The Odd Woman
Jan. 20th, 2009 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
callmemadamThe Guardian's '1,000 novels everyone must read' is like an enormous book blog. Rather didactic in approach, it's naturally got people talking. Today I had a look at Comedy. I'm glad to see Evelyn Waugh, Kingsley Amis and Geoffrey Willans given their due, but where is Jane Austen? The introduction to the list rightly points out that comedy can have a serious purpose; can't a book be romantic and funny?
Stephen Moss (who he?) writes of Decline and Fall, ‘Waugh's bleak, amoral first novel is a young man's book, best read by young men (and perhaps the odd woman).’ That's me then, the odd woman, because I've read the book countless times and not just when I was young. Angela Thirkell is listed, hurrah! but an oddly chosen title, I thought: Before Lunch. ‘Published in 1939, Thirkell's irresistible comedy of manners is the most well-known of her Barsetshire series’. I wouldn't have thought that was true and it's not one of my favourites. What do other Thirkell fans think? Michael Frayn is rightly on the list but for Towards the End of the Morning (very funny) and not The Tin Men (even funnier). In fact, one of my favourite comic novels.
Any omissions/strange inclusions strike you?
Edit: I've just realised that Adrian Mole has been overlooked. Just his luck.
Stephen Moss (who he?) writes of Decline and Fall, ‘Waugh's bleak, amoral first novel is a young man's book, best read by young men (and perhaps the odd woman).’ That's me then, the odd woman, because I've read the book countless times and not just when I was young. Angela Thirkell is listed, hurrah! but an oddly chosen title, I thought: Before Lunch. ‘Published in 1939, Thirkell's irresistible comedy of manners is the most well-known of her Barsetshire series’. I wouldn't have thought that was true and it's not one of my favourites. What do other Thirkell fans think? Michael Frayn is rightly on the list but for Towards the End of the Morning (very funny) and not The Tin Men (even funnier). In fact, one of my favourite comic novels.
Any omissions/strange inclusions strike you?
Edit: I've just realised that Adrian Mole has been overlooked. Just his luck.
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Date: 2009-01-20 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-20 07:42 pm (UTC)Edited to say I've just heard Richard Thompson on Front Row. Strange but haunting.
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Date: 2009-01-20 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-21 10:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-21 10:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-21 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-20 08:36 pm (UTC)Jane Austen's books were all included on Saturday's Love list which is why they're not in Comedy.
Heven't looked at Family which is today's offering, but I liked the Comedy choices more than Crime.
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Date: 2009-01-20 09:18 pm (UTC)Those are the Thirkells I would have picked.
I thought Jane Austen ought to be on both lists. Dickens ought to be on every list as his books surely come into all categories.
Family, eh? I'll check that out tomorrow.
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Date: 2009-01-20 09:46 pm (UTC)No Catch-22, and no Sue Townsend??
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Date: 2009-01-21 09:45 am (UTC)Is it Carl Larsson? I used to have some prints of his work up in the kitchen.
I was outraged that Sue Townsend had been missed out but I now see that Adrian Mole is in the Family category.
Catch 22 would certainly seem a candidate for black comedy.
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Date: 2009-01-21 10:53 pm (UTC)I am very glad Adrian Mole hasn't been overlooked :-)
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Date: 2009-01-22 08:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-21 05:55 pm (UTC)Have you read the whole series?
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Date: 2009-01-21 07:21 pm (UTC)I'll wait for the paperback of the new one.
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Date: 2009-01-22 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-25 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-25 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-25 06:23 pm (UTC)GCat
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Date: 2009-01-25 07:54 pm (UTC)