As it turns out, I have not actually read everything. In a moment of idle curiosity, I pulled up the Modern Library's list of the100 Best Novels, and discovered that I have only read 22 of them.
I don't know if it makes it better or worse to mention that in addition to those 22, I started 16 of them, but for a variety of reasons (some very good*) didn't finish. Some of these titles I intend to read in the future, but others fall under the umbrella of "I didn't read it in college, and I'm certainly not going to read it now." Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and James Joyce, I'm looking at you.**
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* I was 50 pages from the end of Lolita when some jerk came up to me in the high school library and told me how it ended. I've never had the heart to pick it up since.
** Lest you think I majored in English at some half-baked school that did not require its students to read these venerable gents, I have read at least two books by each James, Conrad, and Joyce, and am somewhat at odds as to determining which of them I hate most although I suspect it's Henry James.
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Anybody else deeply disturbed by the fact that Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard have the top three spots?
Holy crap.
I had to read "Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man" twice, and hated every miserable minute of it.
I think that, as with Led Zeppelin, a lot of teenagers go through an Ayn Rand phase. I blame those stupid contests that promise you thousands of dollars for writing an essay on The Fountainhead.
Now I feel really under-educated. I've only read 7 of them all the way through. But, I have seen 13 of the film adaptations!
I've read 19, but only remember the storyline of about 13 or 14. I, too, hated "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."
And yes, I'm terribly concerned by the popularity of Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard.
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