Read Erica Jong's Top 100 Twentieth Century Novels by Women

Neal—

I’ve been following this list ever since you posted it on your “post book lists for other people” goal. I haven’t been very busy on 43 Things ever since I started my own book blog, Rose City Reader, where I post reviews and keep track of my various Must Read lists.

But I wanted you to know that I just added this Erica Jong list to the book lists on my blog and plan to turn more attention to reading books from it.

I’ve read 29 so far and have another 10 currently sitting on my TBR shelf.

Fey.

Also on Modern Library’s Top 100 Novels of 20th Century.

today i finished #8:
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.

don’t get me wrong: it’s not that doing these book lists is a chore, believe me. well – it’s not a chore all of the time, at least. i like the sense of satisfaction working through these lists is giving me and lately, when i’ve been just as hungry for books as ever but losing inspiration on what to reach for, it has definitely helped.

bweteen The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (which i finished a fortnight ago) i read three or four books (um, not including the Sweet Valley Twins books that i bought in the charity shop the other day, haha!) before i attempted this. i’m glad i did. ploughing straight into The House of Mirth after Murakami’s obtuse novel might have made me swear off these lists entirely.

not that i didn’t enjoy this book: i did, kind of, in a bemused and slightly amused way. it felt almost as strangely fantastical as Wind-Up Bird – after all, both books are so far removed from my life that they might as well have been set on different planets. the lead, Lily Bart, is a stupidly head-strong woman with a seriously self-destructive streak. without giving away too much of the plot, there are several points throughout the novel when the heroine could easily save herself and rectify all her previous mistakes by admitting defeat, but she refuses to.

admittedly, her saviours come dressed only as suitors and she refuses to settle for a marriage like that. i’m not the type to advocate marrying for money or even safety, but the whole book seems to focus on her desire to marry for money but then watches her as she throws chance after chance to do exactly that away. alright, so she loves someone else, blah blah. it’s frustrating and it’s not as if this has never been written about before.

i think my favourite character was Carry Fisher. twice divorced and with half a dozen scandals trailing behind her, she whips society round her little finger and makes a fortune off of her own talents and skills at networking. surely the perfect PR woman, far ahead of her time! she tries to help Lily and the useless flailing girl just ruins everything with her contrary nature. yes, i can see that a lot of Lilys actions are driven by some twisted desire to be ethical and good but a lot of the time its misguided and ends up harming her further.

i can see why this book was listed on the Erica Jongs Top 100 list i’m reading – i can see where Lily is an almost proto-type feminist and i’m sure the way she pays for her beliefs strikes the chords of Jong’s readers, pupils and suscribers. i’m far more surprised that it was also included in Modern Library’s Top 100. i’m glad that it ticks two boxes off for me, but it seems an odd choice for Modern Library. still, i’m glad to be reading a womans work for once on that list!

i didn’t hate this book, nor love it. a love of dresses is something i can relate to, but the other flaws i see in Lily Bart i can sometimes see in myself and it unnerves me to read of her downfall. although i found this easy to read and i suppose quite liked it, this is not the book for me and i doubt i will ever read it again.

14 read. 86 left!

“Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.”

today i finished #16: Fear of Flying by Erica Jong. for some reason it seemed to take me forever to read this book – i’m not sure why, it just felt my progress was really slow, even though i enjoyed the book as a whole.

in particular, i think she has a certain skill for one-liners (“Show me a woman who doesn’t feel guilty and I’ll show you a man”) and a pithy, self-indulgent writing style (at least in this book) which i enjoyed, whilst hoping i was not at all like the central character, Isadora. although often overly dramatic, it was inspired and insightful in some places (and did make me realise that i have some of those same stupid issues as the lead character, annoyingly.)

not one of my favourite books ever, but i’m very glad to have read it. i do consider that it was probably a more culturally important text at the time it was written and wish i could have read it then (not that i was born then!) saying that, i have not read a book written recently that has been so honest about sex – and i don’t mean crude, or overly informative, but just honest – even to the point of idiocy. it does feel like Jong was writing about herself entirely, but i do not think this is a bad thing. (i have looked her up on the internet and discovered that the men in the main characters were the stories of Jong’s real husbands.)

one of the quotes in the book was D.H. Lawrence and i’m paraphrasing here, but it was something like “The hardest thing for a woman to to live up to a man’s description of a woman.” this seems to sum up the book as a whole for me and also her reasons behind writing it. i understand why (mostly) women chose this book as a part-representation of women authors.

13 down, 87 to go!

i found this list thanks to nealcassady. “Jong’s list is based on an informal survey she did of people on her mailing list: writers and scholars, more women than men.”

i like the sound of this list very much. i will continue to update this first entry by bolding the ones i’ve read.

1. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
2. Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice
3. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
4. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
5. The Waves by Virginia Woolf
6. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
7. Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
8. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
9. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
10. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
11. The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
12. Burger’s Daughter by Nadine Gordimer
13. The Dollmaker by Harriette Simpson Arnow
14. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
15. My Ántonia by Willa Cather
16. Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
17. Fanny by Erica Jong
18. Obasan by Joy Kogawa
19. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
20. The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
21. The Grass Is Singing by Doris Lessing
22. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
23. Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
24. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
25. Her First American by Lore Segal
26. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
27. The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker
28. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
29. Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
30. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
31. Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
32. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
33. Anya by Susan Fromberg Shaeffer
34. Trust by Cynthia Ozick
35. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
36. The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
37. Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie
38. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
39. A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion
40. Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion
41. The Group by Mary McCarthy
42. The Company She Keeps by Mary McCarthy
43. The Little Disturbances of Man by Grace Paley
44. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
45. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
46. The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
47. Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
48. Anywhere But Here by Mona Simpson
49. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
50. Beloved by Toni Morrison
51. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
52. Mr. Fortune’s Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner
53. Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter
54. Progress of Stories by Laura Riding
55. Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
56. The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
57. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
58. Possession by A.S. Byatt
59. The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
60. Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
61. Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
62. Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
63. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
64. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
65. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
66. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
67. Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
68. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
69. The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
70. Things Invisible to See by Nancy Willard
71. Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
72. Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
73. Civil Wars by Rosellen Brown
74. Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr
75. The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford
76. Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith
77. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
78. The Mind-Body Problem by Rebecca Goldstein
79. The Children of Men by P.D. James
80. Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi
81. The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon
82. Collected Stories by Katherine Mansfield
83. Life in the Iron Mills by Rebecca Harding Davis
84. The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich
85. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
86. The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O’Brien
87. Realms of Gold by Margaret Drabble
88. The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble
89. The Locusts Have No King by Dawn Powell
90. The Women’s Room by Marilyn French
91. The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
92. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
93. Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
94. Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen
95. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
96. A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
97. Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai
98. The Drowning Season by Alice Hoffman
99. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
100. The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer

notes for my own reference
before beginning i had read:

3. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
4. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
14. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
22. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
26. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
31. Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
32. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
44. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
60. Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
62. Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
64. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
99. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend

i also think i’ve read: – 61. Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner (actually, i think i own it somewhere) but am reluctant to cross this off the list in case my memory is getting mixed up.

Jong’s list is based on an informal survey she did of people on her mailing list: writers and scholars, more women than men. An interesting alternative list, given the relative lack of women on the Modern Library Top 100. Jong lists the books in order of those most frequently cited by her correspondents. Green I have, blue I’ve read.

Margaret Mitchell: 1. Gone With the Wind

Anne Rice: 2. Interview With the Vampire

Virginia Woolf: 3. To the Lighthouse

4. Mrs. Dalloway 5. The Waves

6. Orlando

Djuna Barnes: 7. Nightwood

Edith Wharton: 8. The House of Mirth

9. The Age of Innocence 10. Ethan Frome

Radclyffe Hall: 11. The Well of Loneliness

Nadine Gordimer: 12. Burger’s Daughter

Harriette Simpson Arnow: 13. The Dollmaker

Margaret Atwood: 14. The Handmaid’s Tale

Willa Cather: 15. My Antonia

Erica Jong: 16. Fear of Flying

17. Fanny

Joy Kogawa: 18. Obasan

Doris Lessing: 19. The Golden Notebook

20. The Fifth Child

21. The Grass Is Singing

Harper Lee: 22. To Kill a Mockingbird

Marge Piercy: 23. Woman on the Edge of Time

Jane Smiley: 24. A Thousand Acres

Lore Segal: 25. Her First American

Alice Walker: 26. The Color Purple

27. The Third Life of Grange Copeland

Marion Zimmer Bradley: 28. The Mists of Avalon

Muriel Spark: 29. Memento Mori

30. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Dorothy Allison: 31. Bastard Out of Carolina

Jean Rhys: 32. Wide Sargasso Sea

Susan Fromberg Shaeffer: 33. Anya

Cynthia Ozick: 34. Trust

Amy Tan: 35. The Joy Luck Club 36. The Kitchen God’s Wife

Ann Beattie: 37. Chilly Scenes of Winter

Zora Neale Hurston: 38. Their Eyes Were Watching God

Joan Didion: 39. A Book of Common Prayer 40. Play It as It Lays

Mary McCarthy: 41. The Group 42. The Company She Keeps

Grace Paley: 43. The Little Disturbances of Man

Sylvia Plath: 44. The Bell Jar

Carson McCullers: 45. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Elizabeth Bowen: 46. The Death of the Heart

Flannery O’Connor: 47. Wise Blood

Mona Simpson: 48. Anywhere But Here

Toni Morrison: 49. Song of Solomon 50. Beloved

Stella Gibbons: 51. Cold Comfort Farm

Sylvia Townsend Warner: 52. Mr. Fortune’s Maggot

Katherine Anne Porter: 53. Ship of Fools

Laura Riding: 54. Progress of Stories

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: 55. Heat and Dust

Penelope Fitzgerald: 56. The Blue Flower

Isabel Allende: 57. The House of the Spirits

A.S. Byatt: 58. Possession

Pat Barker: 59. The Ghost Road

Rita Mae Brown: 60. Rubyfruit Jungle

Anita Brookner: 61. Hotel du Lac

Angela Carter: 62. Nights at the Circus

Daphne Du Maurier: 63. Rebecca

Katherine Dunn: 64. Geek Love

Shirley Jackson: 65. We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Barbara Pym: 66. Excellent Women

Leslie Marmon Silko: 67. Ceremony

Anne Tyler: 68. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant 69. The Accidental Tourist

Nancy Willard: 70. Things Invisible to See

Jeanette Winterson: 71. Sexing the Cherry

Lynne Sharon Schwartz: 72. Disturbances in the Field

Rosellen Brown: 73. Civil Wars

Harriet Doerr: 74. Stones for Ibarra

Jean Stafford: 75. The Mountain Lion

Stevie Smith: 76. Novel on Yellow Paper

E. Annie Proulx: 77. The Shipping News

Rebecca Goldstein: 78. The Mind-Body Problem

P.D. James: 79. The Children of Men

Ursula Hegi: 80. Stones From the River

Fay Weldon: 81. The Life and Loves of a She-Devil

Katherine Mansfield: 82. Collected Stories

Rebecca Harding Davis: 83. Life in the Iron Mills

Louise Erdrich: 84. The Beet Queen

Ursula K. Le Guin: 85. The Left Hand of Darkness

Edna O’Brien: 86. The Country Girls Trilogy

The Country Girls (1960)

The Lonely Girl (1962)

Girls in Their Married Bliss (1964)

Margaret Drabble: 87. Realms of Gold

88. The Waterfall

Dawn Powell: 89. The Locusts Have No King

Marilyn French: 90. The Women’s Room

Eudora Welty: 91. The Optimist’s Daughter

Carol Shields: 92. The Stone Diaries

Jamaica Kincaid: 93. Annie John

Tillie Olsen: 94. Tell Me a Riddle

Gertrude Stein: 95. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

Iris Murdoch: 96. A Severed Head

Anita Desai: 97. Clear Light of Day

Alice Hoffman: 98. The Drowning Season

Sue Townsend: 99. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole

Penelope Mortimer: 100. The Pumpkin Eater