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Tweets that mention The 2010 Tournament of Novels Winner » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog -- Topsy.com
April 2nd, 2010 | 9:51 am

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by DNC DUDES, Jeff A. Jones. Jeff A. Jones said: The 2010 Tournament of Novels Winner http://bit.ly/bYf2l4 [...]

Rich Horton
April 2nd, 2010 | 10:21 am

Congrats to LOTR (which I voted for twice in the competition.)

Had I my druthers I would have selected Solzhenitsyn’s “August 1914.” It is altogether moving:

It was quiet everywhere. The whole world was hushed. Armies had ceased to battle. Only a fresh night breeze stirred, ruffling the treetops. This forest was not hostile. It belonged neither to the Germans nor to the Russians but to God, and it gave refuge to all His creatures.

Leaning against a tree trunk, Samsonov stood for a moment and listened to the sound of the forest. Near by, the torn pine bark creaked in the wind. And above it all, just under the sky: the cleansing sigh of the treetops.

He felt more and more at peace. He had come to the end of his long soldier’s career. He was abandoning himself to danger and death. Now ready to die, he had never imagined that it could be so simple, and such a release.

But the only trouble was that suicide is held to be a sin.

The hammer of his revolver clicked back softly. Samsonov placed it in his cap, which had fallen to the ground. He took off his saber and kissed it. He groped for the locket with his wife’s portrait and kissed it too. He walked a few steps to a place where the sky showed through clearly. It was clouded over except for one tiny star that vanished, then appeared again. Dropping to his knees on the warm pine needles, he prayed with his face lifted to the star —he did not know which way was east. First he said the ordinary prayers, then none at all. He just knelt, looked at the sky and breathed. Now he groaned out loud, without restraint, like any other dying forest creature: “Lord, forgive me, if You can, and receive me. You see: There was nothing else I could do, there is nothing I can do.”

Emina Melonic
April 2nd, 2010 | 11:04 am

Cather, O Pioneers!
Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
Goethe, Faust
Dante, Divine Comedy
Percy, Love in the Ruins
Wiesel, The Accident
Hasek, Good Soldier Svejk
Selimovic, Fortress

J
April 2nd, 2010 | 11:21 am

He asks for ONE novel!

Eliot, Middlemarch

TwoSquareMeals
April 2nd, 2010 | 11:34 am

in English: Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom

in translation: Crime and Punishment

TwoSquareMeals
April 2nd, 2010 | 11:47 am

by an author still living: Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow

L
April 2nd, 2010 | 1:16 pm

Did we expect anything less from Catholic nerds?

Dostoevsky, Brothers K

stephen dreher
April 2nd, 2010 | 1:49 pm

The decline of western civilization.

Craig Payne
April 2nd, 2010 | 3:47 pm

Any Catholic nerd is a friend of mine.

But Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment.

Thomas S
April 2nd, 2010 | 4:21 pm

Oh, the snobbishness is like delightful music. THE LORD OF THE RINGS keeps its crown in defiance of the smartest people in the room!

Matt Hummel
April 2nd, 2010 | 4:58 pm

I was going to do some chest thumping that my favorite took the crown this year. But I thought that, given the day, such displays were inappropriate and so as a discipline of fasting, I would refrain.

But I went this afternoon to my first Good Friday liturgy as a Catholic. To receive Christ in that sliver of bread, pressed into my hand by Bp. Malooly caused me to think. Even on this darkest day, commemorating that moment when all the earth was the Land of Shadows, I had the gift of waybread for the journey.

That is why, for some, Lord of the Rings deserves the honor of winning.

Ken
April 2nd, 2010 | 5:23 pm

Percy, Love in the Ruins

Jordan
April 2nd, 2010 | 8:08 pm

Frodo Lives!

Sean
April 2nd, 2010 | 9:06 pm

Tolstoy, War and Peace

Alison F. Solove
April 2nd, 2010 | 10:55 pm

I object! Not on the grounds of snobbery, but on the grounds of artistic medium.

Lord of the Rings is not and was not intended to be a novel. It’s a prose epic. It shouldn’t compete with novels any more than The Divine Comedy or Hamlet ought to.

Besides, nothing really competes with The Lord of the Rings on fair footing anyway.

Craig Payne
April 2nd, 2010 | 11:47 pm

NOBODY is objecting on grounds of snobbery or “snobbishness.” I am an LOTR fan myself, but liking other books as well does not make one a “snob.”

An interesting phenomenon going on here I never knew existed: Lord of the Rings fundamentalism. Maybe one should object on grounds that LOTR is not a novel, but a sacred text?

Jennifer
April 3rd, 2010 | 1:56 am

In my opinion, one of the biggest snubs from the tournament was John Steinbeck. How could you leave out The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and East of Eden? OK, I wouldn’t recommend Of Mice and Men (I was disturbed by the ending). I hope to see East of Eden in the tournament next year. I loved it more after seeing the movie. It is a Biblical allegory of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. I own The Grapes of Wrath, but haven’t read it yet. I would also hope to see Orwell’s Animal Farm.

fionnbharr
April 3rd, 2010 | 9:25 am

I would’ve thought that the Catholic vote would be for The Brothers Karamazov. It’s a book that understands the Catholic spirit better then any novel I can think of off the top of my head. The Lord of the Rings isn’t a bad book. But, honestly, it beat The Brothers Karamazov and Huck Finn, two of the greatest novels of all time. That is just…incredible.

And, um, thanks for calling it’s supporters snobbish. Now there’s an argument that will stand up to the test of time.

JonathanR.
April 3rd, 2010 | 11:20 am

To the one who included Dante’s Divine Comedy, that work is poetry, not a novel. However, if it were a competition for greatest literary work, I’d vote for Dante’s Divine Comedy in a heartbeat.

As for alternatives to the winner… I kinda like the winner.

Emina Melonic
April 3rd, 2010 | 5:16 pm

Jonathan, when I wrote the list, I didn’t think only of novels…I wanted to include many literary masterpieces, which truly deserve the place in the “Tournament.” I understand that some choices I wrote are not novels. :) I think people need to read more works, which are deemed “non-accessible.” They would be pleasantly surprised.

JonathanR.
April 4th, 2010 | 4:11 am

Emina, I generally agree. Except for anything by Joyce. His work is not just inaccessible, its practically unreadable. Irish snob…. Not everything “literary” is a joy to read.

Craig Payne
April 4th, 2010 | 5:08 pm

Well, I wasn’t going to say anything else, but….

JR, I know many people who would say the same about LOTR: “unreadable,” “boring.” My students have a flip dismissal of the LOTR movies: “A trilogy about walking.” Okay, now you have to imagine: The way you and I would feel about their comments is what some would think about your comments regarding Joyce.

Maybe it was because my wife and I just had a son ourselves, but I remember crying through the last few pages of “Finnegans Wake.” And the scene in “Ulysses” when Bloom is trying to help Stephen, who has been beaten almost unconscious, and looks up to see the vision of his own dead son–it is heartwrenching.

Or the “speech” scene in “The Dead,” or the final page of that work. The last sentence of “Araby.” The frustrated rage of “Counterparts.” And so on.

What I mean is, Joyce isn’t inaccessible. He’s just Joyce; every great writer has to follow a unique path.

I agree that not everything considered “literary” is good writing. But I think Joyce is wonderful.

And now, I humbly bow out of this tournament, acknowledging that Tolkien once again rules.

Emina Melonic
April 5th, 2010 | 9:01 am

Jonathan, I fully agree with you about Joyce! Dubliners is still accessible and Portrait but once you get into Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake: forget it! I have F’s Wake sitting on my shelf (one of those impulse purchases: “Oh I wonder if I can read this” type of thing) and it is incomprehensible.

Craig, I take my hat off to you (is this a correct English idiomatic expression? Sorry, English is not my first language and to this day, I still have trouble with idiomatic expressions) for reading and understanding Joyce. Especially since you enjoy it so much as well.

Craig Payne
April 5th, 2010 | 11:19 am

Thank you, Emina, and yes, your idiomatic expression is correct.

“Finnegans Wake” is stuffed with so many puns and plays on English words, I can’t even imagine trying to read it in a non-first language. Even the title is a series of puns: 1. the book is about death and resurrection: “Fin [finis] / Again.” 2. a wake is for someone who has died, but we “wake” in the morning to life again. 3. “Finnegan’s Wake” is an Irish song about a man who dies and comes back to life. 4. without the apostrophe, it becomes a command: “Finnegans, Wake!” All of us are Finnegans, waiting to rise again.

And so on.

Anthony Burgess edited a good edition of it in which he periodically interrupts the narrative to help explain what’s going on. Quite helpful!

Craig Payne
April 5th, 2010 | 11:20 am

P.S. Jonathan and Emina, I agree about Dante. Incomparable.

David_notascynical
April 5th, 2010 | 1:56 pm

Mellville, Moby Dick

Can’t argue with greatness.

Emina Melonic
April 5th, 2010 | 3:29 pm

Craig, thanks for your comment. After I read it, I realized also another thing about Joyce: one truly has to understand the Irish heritage and history to understand Joyce. Otherwise, some things will be meaningless. And also Joyce’s own love/hate relationship with Ireland. Either way, Craig, thanks for continuing the dialogue!

JonathanR.
April 6th, 2010 | 4:44 am

Craig, I would laugh along with anybody who calls the LOTR trilogy ”movies about walking”. I found LOTR hard to read at first too. But it got better further in. The deeper I got into Ulysses, the more I wanted to strangle my lit prof for making me read it. I took one look at the first page of FW, then stopped.

I’m happy you understood both of those works and found something to love about them, but I still stand by my assertion that Joyce’s writing style (along with stream of consciousness writing in general) is modernist literature’s biggest middle finger to the normal reader.

Furthermore, its not the Irishness that made Joyce inaccessible for me. Dostoevsky was very Russian, but at no point did I feel like an idiot reading Crime and Punishment. I can live with not getting a cultural reference. What I can’t stand is a novel that makes me feel like I’m illiterate.

The Other Tournament | The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
April 6th, 2010 | 10:58 am

[...] by First Things’ Tournament of Novels? The Morning News put on a similar tournament of books published last year. The only entrant [...]

Craig Payne
April 6th, 2010 | 1:17 pm

“I still stand by my assertion that Joyce’s writing style (along with stream of consciousness writing in general) is modernist literature’s biggest middle finger to the normal reader.”

Well–longest, anyway. :)

Interesting that both “Ulysses” and “The Waste Land” were published in the same year. I know some people who think of TWL, in the field of poetry, in a similar way.

If anyone is still reading these comments, I’d be interested to hear reactions to David Jones’ book-length poem “The Anathemata” from anyone who has read it, or tried to read it. (Again, I will say up front that I thought it was brilliant, but I understand contrary reactions. It is also one of those works which do not seem to be “translatable” into anything but English.)

Emina Melonic
April 6th, 2010 | 3:41 pm

Craig, I have never heard of David Jones’ book-length poem you mention…American? British? Irish?

And also: although not a great poetry reader, I can’t help but enjoy T.S. Eliot. For whatever reason, words he writes make perfect sense to me.

Craig Payne
April 6th, 2010 | 5:42 pm

Jones is British (Welsh), and the poem is partially a history of the British Isles, Welsh mythology, the introduction of Christianity into Britain, and the Mass. He is, I think, one of the greatest of the least-known poets. But I’m about a third Welsh, so I’m biased.

I like Eliot a lot, too.

Emina Melonic
April 6th, 2010 | 9:22 pm

Interesting..thanks, Craig.

JonathanR.
April 6th, 2010 | 11:29 pm

“I know some people who think of TWL, in the field of poetry, in a similar way.”

Yeah, TWL was hard to get through. I understand that Ezra Pound had a fit when asked by his former protege to edit it. I’m more forgiving of it though because it is poetry, and serves a different purpose from the novel. Besides, I like Eliot’s essays. :)

I’ve never heard of “The Anathematha” though.