and vote in the next round.
UPDATE: Round 1 is closed. Please vote in Round 2.
Note: The novels chosen for the tournament are culled from various lists of “Best Novels.”
March 25th, 2010 | 9:24 am
[...] in Uncategorized. Leave a Comment Joe Carter at First Things has posted a March Madness-style novel bracket in order to determine the coveted title of Greatest Novel of All Time. I’m pulling for The [...]
March 25th, 2010 | 10:02 am
I wish suggestions were taken for this! I would have certainly argued for Richard Adams’ “Watership Down” to be included over Clancy’s “Hunt for Red October.” Granted, those were the days when editors still bothered to edit Clancy, but still….
March 25th, 2010 | 10:34 am
interesting choices
March 25th, 2010 | 11:56 am
Thanks for the chance to vote against Philip Roth in the first round. :)
Some of the choices were so cruel, though! Dune vs. Hitchhiker’s Guide? What a brutal matchup!
March 25th, 2010 | 12:01 pm
Gone with the Wind vs. Madame Bovary!!! What a match-up!
March 25th, 2010 | 12:06 pm
Susan Richmond interesting choices
I compiled a list of about 300 selections from various lists. Anything that showed up more than once made the cut, though I only selected one entry per author. The others were a mix of high-and-low brow stuff to make it more fun.
Ethan C. Some of the choices were so cruel, though! Dune vs. Hitchhiker’s Guide? What a brutal matchup!
I wish I could have put together more of those types of tough choices. I’m hoping that they’ll occur naturally in the latter rounds.
I can’t wait to post the result tomorrow. Some of the books are just getting crushed.
March 25th, 2010 | 12:06 pm
Also, how do you pick between Charlotte’s Web and Fahrenheit 451?
March 25th, 2010 | 12:13 pm
Some of these books within the categories do not belong together. How do you choose between E.B. White’s Charlott’es Web and 451? One is about the holocaust and the other is about a pig for heaven’s sake! And #8 – one is a fantasy and the other is about man’s struggle to be independent; is the criteria here length?
March 25th, 2010 | 12:21 pm
Great list! (With this readership, who’s seriously choosing Proust over Waugh?) My only complaint is that the books weren’t given seeding, thus resulting in a bunching of giants in the first few rounds. You wouldn’t have Kentucky play Kansas in the 2nd round, and then play Kansas st. in the round of 16. By the same token, it seems rough to pit AK/BK against Ulysses in the 2nd round, and the winner of that against Moby Dick in the round of 16.
March 25th, 2010 | 12:24 pm
“Also, how do you pick between Charlotte’s Web and Fahrenheit 451?”
Finally–arachnophobia makes me part of a power bloc.
March 25th, 2010 | 12:35 pm
Charles Gitter How do you choose between E.B. White’s Charlott’es Web and 451? One is about the holocaust and the other is about a pig for heaven’s sake!
F. 451 is about the holocaust?
On that one, the thinking is that most people read them sometime around secondary school-junior high and would reflect an early preference in style of literature (realist fantasy vs. realist sci-fi).
And #8 – one is a fantasy and the other is about man’s struggle to be independent;
Although I created the list before I read Ross Douthat’s column this morning, the reason for putting them together is similar to his claim that:
What Ayn Rand is to young libertarians, Chesterton is to teenage Catholic conservatives.
Substitute “Tolkien” for “Chesterton” and you’ll get the idea. They both tend be influential on a certain type of person (e.g., young geeky males) but those that really love the books tend to fall into distinct categories. It’s easy to appreciate the works of Tolkien and Rand but hard to identify simultaneously with their worldviews.
L My only complaint is that the books weren’t given seeding, thus resulting in a bunching of giants in the first few rounds.
Because we’ve never done this before and I wasn’t sure it would catch on, I figured I needed to seed the early round with interesting head-to-head match-ups. I realize now that I should have structured it better. Next time we do this (and we could do it with a lot of variations on the theme) I’ll solicit input from the readers first and then seed the brackets more systematically.
March 25th, 2010 | 12:43 pm
Maybe the data I’m seeing is incorrect, but when I look at the response summary after completing the survey, it’s showing 0 votes for Pride & Predjudice, despite the fact that I voted for it.
March 25th, 2010 | 12:49 pm
Michael Kelley Maybe the data I’m seeing is incorrect, but when I look at the response summary after completing the survey, it’s showing 0 votes for Pride & Predjudice, despite the fact that I voted for it.
Yeah, there seems to be a glitch in the summary. P&P is actually leading right now.
March 25th, 2010 | 1:53 pm
I can’t seem to submit this without commenting, so I am commenting.
March 25th, 2010 | 2:17 pm
[...] 64 “teams” … who will win? [...]
March 25th, 2010 | 2:23 pm
[...] 64 “teams” … who will win? [...]
March 25th, 2010 | 2:39 pm
[...] for geeks like me. And since my NCAA brackets are complete crap this year I’ll be watching this set of brackets instead. Some of the first round matchup are brutal. Huxley or Orwell? Rand or Tolkien? Tolstoy or [...]
March 25th, 2010 | 4:24 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by First Things, Jeff A. Jones and DNC DUDES, philiptallon. philiptallon said: @danieldriver Middlemarch Madness: http://bit.ly/aFXLLE [...]
March 25th, 2010 | 4:30 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by DNCDUDES: The Tournament of Novels: Did you miss out on the NCAA Basketball tournament because you were reading Middlem… http://bit.ly/9Ws4d6 #tcot…
March 25th, 2010 | 4:35 pm
Why have Twain against Cervantes in the first round? One of King or Camus will go on, or Rand or Tolkien, for example, but one of Twain or Cervantes will be knocked out in the first round?! Noooo! It’s probably network money that lead to this seeding, or lack of seeding, fiasco!
March 25th, 2010 | 4:48 pm
Since when do you read Charlotte’s Web and F. 451 at the same point in your life? :P I think I read the first in 2nd grade or so and the second in about 8th grade. That’s roughly six years apart. And to choose between the two is like…choosing whether you’d like to be happy or intelligent (or something). Apples and oranges.
But I guess that’s kind of necessary if you do something like this. It is a cool idea.
March 25th, 2010 | 5:16 pm
Joe, do any of the authors in this tournament have sneaker deals or their own t.v shows? If not, does that mean they aren’t really Division 1 authors?
March 25th, 2010 | 6:06 pm
Nothing by Sigrid Undset! I refuse to vote!
March 25th, 2010 | 6:43 pm
Sigrid Undset is favored to win the NAIA tournament.
March 25th, 2010 | 9:30 pm
This is a terrible idea. Really, really terrible.
March 25th, 2010 | 10:18 pm
Starting with the Sweet Sixteen, you should have to answer a question about each novel correctly before being allowed to vote in that contest. Then two questions in the Round of Eight, and so on.
March 25th, 2010 | 10:29 pm
Brothers Karamazov beat Anna Karenina by three hundred votes? Are you people tone deaf????
March 25th, 2010 | 10:37 pm
Where’s Tom Jones? Daniel Deronda istead of Middlemarch?
March 25th, 2010 | 10:43 pm
I think it’s a fun idea – the folks who wrote the Frasier sitcom should have thought of this. There may be some imperfections in execution, but those “learnings” as corp-speak has it, can be applied next year.
March 25th, 2010 | 11:06 pm
My public library posted this!!! I had no idea it was from you folks!
March 25th, 2010 | 11:09 pm
Oh, pooh. It wasn’t yours, after all. It’s “The Greatest American Novel Ever” brackets, instead.
http://new.daytonmetrolibrary.org/
March 25th, 2010 | 11:44 pm
ND This is a terrible idea. Really, really terrible.
Then you probably wouldn’t have liked my alternative idea: The Tournament of Bible Books! Genesis versus Revelation, Matthew vs. Mark, etc. Not a good idea either, I take it. ; )
RMHutch Starting with the Sweet Sixteen, you should have to answer a question about each novel correctly before being allowed to vote in that contest.
If we required people to have actually read the books, then we’d probably end up with Charlotte’s Web vs. The Hunt for Red October in the final round.
Sean Brothers Karamazov beat Anna Karenina by three hundred votes? Are you people tone deaf????
It may be closer than that. The summary has been a bit off.
Bill Kinsley Where’s Tom Jones? Daniel Deronda istead of Middlemarch?
Tom Jones almost made the cut, but I feared few people have actually read it. I would have preferred to include Middlemarch but, surprisingly, it wasn’t on any of the “Best of” lists from which I got the selections.
Judith There may be some imperfections in execution, but those “learnings” as corp-speak has it, can be applied next year.
It looks like it has been popular enough that it’ll be worth doing again. We’ll definitely do it better next time around.
Maureen Oh, pooh. It wasn’t yours, after all. It’s “The Greatest American Novel Ever” brackets, instead.
I kind of thought it was too good an idea to be original.
March 26th, 2010 | 1:17 am
Maddening but I love it!
March 26th, 2010 | 4:18 am
The “submit” button seems not to be working at present . . .
March 26th, 2010 | 5:18 am
Hoping that a comment will allow me to vote — and to say that I absolutely love this idea!
March 26th, 2010 | 9:02 am
[...] Click to Download Round 2 BracketsHere’s some highlights from Round 1: [...]
March 26th, 2010 | 9:06 am
Is it too late to vote? The submit button doesn’t work for me.
March 26th, 2010 | 9:14 am
Wuthering Heights against P&P was excruciating! Civilization Vs the Wild!
March 26th, 2010 | 9:59 am
Amusing! :)
March 26th, 2010 | 10:13 am
EileenQ Is it too late to vote? The submit button doesn’t work for me.
Round 1 closed at midnight last night. You can now vote in Round 2 – http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/03/26/the-tournament-of-novels-round-2/
March 26th, 2010 | 12:34 pm
If it comes down to a choice between Huckleberry Finn and Tolkien, I’m going to be in difficulties.
March 26th, 2010 | 5:21 pm
Actually, the bible books thing wouldn’t be all that bad. I think one of the things that makes this a bad idea is that there isn’t enough similarity to warrant any judgment; it’s all just, “I like that one.” I saw recently there was a greatest living American abstract painter tourney, which sounds to me like a more doable thing (http://www.artsjournal.com/man/). There you have the painters’ whole bodies of work and a relatively coherent set of work being done. But greatest novels??? How could you possibly choose between Joyce’s Ulysses and Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby. They are both great for totally different reasons and in totally different ways. It seems too much like asking, “Who’s better Usain Bolt or Michael Jordan?” I really don’t think that’s a question worth answering. It tells you very little about anything. And no, a nuanced answer isn’t an option. In a tourney it’s merely who goes to the next round.
But to your other proposal, I think it makes more sense: Luke is the best gospel, Job is the best poetry, Samuel is the best history, etc. But I think it would make more sense to keep it between books of the OT vs each other and books of the NT vs each other. And on that count I would say, Ecclesiastes and Romans–they are both just so mind-blowing (Revelation is mind-blowing as well, but in a more whiskey-tango-foxtrot sort of way).
So there you go.
March 30th, 2010 | 12:20 pm
With a starting assortment like this you’ll never get good results. You have half your slots filled with garbage that belongs in the NIT of novels. No Dumas? No Sienkiewicz? No Hugo? I refrain from complaining about the absence of Virgil and Homer only because they aren’t quite “novels.” But what narcotic made you think Tony Morrison deserves the dignity of being classified as literature?
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