The Guardian's 100 Best Novels; Cristin White's MFA List

 I love lists, always have. Who doesn't? The Guardian has published its 100 Best Novels. Vanity makes me want to say I have read most of them. Whatever improvement that has made in my character or my talents as a writer is unclear to me.

Wishing to make full disclosure (and it may disclose the holes remaining in my education) here is what I have not read: #99, #96, #94, #93, #91, #90, #87, #85, #80 - #77, #74, #72-70, #67, #62, #61, #58, #54-52, #50, #49, #46-#43, #40, #31, #29, #23, #19, and #14.

Perhaps this will further puncture my pretensions, but I have not even heard of #49, #61, #62, #74, #87, #91, #94, and #99.

And what is there to argue about? No Milan Kundera, no Mario Vargas Llosa, no Gunter Grass, no Martin Amis, no Camus? 

Go for it.

sch 5/18 

And a reading list from Cristin White: Ranking All 70 Books I Read for My MFA. Having only read Dubliners, The Portrait of a Lady, Emma, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Washington Square, My Brilliant Friend, and The Bluest Eye. Her capsule reviews made it worth reading.

And for a second opinion on The Guardian's #1 novel, Theo Hobson's Middlemarch is overrated. I did not read Middlemarch until I was in my fifties, which may explain my inclining towards Mr. Hobson's opinion. For me, with the issue being literary skill, it would be Proust by a nose ahead of Ulysses.

sch 5/19 

The Spectator's The problem with the Guardian’s top 100 books list has some of my complaints and some of their own.

Two omissions are unpardonable; one old, one young. Tom Jones, that most loved of rollicking adventures, is nowhere, and V. S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival fails to make the cut, in favour of A House for Mr Biswas. Perhaps Naipaul has been punished for holding the ‘wrong’ views on colonialism, but he will have the last word. The Enigma of Arrival is the book of a lifetime. Our lifetime.

We have been here before, and will certainly come here again. In 1983, when a list was drawn up of ‘the best 100 novels in English since the war’, there was scepticism about Angel, by Elizabeth Taylor. It was not, someone suggested, ‘important’.

Kingsley Amis, in a letter to this magazine, declared that ‘importance in literature is unimportant – good writing is.’ Which is why this latest approved list, endorsed by many well-read people, misses the point. Either read for pleasure, or not at all.

sch 5/20 

 

5/18-5/19/2026: Muncie to Indy to Muncie to Anderson

 I spent yesterday's morning in Indianapolis. First, still trying to find the computer K wanted. No such luck. What I did learn was not to trust Staples' inventorying software. Online, Plainfield was shown as having the computer. Plainfield said that their computer showed North Keystone had three. I went to North Keystone, they had none. When I called Plainfield, the fellow who went to see their actual stock could not find one. I gave up. K was going to work off money lent her by typing up the “Chasing Ashes” manuscript. Someone else will do it for me.

Then I spent hours at the McKinney Law School law library. Too fat, too hot, it was a struggle that it ought not have been. Memory kept losing instructions on how to use their scanner. It was also not helpful in finding the Indiana Reports. I did not finish the job, either. Which worked out to my benefit. There was a massive thunderstorm that hit as I was leaving and accompanied me all the way home. Indianapolis streets were flooding. When I got back here, I found out the biggest selection did not get sent from the scanner.

 I thought I would go back today, but I was too tired at 5 AM. I stayed that way for most of the day. I did manage a quit trip to Anderson and having two Spanish dogs from Gene's Root Beer. They were delicious.

I got the car back to Enterprise on time - 1 PM. Then I made my way back here. A siesta seemed like a good idea. Not ready for the heat; I need to get my inhalers. Two more hard rains came in the afternoon.

I think I heard frogs croaking this morning after the rains, and then again a little while ago. It might be something else. Not any bird song I recognized, so frogs seem likely, if bizarre. 

Indiana abortion ban law stands as state Supreme Court rejects challenge means I need to get the law research done and the article written. Finally.

The Future Fire got Unintended Consequences 

A rejection for “Agnes”:

Thank you for sending us your work. This particular submission wasn't chosen for publication, but we are grateful for your interest in our journal. We wouldn't be able to continue without writers like you.


Great luck with your writing, among all other things.


Sincerely,

The Editors

New Ohio Review

Warren Zevon's Warren Zevon; The Eagles' “Hotel California” tried but never hit the mark set by Zevon.

For something lighter: How a shifting Nile landscape shaped the rise of the ancient empire of Kush in Sudan 

New editions of Georges Simenon's non-Maigret novels are coming out: The Crimes Georges Simenon Declined to Investigate. I admire the Maigret stories but find his non-Maigret novels fascinating. I did not even know of them until I was in my fifties. Do not wait so long to read them.

 Cradle to Career Muncie Lifted as National Example

At the center of the recognition is Muncie Community Schools’ dramatic improvement in early grade reading. During the 2024-2025 school year, districtwide reading proficiency climbed from 69.8 percent to 79.2 percent, a 9.4-percentage-point increase that outpaced statewide gains. Grissom Elementary posted one of the most significant improvements in Indiana, increasing its third-grade reading proficiency rate from 46.6 percent to 79 percent in a single year.

StriveTogether leaders described Muncie as an example of how place-based partnerships can drive long-term systems change when communities align around shared data, coordinated strategies and collective accountability. The national organization’s annual report noted that more than 70 organizations and 200 individuals participate in Cradle to Career Muncie’s work through The Opportunity Blueprint: 2030, a strategic plan shaped by more than 150 local voices.

Local leaders say the progress reflects years of intentional collaboration.

Massie lost in Kentucky. Trump now owns the Republicans. Considering what happens when Trump[ owns anything, this should be the end of the Republican Party. 

What is INvestEd? Indiana’s own student loan provider could see a surge in demand 

A little-known nonprofit created by Indiana lawmakers more than four decades ago could become a major lender for student loan borrowers.

The Indiana Secondary Market for Education Loans — which operates under the name INvestEd — issues private student loans at interest rates starting at 4.26% to 8.51% — far below the maximum 17.99% interest rate charged by some of its for-profit competitors.

The nonprofit’s motto is simple: The best student loan is no loan at all.

But leaders at INvestEd anticipate a surge in demand for private loans once tighter federal student loan restrictions and borrowing limits take effect July 1.

I never heard of this, but then after 1987 I had no interest in the subject.

 Still, very long energy.

 

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Orhan Pamuk Speaks - What I Found on YouTube

 I read Pamuk after I turned 50. What has attracted me to his novels is his writing about places and times. 

He sees the Turk as European and Middle Eastern. He sees Turkey as both modern and historical; a place trying to find its place as a former empire, a former Great Power, and a modern state of importance. 

 So what? It has to do with me being in the Midwest. The East Coast has its economic, cultural, and political power. The South lies across the Ohio River with its scars of slavery and the Civil War. The West's romance is hours to the west.

Let me put that another way. 

Edith Wharton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville, Henry James, Colson Whitehead, Michael Chabon, Gore Vidal, Joseph Heller, Dennis Lehane, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Norman Mailer, John Updike, and Stephen King are to the east of me.

William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Conner, Jessamyn West, Walker Percy, John Kennedy O'Toole, Jonathan Franzen (being from Missouri) and William Styron are to the south. 

Turning west I find John Steinbeck, Larry McMurty, Craig Johnson, Cormac McCarthy, A.B. Guthrie, Mark Twain (who also suddenly seems the most cosmopolitan of American writers - he could be southern, he spent time fitting into the east, and, if I could fit a slave state into the Midwest, and Midwestern), Raymond Chandler, Annie Proulx, Dashiel Hammett, and Ross MacDonald.

Those belonging to my Midwest: Kurth Vonnegut, Booth Tarkington, Theodore Dreiser, Nelson Algren, Sinclair Lewis, Toni Morrison, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Richard Wright, and Michael Martone.

Put another way: the Midwest supplied the men who destroyed the Slave Power, then built the factories that supplied the country and the world, and then lost the peace to the South and saw their factories shuttered. It is an empire that lost its power and holds onto former eminence while wandering in the desert searching for its future.

Yes, I think Pamuk might have something to teach us. 

He is also an engaging human being with a lively intelligence.

Orhan Pamuk in Conversation with Merve Emre 

A Dialogue on Facts Fiction History: Umberto Eco - Orhan Pamuk (Full Version)

Orhan Pamuk - VO (4) - William Marx (2022-2023)

Big Think Interview With Orhan Pamuk | Big Think

Why he made a nveol into a museum

 

Finally, what I had collected into a YouTube Playlist

My other Orhan Pamuk posts are here. 

 

sch 5/18 

Hate Being For Sale Doesn't Mean We've Got To Buy It

We have gotten suckered by hate.  

 I read Jean-Paul Sartre's essay on antisemitism in college, on my own. I took it to heart. Still, it was good to read Why Do People Embrace Hate? Sartre Has an Answer (JSTOR Daily).

However, Greenberg notes that Sartre’s real interest wasn’t in Jewish perspectives but in what makes a bigot. In fact, Sartre explicitly wrote that in other contexts the same scapegoating purpose could be served by Black or Asian people. Today, Greenberg writes, we might also substitute immigrants, Muslims, or members of the LGBTQ community.

Sartre viewed antisemitism as a solution for the fundamental human problems of anxiety and alienation. In particular, he focused on how “being-for-others”—existing with the awareness of others’ perceptions—creates tension through the risks of exposing one’s inadequacies. Because of this, anyone may become overwhelmed by a social world with many different perspectives and demands, and by the possibility of getting things wrong.

To Sartre, antisemites are people who suffer from this insecurity and fear and are unwilling to do the work of adapting to cultural change and learning new things. This leaves them vulnerable to propaganda offering simple answers. The antisemite also revels in the release of constraints imposed by living peacefully in society with others and finds comfort in joining crowds of people like them.

JSTOR Daily also published The Forgotten Untouchables of France, which illustrates the points about Sartre.

When it comes to the issue of difference, D. Hack Tuke in an 1880 issue of The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland noted that “I have been unable to obtain any evidence which marks the Cagots out as a people distinct from the surrounding inhabitants.” No marker of race, ethnicity, or religion differentiated them; aside from their inherited designation of Cagot, they were indistinguishable from the French and Spanish among whom they lived.

Regardless of the lack of justification, the effects of anti-Cagot bigotry were horrific. The nineteenth-century British novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, author of North and South, provided one of the few English-language sketches of the Cagots just as liberal reforms ensured that they functionally ceased to exist as a separate persecuted community. She recounts in her 1855 story “An Accursed Race” how, around 1700, a soldier in Brittany punished a Cagot who drew holy water from a prohibited font. She writes that the soldier “cut off… [the Cagot’s] hand, and hung it up, dripping with blood, as an offering to the patron saint of the church.”

Lurid though that particular anecdote may be, and others Gaskell provides—such as one in which rebelling Cagots murdered oppressive town officials and used their heads as balls in an impromptu game of soccer—their daily persecution was no less unjust for being more prosaic. Cagots were relegated to distinct ghettos in towns and villages, and were mandated to dress in a particular manner to announce their separate identity. All had to wear a badge featuring a red symbol in the shape of a duck’s foot. They were only allowed to marry within their own community, and when that restriction loosened, anyone from outside who married into the group was recategorized as a Cagot. They were also limited to certain professions, including carpentry, rope-making, masonry, and tiling.

We could do better, definitely should do better, but that is true of much of human nature. We cannot keep moralizing without taking action. It need not be anything massive, it need not come from a government program; change can come from each of us in the smallest of our daily activities.

 

sch 5/15 

 

The Weekend Part 1 - Friday into Saturday

My travels of yesterday need their own separate post, even if some news that follows came in on yesterday.

I decided to make a road trip. So, Saturday I was off to Enterprise to rent a hire. Once again, I had a run in with the dunce from my last visit. I had forgotten the utility bills that they want before they rent me a car. I had forgotten it and said this to the clerk. He said no problem. Then he asked for it. I repeated I did not have it. He asked if it was on my phone. I said no. He asked again and I told him no. He said he misunderstood me and acted if he could not understand why my bills were not on my phone. None of this would have been an issue if it were not for the buses only running on the hour on Saturdays. If he had confirmed I had a problem, then I might have caught the bus. No, I missed the bus, so I told them I would be back in two hours. I walked over and got a hamburger from Five Guys, Not a bad sandwich, but I am getting annoyed at $2.00 for a Coke. While waiting for the bus, my priest drove by and gave me a ride back to my place. Who says there are no miracles? I got the car, but it was too late to leave for Indianapolis. Forgetting that envelope caused me no end of trouble for Sunday.

 Instead, I went to Vespers. The pain had me almost bowled over. Then I decided to see a movie. I am tired of being miserable at home. I struggled through In The Gray. Not a problem with the film; which was the usual stylish Guy Ritchie romp. No, the problem was my insides and the pain. I think this is the only of Ritchies' movies I have seen in the theater. That was one reason to go see it. Watching it, I recalled comparisons with Tarantino. They made no sense to me before and they make less now. Both directors are in love with movies and know their history. Both directors invest their antiheroes with the talent for talking. But Tartantino preens where Ritchie barrels through. Tarantino has taken to rewriting history via the power of cinema whereas Ritchie does seem interested in history. Ritchie's characters seem more interested in doing a job well; Tarantino's seem more interested in being seen doing their jobs. It just struck me that the closest Tarantino comes to Ritchie is Jackie Brown. Could it be that Ritchie came closest to Tarantino with his Sherlock Holmes movies rather than Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels? Or the Man From U.N.C.L.E.? That movie came to mind while watching In The Gray. That one disappointed me, and watching the new movie, it disappointed me even more. There was a stylishness that seemed empty in the earlier film. Worse, less fun. In The Gray may not have a sensible plot, but it is an adventure and not Wuthering Heights. I am left wondering what a second Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie would have been like. Or what would a Ritchie directed Bond film would be like (just as what would a Tarantino Star Trek movie have been like). I recall Howard Hawks mentioned in one  review. That seems to be the real connection between Ritchie and Tarantino.

CC made another call. That was Friday, on my way to the group. Once more into strangeness and paranoia - hers, not mine. Calling me without saying what is going on because she doesn't want to say it on the phone. Too complicated going on with her that is the same old thing. I roll my eyes and keep on keeping on. Only her boyfriend calls me Saturday and for some reason thinks she is at my place. Nope. That sure what is going on there. Not sure if I care. Another oddity on the side of the road.

I was up for church, feeling a bit better. Only after Liturgy did everything go nuts.

Two rejections were received yesterday:

Thank you for the opportunity to read "The Unintended Consequences of Art." Unfortunately, your story isn't quite what we're looking for right now.

In the past, we've provided detailed feedback on our rejections, but I'm afraid that due to time considerations, we're no longer able to offer that service. I appreciate your interest in Clarkesworld Magazine and hope that you'll keep us in mind in the future.

Take care,

Neil Clarke
Publisher/Editor
Clarkesworld Magazine
www.clarkesworldmagazine.com

They also rejected an earlier version.

Somewhat of a blast from the past since this was for "Coming Home" and was submitted on 10/28/25:

Thank you so much for sharing your work with us! Our editorial team has had a chance to read through your submission, and while we don't feel that it's quite what we're looking for, we appreciate your support and interest all the same. Have a great week, and good luck out there!

Best,
Dave and James  

 

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Bad Person, Great Artist - A Resolution?

Yesterday went bad health-wise, so I was unable to finish this post.

 From time to time, I have posted about the Bad Person/Great Artist conudrum that worries us more today than it did when I was younger. Maybe it cuts closer to home than I will admit, except no one will ever call me a great artist. My view is that I have been trying to get caught up with the works, which has not given me much time to delve into the artist's biography. Woody Allen looms large in my mind, but does admiring his movies mean endorsing his character? Do we do the same for mechanics, or bus drivers, or any other calling other than artists?

Reading When Loving Lennon Became Difficult (Los Angeles Review of Books) pointed to the resolution

In his interview with Playboy in 1980, Lennon specifically criticized the romanticization of artists:

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with following examples. We can have figureheads and people we admire, but we don’t need leaders. […] [T]his doesn’t mean there isn’t validity in the message. The swimming may be fine, right? But forget about the teacher. If the Beatles had a message, it was that. With the Beatles, the music is the point. Not the Beatles as individuals.

I’m not sure how Lennon would have felt about so many people, 40 years after his death, still idolizing him. Maybe he would have appreciated the continuous love for his music. But I don’t think he would have wanted me, a 31-year-old Argentine-American woman in 2020, to look up to him as a role model, much less one who’s held up to current feminist standards.

This may also explain my apathy towards this whole issue. As with my politics, I am not keen on leaders. Ideas matter. We can make more with ideas. Whether Jefferson truly thought his slaves were created equal to himself is irrelevant to how that people have built upon his idea and made the Declaration incorporate Blacks. I would no more follow Lennon in his misogny than I would his use of heroin. However, I will admire him trying to overcome his bad actions. 

We need to lead ourselves to better teachers. We need find our own values and standards to live with. We will be imperfect, we will fail, but we will keep going onward, improving our lives and those around us.

At least, that is what I am trying to do. Therein, I pay attention to John Lennon.

What are you going to do? 

sch 5/15 

What Americans Should Learn About Hungary

Over the past few years, American “conservatives” have doted on, if not kissed the feet, of Hungary's Orbán. This I have never understood. To be so enraptured by a foreigner whose ideas are antithetical to American ideals left me distrusting these conservatives. Add Orbán's hanging onto Putin only increased my dislike. Americans should follow Russia's lead? Only morons like Trump, J.D. Vance, and Tucker Carlson would think we should.

But a larger question remains unanswered for me - something hidden between the slogans of MAGA and social media tirades - how does illiberalism, Trump's autocracy, John Yoo's unitary executive, benefit Americans?

Reclaiming the Small Circles of Liberty (Los Angeles Review of Books) reviews the history of Orbán's Hungary, and it provides what I think are things Americans really should think about regarding Hungary.

The Hungarian story of the last 16 years does not conform to “the end of liberal democratic politics,” nor is the victory of Tisza in any way indicative of the demise of global illiberalism. Rather, these developments might teach us some lessons about the nature of the clash between liberal democratic and neoconservative autocratic projects.

The first such lesson is that resistance is never in vain as it is impossible to predict when certain disparate streams converge into a river, like Tisza, that ends up overflowing the dams of autocratic lawfare. Another lesson is that autocracies and autocrats age badly; they tend to fossilize and react to unexpected challenges with increasing stiffness. Orbán sincerely believed that his successful anti-Ukrainian campaign of 2022 could be recycled, in an even more primitive and aggressive way, in 2026. Eventually, he managed to convince about 60 percent of his voter base that Ukraine posed a greater threat to Hungary than Russia, but only seven percent of the supporters of the opposition were convinced. He reacted to every new challenge with less and less energy and more and more self-deception, and eventually became trapped in the virtual reality he himself had created.

In hindsight, and this is another important lesson, every protest movement, every teacher who refused to implement the imposed curriculum, every theater director who refused to modify the program in response to the demands of the policymakers, everyone who made donations to independent media, every journalist who kept up the ethos of his or her profession and kept investigating corruption cases, every activist who defended a disabled Roma tenant from being evicted from his or her flat, every one of them fought the mafia state while at the same time defending “the small circles of liberty.” (The latter phrase comes from István Bibó, perhaps the most important Hungarian political thinker of the 20th century, condemned to life imprisonment for his involvement in the 1956 revolution.)

sch 5/14