I am not sure I am right, Corwood. All I really know is that all the "modern literary" peeps do nothing for me, personally, at all, but people who wrote "literature" earlier in time do. I am just, I guess, trying to find the reason. Maybe it is because I am really a lower-class educated person, rather than a middle class educated person? (not being snarky at all)

Ha! I bet that it has a lot to do with time weeding out the wheat from the chaff in earlier literature. You're right that the early theater, too, was meant for the masses, so there has definitely been a migrating audience in the last 400 years. I'll go out on a limb and suggest that you might really enjoy Marilynne Robinson's books. She has a lovely way with language and a stateliness that indicates (to me, natch) that her books will last.

I also think that the emergance of "literary fiction" has caused the demise of many novels which are actually enjoyable. I mean, Shakespeare and Dickens and even Hemingway, I think, were writing for an audience who wanted to enjoy their works in some way. I feel like Roth, DeLillo, Updike et als are writing to "create literature".

Crazy talk! Roth is totally fun to read. For me anyway. For Sophia, NSM.

I don't think you can really make the case that Roth and Updike have inaccessible styles - not only are they writing for the educated middle-class, they're writing about them. They're certainly not writing experimental or "difficult" fiction like Bartheleme or Gass or Hawkes.

Delillo is more closely associated with the meta-ficiton writers of the early 70s like Pynchon and Barth and Gaddis, but his stuff is still very readable (though maybe less enjoyable in the juicy Dickens way).

I was stunned by how many of the top choices were by novelists in their 70s.

A.O. Scott's essay addresses that, noting that the top five authors were all born within two years of each other. I think a little of that is what Douglas Coupland called "clique maintenance" referring to generational biases. I think a British list might have a few votes for Zadie Smith. Kavalier and The Corrections each got one vote.

I'm really pleased to see that Norman Rush's Mating made the list! That's one of my favorite books, but it seems like few people know of him.

From that list, I've only read Mating, Beloved, and White Noise (DeLillo). I really like what little DeLillo I've read; I should pick up a copy of Underworld or Libra sometime.

Libra was a snooze. DeLillo's uneven.

Underworld is the one about the Kennedy assassination, right? That's the one I want to read.

If only "The Corrections" were as funny or brilliant as the author thought it was. Man, that's why I hate lists...never meant to slight K&K. I'd put "Fortress of Solitude" right up next to it, too (Climbs up on Roth bench with Hecubus.) You'll have to bring your own liver, boychik. My mama told me not to do that with married guys anymore. I'm sure you understand.

I've always felt I should read A Confederacy of Dunces, but somehow never managed to work up the motivation to actually start reading.

You'll have to bring your own liver, boychik.

I never graduated to organ meat.

I've always felt I should read A Confederacy of Dunces, but somehow never managed to work up the motivation to actually start reading.

It's funny! Not a spinach book.

I really thought it was hilarious, but sometimes the canon thing makes me twitch...trying to decide what America laughs at, or something. Of course, as a writing student, I heard the Toole story as a cautionary tale first.

It's funny! Not a spinach book.

I only made it about 20 pages in. I'm sure it was supposed to be funny, but I just couldn't get into the writing style.