Brave new world is amazing and may i say the author was correct the more we know about human brains the more we are understanding that we are nothing more than the chemical and electric signal in our brains hence it just a matter of time till we can hack the human brain and control it
Just to put this list in perspective - and I'm not saying that these novels are bad, but that the choice is of course partial - here is a list of some authors that wrote novels which might have been a very good choice for the list too : Marcel Proust, Isaac Asimov, Jorge Luis Borges, Dino Buzzati, Agatha Christie, Philip K. Dick, Umberto Eco, Federico García Lorca, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Aldous Huxley, Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, Franz Kafka, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Virginia Woolf, Stefan Zweig, Albert Camus... just to name a few.
"Grapes of Wrath" gets all the attention...and "Of Mice and Men" is certainly a great novel...but I think "East of Eden" is better than both to them. In my opinion, it is Steinbeck's masterpiece.
olddirtymongrrel Absolutely agree with you on Dune. Asimov's Foundation trilogy deserves an honorable mention, as does Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Clarke was great, I just don't know which book I would pick. 2001: A Space Odyssey perhaps, simply because of the impact it had on culture and the cinema.
One hundred years of solitude is like the best novel in Spanish language since The Quijote. And Gabriel García Márquez was the best storyteller I had the pleasure to read, eternally thankfull to the literature teacher that made me read this book. We love you Gabo! Grande!!
I felt happy of that because I'm from Colombia and I think that Gabo is one of the few colombians that change the image that other countries have about my country.
gerben ferwerda Yes, that might be true, I couldn't say, but that whole genre is not as "big" as you'd like to think it is. It's deserving of the 9th spot, nothing more. Realism still trumps over fantasy in most media, even with the contemporary popularity of LotR and George R R Martin's "a Song of Ice and Fire", and their corresponding adaptations.
WatchMojo, please! When are you gonna start to call your videos rightly? This one should be named - Top 10 20th Century Novels by the American point of view. It might be excusable about the movies, but definintely not the novels. At least, you should check out Russian and German literature. Hemingway cannot compete with Remarque completely.
AZ Adyghe Almost all of them were American, and while America did some pretty great work, America isn't the best at everything, Orwell, and a few others on this list weren't American, but you should rename the list to "From the Western perspective"
Sliver Sithx even from western perspective it is not really correct yes a huge problem is the total lack of chinese and japanese autors but europe seams to be just poorly known as well exept of the one latinamerican one all books on this list were written in english that says pretty much everything +AZ Adyghe the lack of russian autors also has to do with the timespan the 20th century was not the greatest time for russian literature but in a 19th century list there would have to be tolstoi and dostoyevski
elendis16 but it doesn't surprise me american culture and whatsmojo as well are pretty much know for being ignorant and not really being able to see beyond one's own nose
AZ Adyghe true but its not only their foult the list is made by them and then there are polls that fans vote one since most fans are americans american/brittish books are going to own the list i mean Harry Potter HM seriusly dont get me wrong i love the book but it dose not belong here it sold well but its not that great artistically
Dominic Uccelli I do´t think the movie was shitty, but the book is so good that anything based on it has to be perfect or will be considered crap. PS. I think that movie needed more Jordan Baker, we all need more Jordan Baker in our lives.
Dominic Uccelli I've seen the movie first, then read the book. The movie did everything by the god-damn letter. Its usually the opposite, but no. Gatsby just copied everything, so kinda wierd you say this.
Tronic LT yeah, but the literatture world is so vast that when you make a list like this you're always going to be bound to your point of view ... i guess this where the most influential in american culture.
Tronic LT *Mostly American Novelists: James Joyce was Irish, Tolkien British, Marquez was Latin; I guess and even better title would be Top 10 Western Novelists Who would you suggest from wherever you are from, or from anywhere?
hiimindstate You are totally forgetting the Europeans, the continental part... What about French, Germans and Italian novelists? On 10 authors, 9 of them wrote in English, and the tenth was put at the tenth place... It should have been titled "top ten books of English XIX century literature (with one exception)" at least
Im surprised the Gone With The Wind didnt even get an honorable mention. Yes it is a controversial book but no more than the rest. For all of it's issues it is a very well written book. Not to mention the fact that it is, I believe, the best selling American novel of all time.
In my life the most influencial books are "The Hobbit or There and Back Again" and all "The Lord of the Rings" books. They were the books which started my interest in fantasy and in reading in general. The feeling when I started reading them and dived into the story ( at the first time in Finnish and later in English ) was just amazing. I wouldn't be the same person without the works of J. R. R Tolkien. He is one of my favourite writers alongside with H. P. Lovecraft, Umberto Eco, David Eddings and Edgar Allan Poe. Thank you Tolkien for everything you gave to literature. If I ever get any of short stories I've written published it is thanks to you.
Collier Browne Not particularly influential, and, somewhat, it was a successor to _1984_, plus I really don't see it's independent cultural significance, not enough to justify it at the top 10 of a century wide list, so I can understand it's not being on here.
Two years later, a kind but scolding reply: "Fahrenheit 451" burns with a writer's defiance against censorship. The Fire Chief's extraordinary speech at the heart of the novel should be required reading in every free society. "No relevant plot"? You seem to have no clue just how relevant an anti-censorship story was in 1950s America. It was so hard for Bradbury to find a publisher that he turned to the unknown publisher of a new magazine to gain a serialized venue for his story. It appeared in issues 2, 3 and 4. The publisher? Hugh Hefner. The magazine? Playboy. Read about HUAC and the Red Scare and see if the novel's theme seems so pointless. And re-consider it in light of today's atmosphere of "fake news" accusations and "alternative facts" claims. Relevance, elegance and thematic heat are why "Fahrenheit 451" has become a mainstay of contemporary literature.
You put 1984 over Ulysses. You mention Harry Potter but not William Gaddis or Thomas Pynchon. You don't mention Kafka, Wolfe, DFW, DeLillo, McElroy, or mother fucking McCarthy. Okay. I'm taking this list with a massive grain of salt.
+dsanzo I think The Recognitions has maybe just a tad bit more literary merit than something like To Kill a Mockingbird. The books/authors I listed are more influential and affect literature/philosophy far greater than something like To Kill a Mockingbird. They are also.... Better.... They say more, what they say is more profound and more novel (pun intended), and they are just.... Better novelist and have written far better novels than the ones listed.
Chris Robinson i disagree. It is the DNA on which all fantasy novels since have been based. Especially today, it has more an impact on english culture than the rest of the books on here.
LOTR may not have had a huge impact in literature as the other novels on the list but it had a massive impact in many generations of readers and i think that is a very importan fact that could land LOTR in a better spot on the list
Magma Mage I can see your reasoning behind your statement, but when you think 20th century novels LOTR isn't the first thing that comes to mind. I wholeheartedly believe that LOTR is the superior novel to the ones mentioned on this list, but it doesn't capture what the 20th century was like the other novels on this list did.
Charlie Brown you do know Watchmojo are Canadians? every video there's some children, like you, crying about America despite the fact that the people who create this shit channel are Canadians.
Just American authors.... I mean, KAFKA?!? Anybody? I also love Gatsby, but you should definitely feature e.g. Metamorphosis or some works of Thomas Mann. Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is also a master-piece. And Lord Of The Flies should definitely be on of the top-picks of the list.
TeamMastaPr2 i'm not sure but maybe they did like usual with the 1 book per author rule, and 1984 made the list so animal farm couldn't p.s. my english literature this year in school was special, i had to read animal farm first, one of the best novels ever, then tangerine, one of the most boring books i've ever read
roraio It's definitely not a short story, so what is it then? plazasta Maybe they did, but I don't recall her saying it. We actually read that book in English class, and watched the film version. I really liked it. At least they could have mentioned it along with "1984".
TeamMastaPr2 "Animal Farm" is indeed fantastic, but it's one of his underrated works. More underrated novels are "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, "Watership Down" by Richard Adams, "The House of the Scorpion" by Nancy Farmer, "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, and many more.
I think _Invisible Man_ should have at least gotten an honorable mention, I mean, talk about a book that's just as relevant today in our society as _1984_ or _The Great Gatsby_, not to mention Ellison's excellence as a writer. It's obviously difficult to make a concise list of truly the greatest novels of any century without becoming too specific, but you can't simply gloss over entire periods which helped to define and shape many of the novels which are high on the list; for instance, just to continue off of _Invisible Man_, there wouldn't probably have truly been a _To Kill A Mockingbird_ without _Invisible Man_, because Lee was obviously aware of the book's themes and importance, and she took those themes and shaped them into something great, but again, you can't praise the student without a nod to master; even Kendrick Lamar knows what's up. You probably could have added _A Clockwork Orange_ to the honorable mentions, or just a shot of the film before the list, to this as well. An alright list altogether though.
You use the underscore around the text that you want to be italicized, so: _Invisible Man_ = underscore[Invisible Man] underscore, without the brackets, that's just to show where the text goes.
Jeffrey Clemmons War of the worlds is better i think, but then again it was written in 1898. Don't get me wrong though, I love invisible man, just not as much as war of the worlds. Apart from that Kurt Vonnegut is my favourite sci-fi author.
kuledinho Dude, look, i really like ASoIaF, but it's nothing compared to LotR. LotR created the genre itself, it inspired many other works that followed him, including ASoIaF. ASoIaF wouldn't even exist without LotR. The sales, the prizes, the impact on litarature and pop culture that LotR had is WAY, WAAY bigger than ASoIaF. And we must remember that ASoIaF is a unfinished novel and most of it's books were written in the 21th century. And all the rest of the list, are legendary, awesome pieces of literature, better than ASoIaF...
MegaDragonslayer1997 7 ASoIaF was directly influenced by Lord of the Rings, as well as many different events throughout actual history. George R. R. Martin is on record saying this.
MegaDragonslayer1997 Sort of. The setting is inspired by mythology from all over the world, and Tolkien is a part of that inspiration. George has also frequently said that the world and plot was inspired by what he thought didn't work in LOTR. "What was Aragorns tax policy? How did he deal with the orc problem?" I think ASOIAF is more inspired by sci-fi and drama than fantasy, but it would not have been the same without tolkien.
1984 is #4? YEEEES!!!!!! I'm reading that book now for the first time and it more than deserves its place here. One of the most interesting and thought provoking books I've ever read :)
I agree with you with all of these works. Atlas Shrugged was voted Time and Time and Time and Again greatest book of all time by so many book of the month clubs Fortune 500 executives, it's been read by more presidents were astronauts more sports figures than any other book and the list.
is it though? HP broke records upon records. totally shifted the landscape for fantasy like nothing else since lotr. i definitely think it deserves to be in the conversation with these other novels listed.
No chronicles of narnia, no the alchemist, top choiice based on the AMERICAN dream, as if it was influential everywhere, 20th century being 1900 to 1999.... Jesus wathcmojo wtf
Chris Robinson The Alchemist is a poorly written novel that proclaims pseudo intellectual and new age hippy beliefs ... it is not a good novel put it that way.
***** As a novel, no it isn't very well written, but that personal legend mumbo jumbo really helped some people out. I personally thought it was bullshit, but it has changed lives like it or not.
Lord of the Rings ninth? NINTH? By heavens it shwould be first! It is An exemplary piece of literature! What on Middle Earth is it doing trailing behind in ninth? You do not credit it as it is deserved.....
Super_sonic_moo While I agree it is a wonderful fantasy novel, it did not have as big of an impact on american literature than the other books on the list
Hunter Mauldin Correct, even *if* the book was amazing literature it did not impact the American people greatly at the time. Was Stephen King's The Stand on this?
Besides Marquez all english writing authors. Why?????? Dostojevski? Kafka? Remarque? Hugo? Dumas? Dante? Capek? Tolstoj? And many many others!!!! Please WatchMojo either be fair or name your videos correctly. I know that for you, being americans, it's alright but for the rest of the world it's insulting.
jermaine vink wtf you'er talking about, if l like SW it dosn't mean that I have in minde it, l'm talking about all literature, that have social or political, both themes, metafors to disclose these issues, connotation that are used to make writing more interesting, innovative, not just full of meaningless action. LOTR have some of it, HP not so.
Fahrenheit 451 The Diary of Anne Frank Man's Search for Meaning Animal Farm The Death of a Salesman Crucible Watchmen The Dark Knight Returns The Killing Joke V for Vendetta Daredevil: Born Again
ThePoppie08 Harry Potter does not reflect anything of the era it came out of, it does not reflect any era, and it never will. It is a well written fantasy, and in a century where you have the great epic fantasy world of J.R.Tolkien, with such artistic fervor, that it continues to amaze to this day considering it is the only fantasy novel on this list that had no literary purpose, and wasn't written to convey a part of the current world that the author wanted to bring attention to, when comparing Harry Potter with Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion, considering The Lord of the Rings got ninth (which I personally do not agree with) Harry Potter does not deserve a place on this list it is not of great literary merit, it is not rich with complexity, the only reason it made this list as an honorable mention is because of the mass fan dome that thinks it is the best thing ever, most of those people are not well read, and only read Harry Potter because it is something that everyone does. It is not read because it is of significant literary merit it is simply read because of its popularity. While competing against other silly meaningless books, Harry Potter would do well in a competition, but when competing against some of the greatest literary works of all time, it falls way down the list behind so many greater books.
***** hes right. 20th century lasted from jan 1 1901- december 31st 2000. watchmojo probabley got confused between the 1900s and the 20th century. so either they should have considered novels from 2000 or it should have been titled top 10 novels of the 1900s.
Necromaster2077 The Cthulhu mythos is not a novel, but a common theme contained within a collection of works by H.P. Lovecraft, and then other authors. Everything Lovecraft wrote was short, often only a few pages long. "Call of Cthulhu" is only about 30 pages long, "At the Mountains of Madness" less than 100. Therefore, the longest of his works would be considered noveellas or short stories.
I know I'm going to get a lot of shit about this but based on what I've seen of WatchMojo, they do not like conservatives much and Atlas Shrugged is highly held by conservative groups
stop getting the centuries wrong IT'S 1901 TO 2000. that is the 20th century for Christ sake. there isn't even a need for you to get it wrong. as all the books you chose are after 1901 and before 2000 anyway.
8th wonder of the world so i was born in the 20th century? i thought the 20th century was from january 1st, 1900 at 0:00 and 0 seconds and ended december 31st 1999 at 23:59 and 59 seconds, and me being born in 2000, i thought i was born in the 21st century
well there was no year 0 in the Gregorian calendar. so the 1st century was year 1-100. so yes the 20th century didn't end till 23:59 31st december 2000
Stephen King is an entertaining writer, with good plots and ideas, though his characters are stereotypical, his stories are made really only to entertain and make profit, and his dialogue is weak, which is why he doesn't compare to F. Scott Fitzgerald or somebody of that skill.
As i see they, have shown us two different faces of absolute control. And what we live now is a mix of both. I always recommend BOTH books to any intelligent ppl. On their own, they are great...together...they are brilliant.
Bosco2196 Actually Huxley and Orwell both just ripped off a lesser known dystopian writer named Zamyatin who actually founded the genre with his novel "We", which Orwell noted Brave New World is nearly a page for page ripoff. In terms of dystopian future science fiction: Huxley = meh Orwell = good Zamyatin = G.O.A.T.
+tumblingski 1984 is a terrible narrative. It's heavy handed and the prose is awful. It's deep if you're a high schooler and haven't read a lot of books, but otherwise it's incredibly average.
Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt. So it goes. Delighted to see Slaughterhouse Five be on here, even if it was just an honourable mention. Such a beautiful novel.
***** Most people are stupid. :D That logic (starting year is 0) counts for decades, but not centuries, nor milleniums (centuries and milleniums end with the year 0). That is a fact that most people seem to forget. We use Gregorian calendar, right? The Gregorian calendar is modified Julian calendar. Julian calendar did not have the year 0 (BC/AD), it skipped from 1 BC to 1 AD. That means it counted centuries (100 years) from year 1 to 100, not from 0 to 99 like astronomers. So yeah, we can count it both ways. But I personally doubt WatchMojo used astronomical numbering (because people do not use it in their daily life, they use Gregorian calendar). :D Well, whatever... xD (Oh, and yes, Google is a good friend to me... xD)
This type of list is impossible to do with only 10 entries. It would be better with 25. Then we could just argue about rank. My nominees would be Dr Zhivago (Pasternak), The Tin Drum (Grass), Siddhartha (Hesse), and The Stranger (Camus).
My personal 10, also following an idea of one story/novel per author: 10. Revolutionary Road (1961) by Richard Yates (Oh, yeah. Gatsby has a lot of iconography, but it's still pretty short and amounts to a cry for the rich people story. I have a lot more sympathy for the couple at the core of this proto Mad Men than the central two of the Gatsby cast.) 9. I, Claudius (1934) by Robert Graves (A classic novel of awesome backstabbing historical fiction. Clearly should be more read.) 8. Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce (I value other's more, but it's rambling experimentation is still admirable in it's own ways.) 7. Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson (Don't look at me like that. This was a scarily accurate predictive sci-fi novel that also had a lot of laughter and thrills. There's basically no point in making it into a movie, though, because it's barely sci-fi anymore.) 6. The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955) by J.R.R. Tolkien (It is the fantasy novel to end and influence all other fantasy novels and for good reason.) 5. 1984 (1948) by George Orwell (Ah, Orwell. Yeah, this is still an iconic bit of 20th century dystopia.) 4. The Bone People (1985) by Keri Hulme (This bit of ace literature is ALSO ace lit in the orientation sense. If anyone wants to get an idea of what the asexual experience might have been like before the Internet got huge, this is the best idea of where to start, only closely followed by Jhonen Vasquez's comic series Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.) 3. Underworld (1997) by Don DeLillo 2. A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975) by Anthony Powell (The middle portions of A Dance to the Music of Time and the opening of Underworld together form a pretty cohesive portraiture of the differences between 1950s Americana and 1950s England and deal with some view of history from the 1920s to the end of the twentieth century. Overall, they are incredible achievements.) And before we get to #1, here are five honourable mentions: Infinite Jest (1996) by David Foster Wallace The Big Sleep (1939) by Raymond Chandler On the Road (1954) by Jack Kerouac Blood Meridian (1985) by Cormac McCarthy Brideshead Revisited (1945) by Evelyn Waugh 1. Gravity's Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon (Ah, Pynchon. The guy who, at his best, made this novel. Imagine a ten-twelve issue Vertigo comic miniseries set to prose and you'll have an idea of Pynchon's world, creating a universe that is simultaneously hyper-sexual, hyper-intellectual and hyper-fantastical strictly through prose.) Your List: 1900s: 1 1910s: 0 1920s: 4 1930s: 1 1940s: 1 1950s: 4 1960s: 3 1970s: 0 1980s: 0 1990s: 1 My list: 1900s: 0 1910s: 0 1920s: 1 1930s: 2 1940s: 2 1950s: 2.33 1960s: 1.33 1970s: 1.34 1980s: 2 1990s: 3 Your list also has NOTHING that really plays off counter culture or alternate sexual orientations. The Berlin Stories? The Bone People? On the Road? All pretty obvious ways to show awareness of either of those things as being important.
Wow, I'm surprised The Diary of Anne Frank didn't make it. 0_0 Not blaming WatchMojo because I know they didn't really get much of a say but I'm shocked that not many of the voters mentioned it
And to think people complain about Mojo's anime lists. Their literature lists are the worst! Here is what a better top 10 list would look like: 10. Lolita 9. The Windup Bird Chronicle 8. The Lord of the Rings 7. Midnight's Children 6. Dr. Zhivago 5. We 4. 100 Years of Solitude 3. The Tin Drum 2. The Master and Margarita 1. Ullyses
gantzisballs Perfect? Of course not. However, my list avoided using morally simple children's novels like Mockingbird, overrated angsty teen trash like Catcher, or novels that were only included because the voter read them in American high school and has never read anything else in his life (most of the Mojo list).
So a novel about a black man getting falsely accused of rape is strictly a children's novel? Also I believe that you have to read Catcher at the right time in your life to truly appreciate it. Here's what I think the top 10 should be: 10. To Kill a Mockingbird 9. The Sound and the Fury 8. Beloved 7. The Catcher in the Rye 6. Catch-22 5. Lolita 4. Ulysses 3. Nineteen Eighty-Four 2. The Grapes of Wrath 1. The Great Gatsby
You forgot The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The fact that it didn't get at least an honorable mention is a huge injustice. As for Lord of the Rings, it should have easily been number one on this list. There's no greater fantasy than Lord of the Rings. Not even I could think up anything more epic.
I haven't read GR (yet), but I love Lot 49 by Pynchon. GR is typically considered his greatest novel, and among serious literary critics and historians I think it would make a top ten 20th century novels list. I mean, Proust wasn't even mentioned on here, or Blood Meridian. But then WatchMojo is very populist and seems aimed at increasingly young audiences. I mean, everyone on here is complaining Harry Potter and Game of Thrones aren't on the list....
Edward Chamberlin I, being of that younger audience, probably would have been upset if they seriously put Harry Potter on the list, mostly because while I understand that it's been a cultural phenomenon, I don't find it to be a particular gem in contrast to a lot of other works; and going on the idea that it's a phenomenon, it's a highly modern phenomenon with the bulk of the series' popularity being in the 21st century. Same with A Song of Ice and Fire, specifically _A Game of Thrones_; while the book is great, not only is it part of an unfinished story, but it's too highly influenced by the fantasy literature that preceded it.
Jeffrey Clemmons Good comments, Jeffrey. Even if one was really into Harry Potter (and, believe me, I was very into all of them when they came out) and Song of Ice and Fire (I haven't read these yet...but it goes without saying that I need to!), you are right that the majority of the books came out in the 21st century, and therefore maybe they should be placed there (they grouped Lord of the Rings together as one entry, so I'm guessing they would have for Harry Potter or Song of Ice and Fire as well). And, JayVBear, Camus and Sartre are great (I remember reading The Plague in college). I've actually never heard of Jean Genet! I'm guessing someone I should read?
This is mising some great novels written in different languages than english.Here are some examples Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar Pedro Paramo by juan rulfo The dogs and the city by Mario Vargas Llosa Blindness by Jose Saramago The Stranger by albert Camus In search of lost time By Marcel Proust The name of the rose By Umberto Eco The autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Krzysztof Ka I mean, arguably _The Great Gatsby_ is a novellas well, the thing is roughly 130 pages, in the edition that I have, which to me is just on the cusp of novel length, yet it stands at the top of the list.
Jeffrey Clemmons that's interesting. here's what i have found considering this issue www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-a-short-story-and-a-novella. looks like it's not just the lenght of a written story.
Really these are the best novels? The title should be "Top 10 20th Century Novels in USA". No Japanese or Chinese novels at all? Or Francz Kafka? Or Kertész Imre: Fatelessness? And many more...
The Great Gatsby is such a classic. I had AP English junior year and we had to do these dialectic journals were we have to find 20 quotes and find out if they are oxymoron, anaphora, asyndeton, etc. and i chose The Great Gatsby. Although it is short, nine chapters, F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the essence of the Roaring twenties, which he coined.
Gah, I absolutely *hate* the Catcher In The Rye, no matter how much other people love it. It's just boring, has *no* real plot and the main character is as unlikable as can be. I know this will get tons of hate but I don't care.
I would've said the exact same thing if you hadn't. There are so many books kids have to or had to read in junior high that are considered great but I just found incredibly boring and nonsensical.
If 1984 made the list, Brave New World at least deserves an honorable mention
NotLegitBroseph so would deserve clockworld orange and fahrenheit 451
@@arikavilasboas9272 I agree.Those are one of my favorite books
Brave new world is amazing and may i say the author was correct the more we know about human brains the more we are understanding that we are nothing more than the chemical and electric signal in our brains hence it just a matter of time till we can hack the human brain and control it
@@bhismakoirala3840 you should read Orwell's 1984, it's a great elaboration of this theme
Just to put this list in perspective - and I'm not saying that these novels are bad, but that the choice is of course partial - here is a list of some authors that wrote novels which might have been a very good choice for the list too : Marcel Proust, Isaac Asimov, Jorge Luis Borges, Dino Buzzati, Agatha Christie, Philip K. Dick, Umberto Eco, Federico García Lorca, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Aldous Huxley, Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, Franz Kafka, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Virginia Woolf, Stefan Zweig, Albert Camus... just to name a few.
I want to save this
Borges didn’t write novels
"Grapes of Wrath" gets all the attention...and "Of Mice and Men" is certainly a great novel...but I think "East of Eden" is better than both to them. In my opinion, it is Steinbeck's masterpiece.
Whose names are unknown -senora babb
Not even a honorable mention for one sci fi classic, no Assimov, no Clark or the amazing Frank Herberts 'Dune'.
olddirtymongrrel i dont get how LOTR is on the top 10 but Harry Potter got an HM. I mean it was literally a global phenomenon when it first came out
NvRxShot x Easy.
Harry Potter is just too commercial.
olddirtymongrrel Absolutely agree with you on Dune. Asimov's Foundation trilogy deserves an honorable mention, as does Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Clarke was great, I just don't know which book I would pick. 2001: A Space Odyssey perhaps, simply because of the impact it had on culture and the cinema.
NvRxShot x phenomenon as a children's book, they're different. LOTR was a better more serious series and written better
One very underrated book in my opinion is 'Among The Hidden' anyone else here agree?
One hundred years of solitude is like the best novel in Spanish language since The Quijote. And Gabriel García Márquez was the best storyteller I had the pleasure to read, eternally thankfull to the literature teacher that made me read this book. We love you Gabo! Grande!!
I felt happy of that because I'm from Colombia and I think that Gabo is one of the few colombians that change the image that other countries have about my country.
LotR should be way higher, it changed the whole perspective of fantasy and mythos.
TRUE
Indeed
Thats so true
gerben ferwerda but it really didn`t tbh.
gerben ferwerda Yes, that might be true, I couldn't say, but that whole genre is not as "big" as you'd like to think it is. It's deserving of the 9th spot, nothing more. Realism still trumps over fantasy in most media, even with the contemporary popularity of LotR and George R R Martin's "a Song of Ice and Fire", and their corresponding adaptations.
WatchMojo, please! When are you gonna start to call your videos rightly? This one should be named - Top 10 20th Century Novels by the American point of view. It might be excusable about the movies, but definintely not the novels. At least, you should check out Russian and German literature. Hemingway cannot compete with Remarque completely.
AZ Adyghe Almost all of them were American, and while America did some pretty great work, America isn't the best at everything, Orwell, and a few others on this list weren't American, but you should rename the list to "From the Western perspective"
Sliver Sithx even from western perspective it is not really correct
yes a huge problem is the total lack of chinese and japanese autors but europe seams to be just poorly known as well
exept of the one latinamerican one all books on this list were written in english
that says pretty much everything
+AZ Adyghe the lack of russian autors also has to do with the timespan the 20th century was not the greatest time for russian literature but in a 19th century list there would have to be tolstoi and dostoyevski
elendis16 but it doesn't surprise me american culture and whatsmojo as well are pretty much know for being ignorant and not really being able to see beyond one's own nose
The country with the most Nobel prizes for Literature is France. Yet not one French novel on the list, but Harry Potter makes it to the HM.
AZ Adyghe true but its not only their foult the list is made by them and then there are polls that fans vote one since most fans are americans american/brittish books are going to own the list i mean Harry Potter HM seriusly dont get me wrong i love the book but it dose not belong here it sold well but its not that great artistically
I'm stunned that you people excluded Cormac Mcarthy. Also Salman Rushdie. Yet, we see Harry Potter. Shame on you.
Yea no one over the age of 14 would enjoy Harry Potter more than blood meridian
Gatsby... great book, shitty movie in 2013
Dominic Uccelli Really? I thought the film was really good
I hate Lurman's directing. He loses the art of subtlety. It may be accurate to the book but I think it was put together and executed poorly.
Dominic Uccelli I do´t think the movie was shitty, but the book is so good that anything based on it has to be perfect or will be considered crap.
PS. I think that movie needed more Jordan Baker, we all need more Jordan Baker in our lives.
Dominic Uccelli I've seen the movie first, then read the book. The movie did everything by the god-damn letter. Its usually the opposite, but no. Gatsby just copied everything, so kinda wierd you say this.
soundtrack was great though better than the movie
People who say we are living in the world of 1984 either haven't read 1984 or they are insane.
Agreed, we are not fully living in it... yet.
We are now. Who would have thought it?.
Animal Farm didn't even get an honorable mention?
bubba Probably because it has never been made into a movie.
It was a movie I watched it in the 7th grade
Not a movie that made it big, plus that was a criticism of Mojo not you, I love animal farm, I even used it for my senior quote
bubba maybe because 1984 made it and they're both from the same author and i think they applied the 1 book per author rule
Nice, I did "Remember it's a sin to kill a mocking bird" from To Kill a Mocking Bird
Gone With the Wind anyone? ... I'm pretty sure that deserves at least an honorable mention
Please rename the list to Top 10 20th Century American Novels.
Tronic LT yeah, but the literatture world is so vast that when you make a list like this you're always going to be bound to your point of view ... i guess this where the most influential in american culture.
Tronic LT *Mostly American Novelists: James Joyce was Irish, Tolkien British, Marquez was Latin; I guess and even better title would be Top 10 Western Novelists
Who would you suggest from wherever you are from, or from anywhere?
Jeffrey Clemmons Kafka could've had at least an honorable mention.
Tronic LT harry potter ain't american
hiimindstate You are totally forgetting the Europeans, the continental part... What about French, Germans and Italian novelists? On 10 authors, 9 of them wrote in English, and the tenth was put at the tenth place... It should have been titled "top ten books of English XIX century literature (with one exception)" at least
I feel like this list is a bit too broad. It should have been done in decades.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Anyone?
Im surprised the Gone With The Wind didnt even get an honorable mention. Yes it is a controversial book but no more than the rest. For all of it's issues it is a very well written book. Not to mention the fact that it is, I believe, the best selling American novel of all time.
phoenix1985 It continues to hold that title. You are absolutely correct.
@@mcraig1969 Thanks for the confirmation!
Albert Camus anyone?
The Outsider, my husband received it for getting an A in English Language in year 1979 at Sultan Omar Secondary School, Dungun, Terengganu, Malaysia.
In my life the most influencial books are "The Hobbit or There and Back Again" and all "The Lord of the Rings" books. They were the books which started my interest in fantasy and in reading in general. The feeling when I started reading them and dived into the story ( at the first time in Finnish and later in English ) was just amazing. I wouldn't be the same person without the works of J. R. R Tolkien. He is one of my favourite writers alongside with H. P. Lovecraft, Umberto Eco, David Eddings and Edgar Allan Poe. Thank you Tolkien for everything you gave to literature. If I ever get any of short stories I've written published it is thanks to you.
1- The Trial
2- Berlin Alexanderplatz
3- In Search Of Lost Time
4- Christ Stopped At Eboli
5- Ulysses
Fahrenheit 451??
Collier Browne Not particularly influential, and, somewhat, it was a successor to _1984_, plus I really don't see it's independent cultural significance, not enough to justify it at the top 10 of a century wide list, so I can understand it's not being on here.
Collier Browne As much as i love Fahrenheit 451, i don't think it is a Novel, more like a novella
Two years later, a kind but scolding reply: "Fahrenheit 451" burns with a writer's defiance against censorship. The Fire Chief's extraordinary speech at the heart of the novel should be required reading in every free society. "No relevant plot"? You seem to have no clue just how relevant an anti-censorship story was in 1950s America. It was so hard for Bradbury to find a publisher that he turned to the unknown publisher of a new magazine to gain a serialized venue for his story. It appeared in issues 2, 3 and 4. The publisher? Hugh Hefner. The magazine? Playboy. Read about HUAC and the Red Scare and see if the novel's theme seems so pointless. And re-consider it in light of today's atmosphere of "fake news" accusations and "alternative facts" claims. Relevance, elegance and thematic heat are why "Fahrenheit 451" has become a mainstay of contemporary literature.
You put 1984 over Ulysses. You mention Harry Potter but not William Gaddis or Thomas Pynchon. You don't mention Kafka, Wolfe, DFW, DeLillo, McElroy, or mother fucking McCarthy. Okay. I'm taking this list with a massive grain of salt.
I'm just a bit irate that White Noise didn't show up on the list
Well, what do you know? Other people have different tastes than you!
+dsanzo they are wrong opinions.
Nicholas Luu Why exactly? Because other people say so? That's not enough to make something wrong.
+dsanzo I think The Recognitions has maybe just a tad bit more literary merit than something like To Kill a Mockingbird. The books/authors I listed are more influential and affect literature/philosophy far greater than something like To Kill a Mockingbird. They are also.... Better.... They say more, what they say is more profound and more novel (pun intended), and they are just.... Better novelist and have written far better novels than the ones listed.
LOTR number 9? come on WM, i agree with the list but not the order
LOTR is great fantasy novel, but it did not have as huge an impact in literature as the other novels on this list have.
Chris Robinson i disagree. It is the DNA on which all fantasy novels since have been based. Especially today, it has more an impact on english culture than the rest of the books on here.
LOTR may not have had a huge impact in literature as the other novels on the list but it had a massive impact in many generations of readers and i think that is a very importan fact that could land LOTR in a better spot on the list
Magma Mage I can see your reasoning behind your statement, but when you think 20th century novels LOTR isn't the first thing that comes to mind. I wholeheartedly believe that LOTR is the superior novel to the ones mentioned on this list, but it doesn't capture what the 20th century was like the other novels on this list did.
Chris Robinson So the 2nd most sold book ever didn't have an impact? And America isn't the world.
“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” came out in 1900. The cultural impact of that book is immensely astounding.
Alright, this list is only about books written in English!!! Can you make the real list with Kafka, Proust, Mann, Kundera, Musil,...?
You know Americans don't know much about what goes on outside America.
Charlie Brown you do know Watchmojo are Canadians?
every video there's some children, like you, crying about America despite the fact that the people who create this shit channel are Canadians.
Sorry for a Canadian.
I'm very surprised that Atlas Shrugged didn't even make the honorable mentions.
GreatWonderMoose IKR or even The Fountainhead.
GreatWonderMoose no Atlas Shrugged, Dune, Song of Ice an Fire. and most offensive of all they put that over-glorified soap opera Gatsby at number 1!
GreatWonderMoose coz it fucking bullshit, you should haven't enough brain to read it!!
GreatWonderMoose Ayn Rand is notably controversial.
no2party "Song of Ice an Fire" HAHAHA
Nice intent, but this should be named "Top 10 20th Century novels... written in English. And oh, one in Spanish. at the last place".
Just American authors.... I mean, KAFKA?!? Anybody?
I also love Gatsby, but you should definitely feature e.g. Metamorphosis or some works of Thomas Mann.
Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is also a master-piece.
And Lord Of The Flies should definitely be on of the top-picks of the list.
In what world is Gabriel Garcia Marquez an American Author?Or Tolkein?Nabokov? James Joyce? George Orwell? Did we watch the same list?
She's just pissd because an American book made the number one spot
Yes
Maddie Storms I think the person didn't see the same list we saw.
That's my question too... Blood Meridian got ignored. Catch 22 too
Where was hitchhikers guide to the galaxy?
"Animal Farm" by George Orwell?
TeamMastaPr2 i'm not sure but maybe they did like usual with the 1 book per author rule, and 1984 made the list so animal farm couldn't
p.s. my english literature this year in school was special, i had to read animal farm first, one of the best novels ever, then tangerine, one of the most boring books i've ever read
TeamMastaPr2 that's NOT a novel!
plazasta Fair point. Should have been mentioned at least just like Of Mice and Men was.
roraio It's definitely not a short story, so what is it then?
plazasta Maybe they did, but I don't recall her saying it. We actually read that book in English class, and watched the film version. I really liked it. At least they could have mentioned it along with "1984".
TeamMastaPr2 "Animal Farm" is indeed fantastic, but it's one of his underrated works. More underrated novels are "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho, "Watership Down" by Richard Adams, "The House of the Scorpion" by Nancy Farmer, "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, and many more.
I think _Invisible Man_ should have at least gotten an honorable mention, I mean, talk about a book that's just as relevant today in our society as _1984_ or _The Great Gatsby_, not to mention Ellison's excellence as a writer. It's obviously difficult to make a concise list of truly the greatest novels of any century without becoming too specific, but you can't simply gloss over entire periods which helped to define and shape many of the novels which are high on the list; for instance, just to continue off of _Invisible Man_, there wouldn't probably have truly been a _To Kill A Mockingbird_ without _Invisible Man_, because Lee was obviously aware of the book's themes and importance, and she took those themes and shaped them into something great, but again, you can't praise the student without a nod to master; even Kendrick Lamar knows what's up. You probably could have added _A Clockwork Orange_ to the honorable mentions, or just a shot of the film before the list, to this as well. An alright list altogether though.
Jeffrey Clemmons how did you write in itallic?
You use the underscore around the text that you want to be italicized, so:
_Invisible Man_ = underscore[Invisible Man] underscore, without the brackets, that's just to show where the text goes.
Jeffrey Clemmons
ok so like _This should be itallic according to you?_
ok thanks!
Yeah, you got it; Np.
Jeffrey Clemmons War of the worlds is better i think, but then again it was written in 1898. Don't get me wrong though, I love invisible man, just not as much as war of the worlds. Apart from that Kurt Vonnegut is my favourite sci-fi author.
LOTR 9TH?? NO ASOIAF!?!? WHAT IS THIS SHIT
kuledinho Dude, look, i really like ASoIaF, but it's nothing compared to LotR.
LotR created the genre itself, it inspired many other works that followed him, including ASoIaF. ASoIaF wouldn't even exist without LotR.
The sales, the prizes, the impact on litarature and pop culture that LotR had is WAY, WAAY bigger than ASoIaF.
And we must remember that ASoIaF is a unfinished novel and most of it's books were written in the 21th century.
And all the rest of the list, are legendary, awesome pieces of literature, better than ASoIaF...
Dude the lord of the rings built the fantasy genre
1504Shawn except a song of ice and fire wasn't really inspired by Lord of the Rings; they're completely different.
MegaDragonslayer1997 7 ASoIaF was directly influenced by Lord of the Rings, as well as many different events throughout actual history. George R. R. Martin is on record saying this.
MegaDragonslayer1997
Sort of. The setting is inspired by mythology from all over the world, and Tolkien is a part of that inspiration. George has also frequently said that the world and plot was inspired by what he thought didn't work in LOTR. "What was Aragorns tax policy? How did he deal with the orc problem?"
I think ASOIAF is more inspired by sci-fi and drama than fantasy, but it would not have been the same without tolkien.
1984 is #4? YEEEES!!!!!! I'm reading that book now for the first time and it more than deserves its place here. One of the most interesting and thought provoking books I've ever read :)
Really? Hmm that book is boring af
Gabriel Ainsley Maybe to you, but I actually find it interesting :3
Had to read twice and on both occasions never got through it. I prefer Animal Farm but to each it's own
Gabriel Ainsley Haven't read Animal Farm yet but I will once I read The Great Gatsby :)
Cool
Game of thrones should have made it to this list, say what you want about the show the books are epic
Aza Jabar GoT is a follow-up from these books, esp. LotR, without it, GoT would've never excisted.
Aza Jabar it is an unfinished series, and most of it was already written in the 21st century
Aza Jabar A Song Of Ice And Fire *
xstoofpeer the first book was called GoT, he may be refering to that
the first book isn't a standalone though. All entries are either full finished series, or standalones
Fahrenheit 451, Brave new World, Gone with the Wind, Ender's Game, Atlas Shrugged...
Top 10 is too short for this kind of list.
What about child hoods End ?
I agree with you with all of these works. Atlas Shrugged was voted Time and Time and Time and Again greatest book of all time by so many book of the month clubs Fortune 500 executives, it's been read by more presidents were astronauts more sports figures than any other book and the list.
@@saux4sale4444 atlas shrugged is for morons.
I loved how officer barburady feels about Atlas Shrugged
Harry Potter is in the honorable mentions with Slaughterhouse-5? What an insult to Vonnegut.
is it though? HP broke records upon records. totally shifted the landscape for fantasy like nothing else since lotr. i definitely think it deserves to be in the conversation with these other novels listed.
No chronicles of narnia, no the alchemist, top choiice based on the AMERICAN dream, as if it was influential everywhere, 20th century being 1900 to 1999....
Jesus wathcmojo wtf
whitettwhitett The alchemist is pretty bad, but I seem to be the onlyone thinking that.. (._.)
gerben ferwerda As a novel it is not spectacular, but the message the novel sends to the reader can be life changing for some.
Chris Robinson The Alchemist is a poorly written novel that proclaims pseudo intellectual and new age hippy beliefs ... it is not a good novel put it that way.
***** As a novel, no it isn't very well written, but that personal legend mumbo jumbo really helped some people out. I personally thought it was bullshit, but it has changed lives like it or not.
Chris Robinson That doesn't make it good literature
I have the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy, all the "Harry Potter" books, and "A Farewell To Arms".
Lord of the Rings ninth? NINTH? By heavens it shwould be first! It is An exemplary piece of literature! What on Middle Earth is it doing trailing behind in ninth?
You do not credit it as it is deserved.....
Super_sonic_moo Go watch some peter jackson movies. i bet u dont even know the 8 following books after lotr was mentioned
Super_sonic_moo While I agree it is a wonderful fantasy novel, it did not have as big of an impact on american literature than the other books on the list
Hunter Mauldin Correct, even *if* the book was amazing literature it did not impact the American people greatly at the time. Was Stephen King's The Stand on this?
I've never read it and I still agree...
kyle alves So what??
The book need to impress American people now? LOL
'All quiet on the western front' is the best portrayal of the soldiers plight ...
Besides Marquez all english writing authors. Why?????? Dostojevski? Kafka? Remarque? Hugo? Dumas? Dante? Capek? Tolstoj? And many many others!!!! Please WatchMojo either be fair or name your videos correctly. I know that for you, being americans, it's alright but for the rest of the world it's insulting.
lol, Dante is a 20th century writer?
You are right. This is all opinion and nothing more.
peterjpuleo.blogspot.com
susanka susan Many of the author's people are listing are not 20th century writers.
susanka susan Watchmojo are Canadians you moron. Before you blame Americans and America you should get your facts right.
Lol Dostoevsky, Dumas, Dante? Uhh not really 20th century there bud. I get what you mean though on the strictly American/English books.
why the fuck isn't harry potter on 2 and LOTR on 1?
***** i am almost 17, i just like the fantasy genre little bitch :)
jermaine vink fantasy is for wimps like you.
jermaine vink wtf you'er talking about, if l like SW it dosn't mean that I have in minde it, l'm talking about all literature, that have social or political, both themes, metafors to disclose these issues, connotation that are used to make writing more interesting, innovative, not just full of meaningless action. LOTR have some of it, HP not so.
masterokaslt30000 come on, even you have to admit lort is much more fun then boring politics.
i mean.
if you say politics i say SNORE
Cause u don't know what the 20th century is
Fahrenheit 451
The Diary of Anne Frank
Man's Search for Meaning
Animal Farm
The Death of a Salesman
Crucible
Watchmen
The Dark Knight Returns
The Killing Joke
V for Vendetta
Daredevil: Born Again
half of these are graphic novels
Lotr only 9?
Always been a fan or Lord of the Flies
How did the outsiders not even get an honorable mention that book was amazing
Where Is Frank Herbert's 'Dune'
Arguably (One Of) The Greatest Sci-Fi Book(s) Ever
they never mention it
They’re making a movie coming out in 2020
Just to clarify, the 20th century spanned from 1901 and 2000. 1900 was still 19th century.
Wish Watchmojo can post more literature related tubes...you guys are the best!!
Honestly the whole Harry Potter series is my favorite and 90% of my life has been spent in a library
You're not the only one
ThePoppie08 Harry Potter does not reflect anything of the era it came out of, it does not reflect any era, and it never will. It is a well written fantasy, and in a century where you have the great epic fantasy world of J.R.Tolkien, with such artistic fervor, that it continues to amaze to this day considering it is the only fantasy novel on this list that had no literary purpose, and wasn't written to convey a part of the current world that the author wanted to bring attention to, when comparing Harry Potter with Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion, considering The Lord of the Rings got ninth (which I personally do not agree with) Harry Potter does not deserve a place on this list it is not of great literary merit, it is not rich with complexity, the only reason it made this list as an honorable mention is because of the mass fan dome that thinks it is the best thing ever, most of those people are not well read, and only read Harry Potter because it is something that everyone does. It is not read because it is of significant literary merit it is simply read because of its popularity. While competing against other silly meaningless books, Harry Potter would do well in a competition, but when competing against some of the greatest literary works of all time, it falls way down the list behind so many greater books.
Sliver Sithx It's a childrens book tho
All Quiet on the Western Front?? The best war book ever made? It's German. If you could include one german book, it would have been this one.
That was a fucking great book. I've read it at least 3x.
amazing book, I read that a few times
YES! I LOVE THAT BOOK SO MUCH!
I can't believe Mein Kampf wasn't Number 1! This list is a joke. Unsubcribe.
Autobiography not a novel I guess
adam staves
I count it as an Autobiographical novel, meaning it should be on the list. Unsubcribe.
Not a novel. Novels are fictitious by definition
TommyTazza I was pissed as well, but then I saw it said it was top 10 novels, maybe next time they can do top 10 books of the 20th century.
***** why should he be hanged?
Where is kafka, hesse, mann, camus, yasunari and so on ... Where are all the european and asian writers??
Top 10 War Novels Please!
Thank you for putting Catch 22 and Slaughterhouse 5 in the honourable mentions; so underrated even at the popularity they have.
The year 2000 is still in the 20th century ;)
Tech Innuendo SHUT UP......the video is starting
The movie was made in 2000, not the book
seanceltics15 I think he is talking about the year
***** hes right. 20th century lasted from jan 1 1901- december 31st 2000. watchmojo probabley got confused between the 1900s and the 20th century. so either they should have considered novels from 2000 or it should have been titled top 10 novels of the 1900s.
Akshay Gavini I know that...I was joking
No Altas Shrugged? No Cthulhu Mythos?
Fuck that shit niggaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Necromaster2077 The Cthulhu mythos is not a novel, but a common theme contained within a collection of works by H.P. Lovecraft, and then other authors. Everything Lovecraft wrote was short, often only a few pages long. "Call of Cthulhu" is only about 30 pages long, "At the Mountains of Madness" less than 100. Therefore, the longest of his works would be considered noveellas or short stories.
Necromaster2077 Really, you're advocating for one of the most terrible writers (Rand) but you can't even spell the name of her fucking novel?
I know I'm going to get a lot of shit about this but based on what I've seen of WatchMojo, they do not like conservatives much and Atlas Shrugged is highly held by conservative groups
Necromaster2077 Even no The Gulag Archipelago
Not a single mention of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian or the Border's Trilogy smh
Faulkner A's honorable mention? I love Harper Lee but Faulkner is America' greatest
100 years of solitude is the best novel of all time
stop getting the centuries wrong IT'S 1901 TO 2000. that is the 20th century for Christ sake. there isn't even a need for you to get it wrong. as all the books you chose are after 1901 and before 2000 anyway.
8th wonder of the world so i was born in the 20th century? i thought the 20th century was from january 1st, 1900 at 0:00 and 0 seconds and ended december 31st 1999 at 23:59 and 59 seconds, and me being born in 2000, i thought i was born in the 21st century
well there was no year 0 in the Gregorian calendar. so the 1st century was year 1-100. so yes the 20th century didn't end till 23:59 31st december 2000
8th wonder of the world
it does make sense here, well my birth just changed century, feels weird
Yes, someone who gets it! I remember The new millennium idiocy -it didn't begin in 2000 but in 2001! Hence why Stanley Kubrick named his movie thusly.
yes
Not even a single mention of Stephen King?! WTF?!
Realy?
No, King's novels are great reads, but not great literature according to the people who compile these types of lists.
peterjpuleo.blogspot.com
i didn't even think of that! very true. Carrie should be on the list!
The dark Tower series is the best King has done, He spent yeas writing it.
Stephen King is an entertaining writer, with good plots and ideas, though his characters are stereotypical, his stories are made really only to entertain and make profit, and his dialogue is weak, which is why he doesn't compare to F. Scott Fitzgerald or somebody of that skill.
Meh. Aldous Huxley was closer to the truth than George Orwell.
But 1984 is narratively superior and more influential to distopia/scifi literature
As i see they, have shown us two different faces of absolute control. And what we live now is a mix of both. I always recommend BOTH books to any intelligent ppl. On their own, they are great...together...they are brilliant.
Bosco2196 Actually Huxley and Orwell both just ripped off a lesser known dystopian writer named Zamyatin who actually founded the genre with his novel "We", which Orwell noted Brave New World is nearly a page for page ripoff.
In terms of dystopian future science fiction: Huxley = meh Orwell = good Zamyatin = G.O.A.T.
+tumblingski 1984 is a terrible narrative. It's heavy handed and the prose is awful. It's deep if you're a high schooler and haven't read a lot of books, but otherwise it's incredibly average.
Nicholas Luu I just said it was better than Brave New World as a narrative. It has a clear protagonist, emotional beats and a proper ending.
Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
So it goes.
Delighted to see Slaughterhouse Five be on here, even if it was just an honourable mention. Such a beautiful novel.
20th Century is from 1901 to 2000, not 1900 to 1999... -_-
le sigh
le facepalm
Changing 20th Century to 19th Century is kinda big error, don"t you think? :D
January 1 1901 to December 31 2000
***** Most people are stupid. :D That logic (starting year is 0) counts for decades, but not centuries, nor milleniums (centuries and milleniums end with the year 0). That is a fact that most people seem to forget.
We use Gregorian calendar, right? The Gregorian calendar is modified Julian calendar. Julian calendar did not have the year 0 (BC/AD), it skipped from 1 BC to 1 AD. That means it counted centuries (100 years) from year 1 to 100, not from 0 to 99 like astronomers.
So yeah, we can count it both ways. But I personally doubt WatchMojo used astronomical numbering (because people do not use it in their daily life, they use Gregorian calendar). :D
Well, whatever... xD
(Oh, and yes, Google is a good friend to me... xD)
***** well screw you cuz i'm born on 2000 and i would like to consider myself as being born in 20th century not 21st.
21st century is bullcrap
***** anyway the first century was from year ONE to HUNDRED. 1-100. ENDS AT ZERO.
Steppenwolf (Hesse), The Master and Margarita (Bulgakov), The Bridge on the Drina (Andrić), The Magic Mountain (Mann)... not even mentioned...
Have you ever read 1984, Lord of the Flies or The Great Gatsby before? 'Cause I read those back in high school.
This type of list is impossible to do with only 10 entries. It would be better with 25. Then we could just argue about rank. My nominees would be Dr Zhivago (Pasternak), The Tin Drum (Grass), Siddhartha (Hesse), and The Stranger (Camus).
In my opinion, I'd say, "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand should be on the list.
Because it is. You're better off reading Anthem, same hack author.
I AGREE! Very important novel! Why not listed? Because that's how far we've drifted.
"The Fountainhead" is much better than Atlas. peterjpuleo.blogspot.com
Atlas is a great read.
At the risk of redundancy, try "The Fountainhead". It is very engaging. I could not get past page 50 of "Atlas".
My personal 10, also following an idea of one story/novel per author:
10. Revolutionary Road (1961) by Richard Yates (Oh, yeah. Gatsby has a lot of iconography, but it's still pretty short and amounts to a cry for the rich people story. I have a lot more sympathy for the couple at the core of this proto Mad Men than the central two of the Gatsby cast.)
9. I, Claudius (1934) by Robert Graves (A classic novel of awesome backstabbing historical fiction. Clearly should be more read.)
8. Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce (I value other's more, but it's rambling experimentation is still admirable in it's own ways.)
7. Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson (Don't look at me like that. This was a scarily accurate predictive sci-fi novel that also had a lot of laughter and thrills. There's basically no point in making it into a movie, though, because it's barely sci-fi anymore.)
6. The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955) by J.R.R. Tolkien (It is the fantasy novel to end and influence all other fantasy novels and for good reason.)
5. 1984 (1948) by George Orwell (Ah, Orwell. Yeah, this is still an iconic bit of 20th century dystopia.)
4. The Bone People (1985) by Keri Hulme (This bit of ace literature is ALSO ace lit in the orientation sense. If anyone wants to get an idea of what the asexual experience might have been like before the Internet got huge, this is the best idea of where to start, only closely followed by Jhonen Vasquez's comic series Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.)
3. Underworld (1997) by Don DeLillo
2. A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975) by Anthony Powell (The middle portions of A Dance to the Music of Time and the opening of Underworld together form a pretty cohesive portraiture of the differences between 1950s Americana and 1950s England and deal with some view of history from the 1920s to the end of the twentieth century. Overall, they are incredible achievements.)
And before we get to #1, here are five honourable mentions:
Infinite Jest (1996) by David Foster Wallace
The Big Sleep (1939) by Raymond Chandler
On the Road (1954) by Jack Kerouac
Blood Meridian (1985) by Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited (1945) by Evelyn Waugh
1. Gravity's Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon (Ah, Pynchon. The guy who, at his best, made this novel. Imagine a ten-twelve issue Vertigo comic miniseries set to prose and you'll have an idea of Pynchon's world, creating a universe that is simultaneously hyper-sexual, hyper-intellectual and hyper-fantastical strictly through prose.)
Your List:
1900s: 1
1910s: 0
1920s: 4
1930s: 1
1940s: 1
1950s: 4
1960s: 3
1970s: 0
1980s: 0
1990s: 1
My list:
1900s: 0
1910s: 0
1920s: 1
1930s: 2
1940s: 2
1950s: 2.33
1960s: 1.33
1970s: 1.34
1980s: 2
1990s: 3
Your list also has NOTHING that really plays off counter culture or alternate sexual orientations. The Berlin Stories? The Bone People? On the Road? All pretty obvious ways to show awareness of either of those things as being important.
Seriously, give Leo an Oscar.
Wow, I'm surprised The Diary of Anne Frank didn't make it. 0_0 Not blaming WatchMojo because I know they didn't really get much of a say but I'm shocked that not many of the voters mentioned it
Great Gatsby #1, you're damn right watchmojo
And to think people complain about Mojo's anime lists. Their literature lists are the worst! Here is what a better top 10 list would look like:
10. Lolita
9. The Windup Bird Chronicle
8. The Lord of the Rings
7. Midnight's Children
6. Dr. Zhivago
5. We
4. 100 Years of Solitude
3. The Tin Drum
2. The Master and Margarita
1. Ullyses
gantzisballs Perfect? Of course not. However, my list avoided using morally simple children's novels like Mockingbird, overrated angsty teen trash like Catcher, or novels that were only included because the voter read them in American high school and has never read anything else in his life (most of the Mojo list).
So a novel about a black man getting falsely accused of rape is strictly a children's novel? Also I believe that you have to read Catcher at the right time in your life to truly appreciate it. Here's what I think the top 10 should be:
10. To Kill a Mockingbird
9. The Sound and the Fury
8. Beloved
7. The Catcher in the Rye
6. Catch-22
5. Lolita
4. Ulysses
3. Nineteen Eighty-Four
2. The Grapes of Wrath
1. The Great Gatsby
gantzisballs You obviously haven’t read Catch 22
gantzisballs Also, just because Mockingbird is told from the perspective of a little girl doesn’t make it a children’s novel.
You forgot The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The fact that it didn't get at least an honorable mention is a huge injustice.
As for Lord of the Rings, it should have easily been number one on this list. There's no greater fantasy than Lord of the Rings. Not even I could think up anything more epic.
Greatest novel, not greatest Fantasy novel.
1:It -Stephen King
2:Survivor- Chuck Palahniuk
3:Less Than Zero- Bret Easton Ellis
4:Women- Charles Bukowski
5: 1984- George Orwell
6:The Tommyknockers -Stephen King
7:Lullaby- Chuck Palahniuk
8:The Martian Chronicles -Ray Bradbury
9:Haunted- Chuck Palahniuk
10:Junky- William S. Burroughs
Only if list would have been made by depressed teenager xD
Gravity's Rainbow? Please tell me someone here agrees with me, at least give it an honorable mention? Please?
Ciaran IL Hororable Mention, I agree.
I haven't read GR (yet), but I love Lot 49 by Pynchon. GR is typically considered his greatest novel, and among serious literary critics and historians I think it would make a top ten 20th century novels list. I mean, Proust wasn't even mentioned on here, or Blood Meridian. But then WatchMojo is very populist and seems aimed at increasingly young audiences. I mean, everyone on here is complaining Harry Potter and Game of Thrones aren't on the list....
Edward Chamberlin I, being of that younger audience, probably would have been upset if they seriously put Harry Potter on the list, mostly because while I understand that it's been a cultural phenomenon, I don't find it to be a particular gem in contrast to a lot of other works; and going on the idea that it's a phenomenon, it's a highly modern phenomenon with the bulk of the series' popularity being in the 21st century. Same with A Song of Ice and Fire, specifically _A Game of Thrones_; while the book is great, not only is it part of an unfinished story, but it's too highly influenced by the fantasy literature that preceded it.
Edward Chamberlin Not to mention Albert Camu, Jean Genet or Sartre.
Jeffrey Clemmons Good comments, Jeffrey. Even if one was really into Harry Potter (and, believe me, I was very into all of them when they came out) and Song of Ice and Fire (I haven't read these yet...but it goes without saying that I need to!), you are right that the majority of the books came out in the 21st century, and therefore maybe they should be placed there (they grouped Lord of the Rings together as one entry, so I'm guessing they would have for Harry Potter or Song of Ice and Fire as well).
And, JayVBear, Camus and Sartre are great (I remember reading The Plague in college). I've actually never heard of Jean Genet! I'm guessing someone I should read?
This is mising some great novels written in different languages than english.Here are some examples
Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar
Pedro Paramo by juan rulfo
The dogs and the city by Mario Vargas Llosa
Blindness by Jose Saramago
The Stranger by albert Camus
In search of lost time By Marcel Proust
The name of the rose By Umberto Eco
The autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Can't believe some people think Harry Potter should be on this list.
I think that it deserves the honorable mention it got.
It's a "cute" kids book but not in the top 20 of the 20th century.
the series is a brilliantly crefted mystery story, it deserves the praise it gets
Once again fuck horny potter and the bitch who wrote it!!!!!!!! Fuck her!
@@toniace2274 POa and goblet deserved to be here
Dear WatchMojo:
Please retitle this video to "Our best novels of the 20th century"
A-N-I-M-A-L F-A-R-M
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four."
Dagnabbit, I fucking love Nineteen Eighty Four with all of its quixotic ideas...
Where is 'Heart Of Darkness'
Atom Heart Mother Suite it's a novella (a very good one), maybe that's the reason.
Krzysztof Ka I mean, arguably _The Great Gatsby_ is a novellas well, the thing is roughly 130 pages, in the edition that I have, which to me is just on the cusp of novel length, yet it stands at the top of the list.
Jeffrey Clemmons that's interesting. here's what i have found considering this issue www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-a-short-story-and-a-novella. looks like it's not just the lenght of a written story.
Atom Heart Mother Suite Written in 1899
The year 2000 is part of the 20th century. That's not a matter of opinion, but a matter of simple counting.
To kill a mockingbird by far the greatest book I have read
Reuben Chandler-Wall yes it's amazing! A great read I loved it you should definitely read it
Really these are the best novels? The title should be "Top 10 20th Century Novels in USA". No Japanese or Chinese novels at all? Or Francz Kafka? Or Kertész Imre: Fatelessness? And many more...
Every time I see a copy of Catcher in the Rye I want to Fahrenheit 451 it.
Also where is Fahrenheit 451?!
I was hoping more recent novels had made the list. (1980-1999) American Psycho is my favorite novel.
Lord of the Rings should be Top 3!! It changed the way a lot of people looked at fantasy!
*cough* Tuesdays with Morrie *cough*
And then there were none ?
The Great Gatsby is such a classic. I had AP English junior year and we had to do these dialectic journals were we have to find 20 quotes and find out if they are oxymoron, anaphora, asyndeton, etc. and i chose The Great Gatsby. Although it is short, nine chapters, F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the essence of the Roaring twenties, which he coined.
I personally enjoyed Animal Farm by Orwell and I thought it would get an honorable mention at least
This is the first time I agree with Watchmojo’s list
but uh where the hell is The Outsiders?
A song of ice and fore o think could've been a honorable mention.
That the wrong century
Gah, I absolutely *hate* the Catcher In The Rye, no matter how much other people love it. It's just boring, has *no* real plot and the main character is as unlikable as can be.
I know this will get tons of hate but I don't care.
I agree. I barely made it through when i had to read it in school.
midwestkatie I think that is one of the only books I know, I will never read again. :D
Greyard white i understand if ur in high school. luckily i got helped in understanding it but without it i would feel similar to you
I would've said the exact same thing if you hadn't. There are so many books kids have to or had to read in junior high that are considered great but I just found incredibly boring and nonsensical.
ChunkyBlack Well in Switzerland we don't have High School, Middle School etc. But I guess I was in Middle School (7th grade) when I read it.
LotR ranked so low and HP only an honorable mention? Shit list is shit list.
Samare Rein I agree with you on LotR but Harry Potter only deserved an honourable mention, if that much.
I freaking hated Great Gatsby.
mrsuns10 You're not supposed to stand him.
No Kafka, Proust, Sôseki, Woolf, Mann...
Seriously people, who made this?