Top 5 21st Century Novels?

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Re info dumps, too many people think they can pull off Moby-Dick. Melville inspired the wrong kind of imitation.

Moby-Dick is one of the two books I blame for this. The other is Ulysses.

Speaking of BR Myers, have you read his article "A Reader's Manifesto"? I don't agree with everything he says, but it's definitely worth reading:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is probably the recent book that I most enjoyed and was impressed by. 

Good to see another vote for this.

[Brian]

Moby-Dick is one of the two books I blame for this. The other is Ulysses.

Speaking of BR Myers, have you read his article "A Reader's Manifesto"? I don't agree with everything he says, but it's definitely worth reading:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/

Parts of it rang faint memory bells, but it was still a pleasure to revisit (even if, like you, I don't always agree). Then I went on to the Franzen one containing the remark you noted earlier.

I'll have to read Station Eleven as soon as possible. For a long time I thought it was "pops" fiction, not helped by a recommendation from a family member I do not trust on books, but it seems to be building consensus in this thread!

One more stray criticism to make: though many people put Americanah on lists like this, and though the first portion seemed to have that kind of promise, to me it ultimately felt like an awkward coupling of scathing, brilliant nonfiction political essays with soft, fluffy romantic comedy. Jane Austen did that kind of thing, of course, but she more tightly integrated those strands so her novels didn't feel like they had standalone romance and satire chunks.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Parts of it rang faint memory bells, but it was still a pleasure to revisit (even if, like you, I don't always agree). Then I went on to the Franzen one containing the remark you noted earlier.

One thing I disagreed with rather strongly was his disparagement of the style of White Noise. This is a 1st-person narrative, which means that every sentence is by definition a revelation of character. If DeLillo's style is convoluted and ridiculous, that's because the thoughts of his main character are convoluted and ridiculous. (Of course, one is free to dislike the character.)

I'll have to read Station Eleven as soon as possible. For a long time I thought it was "pops" fiction,

It's really a literary novel with some "soft" SF elements.

[vers la flamme]

Jonathan Littell The Kindly Ones (Les Bienveillantes)

I've been wanting to read this ever since I first heard about it, but it's damn long and intimidating to start.

I'm unable to comment, as I have not read nearly enough 21st century literature to give an informed opinion.

[BWV 1080]

I don't get the issue with long books - how long is Harry Potter?  10,000 page multi-book fantasy or SF epics make bestseller lists.  If the writing is engaging then it's all good, if not does not matter if the book is 100 pages or 1000.

Also unlike the multi-volume SF/Fantasy epics where details in book 1 become important in book 8 or whatever, in lit fiction like Pynchon or Vollmann or Joyce or Bolano, its often just a series of vignettes- like a big book of short stories.

But this dread exists of big lit fiction books that spawn dissertations.  Just as one can listen to Bach or Mozart or Carter without a theoretical analysis, these books can be read simply for their immediate visceral impact.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I don't get the issue with long books

The issue isn't so much length as whether the length is justified. I don't think The Brothers Karamazov or Ulysses or Middlemarch are too long. I do think a lot of contemporary novels are, because the length is a result of padding that actually makes the book worse.

[Mandryka]

The issue isn't so much length as whether the length is justified. I don't think The Brothers Karamazov or Ulysses or Middlemarch are too long. I do think a lot of contemporary novels are, because the length is a result of padding that actually makes the book worse.

Well a lot of earlier novels were too long too, think Dumas and Dickens  and (I would argue) Proust too. I don't think it's a particular problem of recent literature. Getting the length right is a real skill, like knowing when a painting is finished.

[Artem]

WG Sebald Austerlitz
Roberto Bolano 2666

+

Soldiers of Salamis - Javier Cercas
Traveler of the Century - Andrés Neuman
The Factory - Hiroko Oyamada

[Pohjolas Daughter]

These days I don't read much fiction and when I do it tends to be older - not because I've got anything against modern fiction, but because I've got a 3000-year backlog.

I understand the feeling!

PD

[vers la flamme]

The Factory - Hiroko Oyamada

I loved this book, and also liked The Hole. The more recent book of hers that was translated and published about 6 months ago, I think, I didn't like as much. Still she's a great writer, and I'll read anything of hers that gets translated. She's an Akutagawa Prize recipient and is taken pretty seriously in Japan.