What lists of our greatest novels get wrong
“Where are all my favorite parts?” Arnold Schoenberg asked, on being presented with a severe academic analysis of the Eroica symphony. “Oh, there they are. In the tiny notes.” The tendency of many people, presented with the overwhelming abundance of an art form, is to exclude as much as possible. Reduce the wonderful life of incidental invention to the tiny notes; erect walls excluding the fascinating curiosity, the eccentric, the madly idiosyncratic. Produce a list of the 100 Best Books, sticking to declared Greatness. People have been producing lists of the Best Books for a hell of a long time. When copyright law was reformed in 1774, it enabled publishers to produce collections of novels for the first time.
