The Klaw 101; or, the Klaw 100, version 2.
I did promise an update to my ranking of the top 100 novels I’ve read, but I kept pushing it off to read one more book that I thought might make the list. I’ve finally reached the point where I think I can publish it without having to rework it with the next book I read, so here you have the Klaw 100, part two: This one goes to 101!
The top 10 remain unchanged. I’ve deleted 12 titles, and inserted new books at 101, 98, 95, 93, 91, 90, 86, 84, 62, 34, 25, 17, and 11. I changed the order of the books already on the list only slightly and the descriptions are the same as they were last time around.
The guidelines, from the original post:
My criteria are wholly subjective. The primary criterion is how much I enjoyed the book, accounting for more than half of the “score” I might give each book if I was inclined to go to that degree. I also considered the book’s literary value, and its significance in the annals of literature, whether by its influence, critical reception, or the modern perspective on the book. There is nothing on here I don’t like.
There are only three items on this list that run beyond 1000 pages, one of which is a series, and another is two books that I combined into a single entry. The third is the longest single book I’ve ever read, although that was originally published as two volumes itself. By and large, the one hundred books listed here are highly readable, accessible even to the casual reader.
I did omit works of primarily popular fiction, even ones I enjoyed, so there is no Harry Potter and no Jasper Fforde. I slipped P.G. Wodehouse in there, since his works have influenced at least two generations of writers and performers, and there are four or five works on there that might straddle the line between popular fiction and literature. You’ll also notice the absence of some works of undeniable literary importance that I either haven’t read or just flat-out didn’t like. I make no apologies for these omissions.
The bottom line: My list, my call.
Kind of like my NL Cy Young ballot!
101. Decline and Fall
, by Evelyn Waugh. Full review. His one pre-Catholic novel, a funny, wicked satire of prep school culture without the morality play that underlies some of his later works.
100. The Reivers, by William Faulkner. Criminally overlooked today by most Faulkner readers, The Reivers won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1963 and is Faulkner’s most accessible and light-hearted work. It’s a comedy set, as always, in Yoknapatawpha County, focusing on three ne’er-do-wells who steal a car, consort with prostitutes, race a horse, and try to get ahead by any means.
99. Nervous Conditions, by Tsitsi Dangarembga. The debut novel by a Zimbabwean playwright, Nervous Conditions might be the best work ever written about the plight of women in even the “developed” parts of Africa, as they have to deal simultaneously with traditional and modern pressures in their lives.
98. Lonesome Dove
, by Larry McMurtry. Full review. Just an incredible read, a long, meandering epic of the old West, a meditation on existence and our need to move. A highly American novel. Oh, and it’s an early example of the art form now known as the “bromance.”
97. The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle. The grand-daddy of all mysteries, and the only full-length novel featuring Sherlock Holmes, Hound is as good a mystery as you’ll find, with Holmes at his brilliant and smarmy best.
96. Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Full review. Ishiguro’s romantic tragedy within a dystopian alternate reality is imperfect, but the societal aspect is powerful and incredibly disturbing.
95. The Risk Pool
, by Richard Russo. Full review. The funniest of the three Russo novels I’ve read, with a completely unforgettable secondary character in the narrator’s itinerant father.
94. Native Son, by Richard Wright. Perhaps the American equivalent to Germinal for its sheer anger and social commentary, Native Son is the story of a black man who is hemmed in by white society and whose culpability for his crimes may not entirely be his own.
93. Embers, by Sandor Marai. Full review. A haunting novel recounting the meeting of two estranged friends, the events that led to their estrangement, and the tension that fills the room when the novel reaches its climax. Slow, pensive, and gripping.
92. Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami. Full review. Not Murakami’s best, but still strong, with the same immersive, dream-like atmosphere as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. It’s a story of a search for identity and meaning, told through two narratives headed for an inevitable intersection.
91. The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread
, by Don Robertson. Full review. A bit of a sentimental pick – a young boy sets off across Cleveland with his sister in a toy wagon and ends up becoming a hero in the face of a horrible industrial disaster.
90. The Quiet American
, by Graham Greene. Full review. A cynical work, surprising for Greene, that offers a severe criticism of the Vietnam War from a worm’s-eye view.
89. Right Ho, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse. I’m not sure how to choose any single Wodehouse novel, or where to rank them on this list. I’ve read nearly all of the Jeeves novels and am hard-pressed to pick a favorite, so I’ve chosen this one, which also made the Bloomsbury 100. Describing the plot is pointless; the joy is in the telling.
88. Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Not really my favorite Twain book – that would be The Prince and the Pauper, a late cut from this list – but Huckleberry Finn is one of the few legitimate contenders for the appellation of The Great American Novel, a comedy, a drama, and a stinging social commentary all rolled up into an adventure story to appeal to the kid in every reader.
87. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, by John Le Carré. A seminal spy novel, but also a character-driven drama, one in which loyalties are uncertain, and so are fates. Impossible to put down, and not laden with all kinds of technobabble to try to distract the reader from a thin or implausible plot.
86. The City and the Mountains
, by José Maria de Eça de Queirós. Full review. A beautiful fable by one of Portugal’s greatest novelists.
85. Ragtime, by E. L. Doctorow. An extremely easy read, despite the references to some characters by roles (“Mother’s Younger Brother”) rather than names, with rolling, twisting plot lines and text that takes you into another era.
84. The Dud Avocado
, by Elaine Dundy. Full review. A comedy about an American girl in Paris whose cluelessness lands her in one mess after another. Brilliant and, for the moment, back in print.
83. Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier. Full review. A classic gothic mystery, which also led to Alfred Hitchcock’s only non-honorary Oscar.
82. The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy. Overlooked now, probably because of the rather unflattering depiction of a Jewish character, it’s a fast-paced and tense adventure story that deserves to be read by readers who understand its historical context. (And it’s hardly the only book on this list to take its shots at Jews.)
81. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison. Full review. Morrison’s second-best novel, the story of a black family divided through two generations and of one of the sons, Milkman Dead, who is searching for his own identity in the world.
80. A Grain of Wheat, by Ngugi wa’Thiongo. One of the best and most important novels written by an African author, Grain depicts a Kenyan village divided by the white colonial authorities, who use their power to split and oppress the people whose land they rule.
79. Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy. Full review. Beautifully written tale of good and evil with an uncomfortably high level of violence.
78. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin. A novella in the ruined-woman genre, The Awakening takes the story of Anna Karenina, transfers it to New Orleans, and condenses it to focus strictly on the woman, her choices, and the society that boxes her into a corner.
77. Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev. An under-read Russian novel, like Goncharov’s Oblomov, Fathers and Sons captures a generational clash that threatens the traditional way of life in Russia, while introducing the then-chic philosophy of nihilism to the broader public.
76. A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. Full review. Hosseini’s second book wasn’t quite the tear-jerker that his first was, but still had power in its subtlety, with the occasional burst of drama to keep you alert.
75. Moll Flanders, by Daniel Defoe. A straight narrative without breaks, Moll is a picaresque novel and a twisted morality tale that follows a woman of uncertain scruples through her entire life, from her birth in a prison to her life as a prostitute to her eventual rise to wealth.
74. Watership Down, by Richard Adams. I struggled a little bit with this one; it’s a children’s novel, but it’s not. It’s more of a modern epic, a fable about a warren of rabbits who find their home threatened by human development, with one rabbit emerging as a hero through his own wiles and personal growth. The book is so good that it violates two of my core rules, that a book with a map or with a glossary should be avoided.
73. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. Criminally overlooked for decades, Eyes has become a classic in the growing canon of African-American literature. Its use of dialect cleared the path for Alice Walker and the grandmaster of the genre, Toni Morrison.
72. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. One of the leading dystopian novels with Orwell’s 1984, which is coming up on this list. Huxley’s depiction of a world overrun by technology was both prescient and paranoid, and perhaps rings more true than Orwell’s work given subsequent developments.
71. Monarch of the Glen, by Compton Mackenzie. Full review. Brilliantly funny. Currently out of print in the U.S., although it remains in print in England.
70. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler. Chandler is half of the pair of leading lights of the hard-boiled detective genre, and The Big Sleep was his best work, with sleuth Philip Marlowe as the pensive star, with dry wit and filled glass and a very clear moral compass.
69. All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren.Full review. The fictionalized story of the rise and fall of Huey “Kingfish” Long, told almost as the backdrop for the story of the narrator, political crony Jack Burden.
68. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark. Full review. A novel of feminism, of religious ideologies (and fascism!), told with an unusual and effective back-and-forth narrative style and a dose of humor.
67. The Day of the Locust, by Nathanael West. A scathing indictment of early Hollywood culture and its pernicious effects on those who chase its rainbows.
66. Henderson the Rain King, by Saul Bellow. Far more enjoyable than the self-loathing of Herzog, Henderson employs humor and a touch of the absurd to explore the meaning of life and one über-successful yet spiritually unfulfilled man’s search for it in the hinterlands of Africa.
65. The Secret Agent, by Josef Conrad. Conrad is highly esteemed within the literary world for both Nostromo and Lord Jim, but I prefer The Secret Agent for its readability and the presence of some real, bona fide narrative greed. It was adapted, loosely, by Alfred Hitchcock for his 1936 film, Sabotage. (Conrad’s best-known work, Heart of Darkness, is too short for this list.)
64. Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol. The first third of an unfinished trilogy, usually sold with the surviving fragments of book two (destroyed by the author about ten days before his suicide), Dead Souls is a dark comedy about serfdom in czarist Russia and the buying and selling of the rights to recently deceased serfs. Its publication and success mark the beginning of the Russian novel and one of the most fertile periods of great literature in any culture.
63. The Leopard (Il Gattopardo), by Giuseppe di Lampedusa. Like so many novels on this list, The Leopard is the only novel written by its author. In fact, it was published posthumously by the author’s widow, and eventually became the first best-seller in Italian literature. It tells the story of the decline of a noble family during the unification of Italy, based loosely on the own author’s family history.
62. The Remains of the Day
, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Full review. A career butler looks back on his thirty years of service and discovers a host of opportunities lost to a singular pursuit of “dignity.” A sad yet witty novel that draws great emotion from words despite a near-total lack of action.
61. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Long John Silver, Captain Flint, Billy Bones, pieces of eight, fifteen men on a dead man’s chest. Yo ho ho!
60. The Small Bachelor, by P.G. Wodehouse. Not part of any series, this one-off book encapsulates the Wodehouse novel’s form perfectly, with two couples kept apart by circumstances, an incompetent artist, an efficiency expert, a policeman bent on becoming a poet, a female pickpocket, and the usual dose of misunderstandings and chases.
59. The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett. The book is a must-read; the movie is a must-see. It’s probably considered the best hard-boiled detective novel ever written … but there’s one I rate higher.
58. Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson. Full review. Haunting yet beautiful, desolate yet hopeful, Housekeeping shows how much a skilled author can do with just a scarce supply of characters and limited dialogue.
57. 1984, by George Orwell. The ultimate dystopian novel as well as the most scathing attack on totalitarianism in literature, 1984 wins out over Brave New World for me because the polemic is built around a deep study of the main character, Winston Smith. Irrelevant note: The best paper I wrote as a student was a comparison of the way colors and light are described in 1984 and Brave New World. Where Orwell saw “yellow,” Huxley saw “gold,” and so both authors created vastly differing pictures of their dystopian futures.
56. On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. The Great American Novel? Not for me, but certainly a great American novel, featuring thinly-veiled versions of Allen Ginsburg, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Kerouac himself, criss-crossing the country, with inventive phrasing and a dialect that defined the Beat Generation and two generations that came after it.
54. The Magnificent Ambersons, by Booth Tarkington. Winner of the 1919 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, Tarkington’s best-known novel tells of the rise of the United States – both the growth of its economy and the democratization of its society – by depicting the gradual decline and ossification of an aristocratic family. It also became perhaps Orson Welles’ least favorite of his own films, as the studio forced him to change the ending and cut significant chunks of the finished film; the original footage is lost.
54. Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis. Full review. A great comic novel about a mostly-normal professor at a small English college who is surrounded by wackos and manages to get himself into increasing quantities of trouble.
53. At Swim-Two-Birds, by Flann O’Brien. A silly novel that was meta before meta existed, with a novel within a novel that sees its characters revolt against their fictional author. It also spawned the greatest endorsement in the history of the novel, from Dylan Thomas: “This is just the book to give your sister … if she’s a loud, dirty, boozy girl.”
52. I, Claudius and Claudius the God, by Robert Graves. A tour de force of historical fiction, told from the perspective of Claudius, the slightly lame and (as we learn) totally insecure man who survived decades of political intrigues and murders to become first Caligula’s consul and later an exalted Emperor of Rome.
51. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. A protest novel and an affectionate portrait of the title character, whose name has sadly been misused as an intra-racial insult by people who do not appear to have read the book.
50. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. I often vacillate on the question of my favorite Vonnegut novel, so I’ve punted and gone with the experts’ pick. Although I can almost certainly say that this wasn’t my favorite, it is one of his most coherent, and at the same time has enough wackiness and weirdness and Kilgore Trout to be undeniably Vonnegut.
49. The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas père. Filled with a chewy nougat center … um, and lots of adventure, with a pair of villains, plenty of treachery, a young man seeking to become the fourth musketeer … and a smooth milk chocolate exterior.
48. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. So simple in style that it reads like a fable meant to be told through the generations, with an unflinching message about the effects of colonialism on Africa’s culture and its people. Its sequel, No Longer at Ease, is also worth your time, even though it runs over similar ground.
47. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey. A comic novel in a serious setting, Cuckoo’s Nest always struck me as the dissection of a power struggle between two people and a statement on how leaders, and perhaps governments, attempt to sway the hearts of men. The pickup basketball game remains a personal favorite scene of mine.
46. Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. A novel of serious moral questions, of Dostoevsky’s own philosophy blending Christianity with existentialism, of redemption, and most of all of the power of rationalization.
45. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. Full review. The history of Afghanistan, told as the tragic story of two childhood friends separated not by war, but by a child’s severe error of judgment. Whether he finds redemption as an adult is left to the reader, but unlike, say, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Hosseini’s work at least opens the door.
44. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J. R. R. Tolkien. One ring to rule them all.
43. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. I’m not sure I buy into Vanity Fair‘s oft-quoted review (“The only convincing love story of our century”), but as a study of obsession, arrested development, and rationalization, it’s powerful and cheerfully unapologetic.
42. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh. One of the strangest books on this list, as it starts out as a story of drunken revelry at an English prep school and ends up as a story of a romance torn asunder by theological disagreements (also explored in Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair). Think of it as a fictional memoir that intertwines nostalgia for a bygone era of English culture with a re-examination of the narrator’s spiritual emptiness.
41. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. Major Major, Nately’s whore, Milo’s cotton schemes … and the flying missions that never end in a serious war with some very un-serious behavior. A sharp satire full of madcap laughs.
40. Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes. The first novel in the Western canon, and the first comic novel, Don Quixote is actually two novels now published as one; Cervantes wrote a sequel in response to the flood of knockoffs and unauthorized sequels that followed the enormous success of the first volume of his work. If you’ve read it, check out Julian Branston’s The Eternal Quest, a funny homage that includes Cervantes and an unnamed “errant knight” as major characters.
39. My Ántonia, by Willa Cather. Never mentioned in discussions of the Great American Novel, but isn’t a tale about immigrant families working to create better lives for themselves and their children an integral part of the American story?
38. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë. The consummate Gothic romance, with a little magical realism (although it was written a century before the term existed) and a couple of absurd coincidences, still captivates readers and, of course, gave us Thursday Next and The Eyre Affair.
37. The Trial, by Franz Kafka. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.
36. The Charterhouse of Parma, by Stendhal. Sort of a French picaresque novel, but with a heavy dose of the realism that characterizes most great French 19th-century literature. The protagonist, Fabrizio del Dongo, is a slightly dim young nobleman who sets off on a Quixotic quest to fight with Napoleon’s army (even though Fabrizio is Italian) and become a hero.
35. The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner. The toughest read on the list, because Faulkner – never an easy read – wrote the first fourth of the book from the perspective of the severely developmentally disabled Benji, whose senses all time as now and drifts in his rambling narrative from the past to the present without warning. The four parts describe the decline of a Southern family – and of an entire stratum of Southern society – from four different perspectives. And by the way, the book’s title comes from Macbeth: “It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/Signifying nothing.”
34. The Grapes of Wrath
, by John Steinbeck. Full review. Another contender for the Great American Novel, driven by unbelievable prose that brought Cormac McCarthy to my mind. The social criticism aspect of the novel has been dulled by time and history, but the story of a family driven to the edge of ruin still resonates.
33. Empire Falls, by Richard Russo. Full review. A bit rich for such a recent book? I won’t deny it, but despite being set in contemporary America, Empire Falls harkens back to the storytelling of American literature from the first half of the last century, following a cast of ne’er-do-wells around a failing Maine mill town as they wait for something good to happen.
32. A Dance to the Music of Time (series), by Anthony Powell. Full review. Powell’s twelve-part sequence follows Nick Jenkins as he moves from boarding school to college to the army to the publishing world, with him serving as our wry tour guide through the follies and life events of a wide-ranging cast of characters.
31. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. Full review. A dystopian novel about the simple things in life, like free will.
30. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. A great romance and a commentary on first impressions and, of course, how our pride can get in the way. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and the unctuous William Collins rank among Austen’s best comic creations.
29. Appointment in Samarra, by John O’Hara. Full review. A Fitzgerald-esque novel about one man’s self-destruction through alcohol as he rebels against the confines of the small town where he and his status-conscious wife live.
28. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury is better known for his science fiction – the dystopian masterpiece Fahrenheit 451 just missed the cut for this list – but this old-fashioned gothic horror story uses fear to drive the narrative forward as a sinister circus comes to a small Southern town and two kids find that their curiosity may do more than kill a cat.
27. Our Man in Havana, by Graham Greene. Although it doesn’t have the gravitas of Greene’s serious novels (like The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair), Our Man in Havana is the most serious of his “entertainments” that I’ve read. It’s a rich satire about a vacuum cleaner salesman who is recruited as a British spy and fulfills his duties by sending in blueprints of vacuums and passing them off as new Cuban weapons systems.
26. The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens. Full review. Dickens’ first novel and perhaps the first true best-seller in English literature, Pickwick is a classic picaresque novel that showcases the sense of humor Dickens apparently lost somewhere on the way to two of the banes of my high school years, Great Expectations and Tale of Two Cities.
25. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Full review. My view on this book has changed dramatically since I read it. I was shocked by the bleak setting and gruesome details of McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic world, but the raw power of the Man’s love for the Boy and willingness to do anything, brave anything, believe anything to give his son a chance, however slim, at a future … well, if you have a child, you will understand. But I still don’t want to see the cellar scene on film, because I won’t be able to un-see it.
24. The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton. Full review. Another Pulitzer Prize winner, two years after The Magnificent Ambersons won, Age combines a love triangle, biting but hilarious commentary, and the stifling social norms of the Gilded Age for one of the greatest American novels ever written.
23. Persuasion, by Jane Austen. Anne Elliott was persuaded by her father and Lady Russell to decline an “unfavorable” match with a poor sailor when she was nineteen. Now twenty-seven and apparently headed for spinsterhood, she learns that her suitor has returned to England a wealthy captain. Austen’s last novel is the tightest and brings the most tension without skimping on the wit provided by, among others, Anne’s complete fathead of a father.
22. Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett. Dark and violent and completely gripping, Red Harvest was Hammett’s first novel and established the format of the hard-boiled detective novel with its sparse style and unblinking descriptions of bloodshed. It may have been the basis for Kurosawa’s Yojimbo as well.
21. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë. Perhaps the archetype of the brooding male hero, although I kind of felt Heathcliff was just an asshole. It’s a tremendous story of anger, vengeance, and cruelty, unfolding in layers as one might peel back an onion. Also available in a much-beloved semaphore version.
20. If on a winter’s night a traveler, by Italo Calvino. If you love inventive or just plain weird books, this is for you. The subject of the novel is the reading of a novel. Alternating chapters show a dialogue between the Author and the Reader, interlaced with opening chapters from various fictional novels. Calvino, one of the great fabulists of the twentieth century, takes his inspired silliness to a new level.
19. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s all about the green light. Jay Gatsby’s ill-fated chase of the American Dream, set in the Jazz Age as the automobile begins to make its presence felt on our culture. It ranked first on the Radcliffe Publishing Course’s list of the top 100 novels of the 20th century, and second on the Modern Library’s own list.
18. The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford. A classic English novel of betrayal, The Good Soldier describes a web of infidelities that destroys the lives of five people, with incredible dialogue and the powerful, recurring symbol of the human heart. I’m pretty sure that at $2.50 it’s the cheapest book on this list.
17. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: A Novel
, by Susanna Clarke. Full review.The fastest thousand pages you’ll ever read – a slow-building story that burns the fantasy genre down and builds it back up into a story of power, corruption, greed, jealousy, and mania.
16. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter , by Carson McCullers. Full review. An amazing achievement of prose and of literary introspection. McCullers looks into the human soul and finds a lot of dusk, if not dark night.
15. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami. Like stepping into a lucid dream, and indeed, the protagonist finds the line between reality and dreams blurring while searching for his wife, who has either left him or is being held against her will. You’ll have a hard time putting it down, although there is one scene of graphic torture that was tough to get through.
14. A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. Ignatius J. Reilly with his dyspeptic valve is one of the great hero-antiheroes in American literature as he’s forced to get his lazy ass a job. The book was published posthumously after Toole’s suicide through the persistence of his mother, who is portrayed in an unflattering light in the book, and novelist Walker Percy; twelve years after Toole’s death, Confederacy won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
13. Tess of the d’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy. Hated it in high school … okay, that’s not fair, I hated the first twenty pages and rented the movie. I went back for a re-read 16 years later and saw what I’d missed: One of the greatest ironic novels I’ve ever read. It’s bleak in its portraits of English society and its strictures, of human emotions, and of fate, but Hardy (who also was a noted poet) writes beautifully and slips numerous bits of wordplay into the text.
12. The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins. Collins, a protégé of Charles Dickens, believed that nothing in the novel was more important than the plot, and he wrote perhaps the first suspense novel in this story of mistaken identities, ghost sightings, and the unctuous, nefarious villain Count Fosco. Its use of multiple narrators was revolutionary for the time, and while it has the potential to be confusing, it’s critical for the way Collins wants to unfold the plot before the reader.
11. Cold Comfort Farm
, by Stella Gibbons. Full review. A short satire with layers and layers of humor, from wordplay to stereotypes turned inside out. The story is thin but readable, although the story is hardly the point. It’s just a joyous, hilarious read.
10. Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh. Full review. A hilarious and absurd satire of the news media that was written in the 1930s but is just as relevant today, as a man who wants no part of the job becomes a foreign correspondent to an African state on the brink of civil war.
9. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, by Henry Fielding. Fielding made his bones as a novelist by parodying Samuel Richardson’s Pamela with his own work, Shamela, and then moved to a broader satire with Joseph Andrews before stepping out with an entirely original work, the comic picaresque Tom Jones. The story is built around Jones’ romantic pursuit of the daughter of Squire Western, who is constantly trying to pair his daughter up with the villainous son of Jones’ foster parents. Along the way Jones is arrested, accosted, consorts with prostitutes, and runs into no end of conniving, selfish secondary characters.
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez. The history of Colombia told as the history of one family, with a heavy dose of magical realism and the sweeping feel of an epic despite the focus on individual characters. The Buendía family plays a role in the rise of the fictional town of Macondo until a banana plantation, owned by foreigners, arrives and triggers a lengthy and ultimately complete collapse.
7. Absalom, Absalom!, by William Faulkner. The history of the American South told as the history of one family, mostly limited to the decline of the region after the Civil War. Patriarch Thomas Sutpen builds his fortune, but sets the seeds for his family’s downfall through his greed and racism. Told in Faulkner’s usual style of multiple perspectives and winding prose.
6. Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton. The best book ever written about Africa was written by a white South African, decrying the country’s apartheid system while offering threads of hope for its future once the system is dismantled. Preacher Stephen Kumalo leaves his rural village to go to the city to help his dissolute sister, Gertrude, and find his son, named Absalom, who went to help Gertrude earlier but never returned and ends up in jail.
5. Beloved, by Toni Morrison. And here we have African-American history, dating back to their emancipation from slavery. Sethe and her daughter Denver are trying to establish a live for themselves as free women when a young woman, known simply as “Beloved,” arrives at the house. Is she the reincarnation of the child Sethe killed to keep her out of slavery? Sethe’s obsession with Beloved opens the door to a host of questions – are African-Americans held down by the weight of their past, or are they complicit in allowing their past to weigh them down? No one writing today does so with prose like Morrison’s or with as much literary depth.
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. The greatest one-hit wonder in literature and perhaps in the arts. The story alone makes it a classic, but Lee’s use of language, combining a Southern dialect with the unmistakable voice of a child, elevates it to its legendary status.
3. Emma, by Jane Austen. Austen herself wrote that she didn’t expect anyone to like her meddling, imperious protagonist, but nearly two hundred years after publication the book remains extremely popular, and the title character is a major reason. Character development was never Austen’s strength, but Emma grows up across the book’s 400-odd pages, with the usual cast of comic-relief supporting characters, including her worrywart father and the garrulous Miss Bates.
2. Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. To the reviewer who called Lolita “the only convincing love story of our century,” I submit Tender is the Night, the story of the gradual, inexorable breakdown of the seemingly perfect marriage between two beautiful people by way of infidelity, drink, and mental illness. If Fitzgerald had to go out early, he could not have gone out on a higher note.
1. The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov. An absolute masterpiece, banned by the Soviets for decades for its subtle yet severe indictment of communism’s many, many failures. The Devil comes to Moscow and exposes its society for all its vapidity, running into the frustrated author The Master and his faithful girlfriend Margarita, a story intertwined with a dialogue between Pontius Pilate and Jesus, all stacked with allusions to the Bible and major works of 19th century Russian literature. It is a work of unbridled genius, of acrimonious dissent, and most of all, of hope and faith in humanity.
Comments
“Tender is the Night” is only #2??? Why do you hate F. Scott Fitzgerald? You probably never even wrote a book of your own. They should take away your right to read. And where’s your T.S. Eliot? God! Does your bias against Saint Louis no know bounds?
Interesting list. I had a similar list, computer stolen, lost list. Hopefully the individual who stole my laptop (develops a nasty rash) enjoys my list as much as I enjoyed yours.
Although saw C and P but no Brothers K? Not gotten to it? BK is better, significantly, of the two greats.
I would move number 4 up to number 1, but a very interesting list.
Interesting. Congrats on simply finishing the compilation.
Most glaring omissions for me: Melville’s Moby Dick, Steinbeck’s East of Eden, and Greene’s The Power and the Glory. Also no Tolstoy?
Surprising inclusion: McCarthy’s The Road (I love it, but I’m not sure where it ranks)
When will you be on ESPN explaining your omission of Carpenter from THIS list?
Watership Down is (one of) the reason(s) I became a teacher, and it is currently the reason my students are so silent at the end of the day. Glad to see that it’s sticking on the KLaw 101. Now I just have to pick which KLaw 101 novel I read to my fifth graders next, any suggestions?
In a related note, I expressed my similar opinion about Heathcliff (Byronic Hero vs. A-Hole) and I was given 2 days detention and forced into a 1 person was allowed to speak discussion on why he was romantic, good times.
I take this list with a grain of salt until you man up and read Infinite Jest.
Haven’t read Brothers Karamazov or East of Eden. Read and hated Moby Dick (BIAS!). Read and liked The Power and the Glory, but not enough for the list.
Grant, I’ll have to think on that one. I’m not sure I have many books on here that would be appropriate for 10-year-olds, either in content or in their ability to understand and enjoy them.
Keith,
I like your description of The Road and think it rings true about having kids and reading the novel. My brother (no kids) read it and thought it was good but I finished it having just seen the birth of my second son in the last two years and thought it was absolutely brilliant.
My oldest son is just under two and the scene with the Man finding the Coke for the Boy and reading how the Boy reacted and enjoyed the Coke reminded me so much of every new experience I get to share with my son.
McCarthy’s ability to elicit an emotional reaction from me, the reader, was something I haven’t felt reading a novel since the Grapes of Wrath. Wonderfully done and I can’t wait to read more of his work.
Keith, while I was writing in jest(mostly) about the recommendation coming from the KLaw 101, I would welcome any recommendation. I would also happily lobby for the creation of a children’s lit. version, or even a Watership-like list of child/adult novels.
The KLaw 100 may not make it into guided reading, we do work though alot of cooking/food ideas, and Pizzeria Bianco normally comes into the discussion at least once a day.
Not a “Catcher in the Rye” fan? It’s my favorite novel, but I understand it goes both ways – either “why won’t this whiner just shut up?” or “wow, this feels really, really, almost frighteningly authentic.”
Never been a fan of “Emma” or “Beloved” or anything by Faulkner. Also I noticed you didn’t include any Ernest Hemingway. Intentional? Because I put “The Sun Also Rises” very high on my (non-existent) list.
It’s great to see The Master and Margarita getting some love. It is a wondrous book. But where is Tolstoy?
Great list, Keith. The Master and the Margarita is still my favorite amongst the golden age of Russian literature. Wondering if you’ve ever read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell?
Thanks for sharing the list, Keith – I’ve shuffled my “to read” pile accordingly. I was wondering whether you’ve ever read any David James Duncan. I thought that The Brothers K was outstanding, and The River Why was also very good. Worth checking out if you haven’t done so.
Keith,
Love the list — I’ve been introduced to a ton of great literature thanks to you.
I am very curious about your opinion of John Irving. I’m just finishing up The Cider House Rules, and wondered if you’ve read that or any of Irving’s other work. Given some of your other selections, it seems like the type of thing that might be right down your alley.
It would have been funny if Chris Carpenter appeared at #2 on this list. Surely not to the Card fans, but the rest of us would have had a nice giggle!
What do you think of Hesse and Celine? A little too light on plot for your taste?
And personally, I like The Idiot better than Brothers K and C&P.
I reread 1984 recently (the first time I read it being probably 15 years ago when I might have been a little young for it, and I certainly didn’t remember much of it) and thought it was just amazingly brilliant. Glad to see it on the list.
Keith,
How do you characterize a book like “In Cold Blood” which I think is one of the best pieces of writing out there? It has to be catologued in the Fiction section, but it’s clearly based on fact and Capote collected some 8,000 pages of notes. Have you read it? How would it fit on this list (if at all) were it a straight novel?
Glad to see you came around on The Road.
Hey Keith,
I’m a lazy, lazy man. Anyway you can list the 12 books that were cut from the revised KLAW 100 (and 1)? I know I could compare the lists, but, like I said, I’m lazy.
Keith,
How much non fiction do you read? I’d highly recommend The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes.
Did I just miss the Twilight series?
Not a fan of: Catcher in the Rye, Hemingway, Hesse (Siddhartha)
Haven’t read: Mitchell, Duncan, Irving, The Idiot (or The Idito), Celine, In Cold Blood (a “non-fiction novel,” apparently).
I read maybe 20% nonfiction each year. I am reading a nonfiction book at the moment, though.
JR: Here you go:
* Anna Karenina
* The Conformist
* Germinal
* The Man in the High Castle
* A Room With a View
* The Life of Pi
* The Man Who Was Thursday
* Silas Marner
* A Hero of Our Time
* Robinson Crusoe
* The Adventures of Roderick Random
* The Riddle of the Sands
I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment of The Road — I loved it but I’m not so sure it would have had the same impact had I read it before I had children.
Two questions:
1) Have you read Straight Man by Russo? It’s like his version of Lucky Jim.
2) You wouldn’t happen to be LawK in Learned League, would you?
Klaw, since we agree on many of your picks, I was wondering what you thought of Animal Farm? Too simplistic?
When looking at the top portion of your list you have a collection of fictional works that demonstrate the most relevant and consequential moments and issues that have impacted our history, our present day and our future.
However, if it were up to me I would focus on the things that are more important when judging a quality novel…like chapter size, number of pages, and even the artwork on the front cover.
For example, your all impressive, but modest 300 page, number two selection Tender is the Night would be replaced by something much further down on your list, Don Quixote, coming in at near 1000 pages.
Thought you might agree…
Keith –
Just read today’s Klawchat, with the bit about “idito”. What’s with Cardinals fans and their unintentionally ironic misspellings? Go USA!
The Kite Runner? Seriously?
I read and loved If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler thanks to its inclusion on the first incarnation of this list and would like to read some of Calvino’s other works. Is the comment about Calvino based on reputation or have more of him? If so, which would you recommend?
KLaw-
Thoughts on The Giver? Not necessarily one that belongs on the list, but I have had several interesting conversations surrounding the book, and am curious on your perspective.
Like The Giver, I find that people’s reactions to Catcher are largely dependent on where they were in their life when they read it (age and experience).
Keith – what are your thoughts on John Irving’s books? (e.g. The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Son of the Circus, etc)
Graeme: It’s on my to-be-read shelf now, and yes.
Bob: Yes, but I did like it.
Andy: Well played.
TomG: Yes, I thought it held up well to critical analysis, at least my amateur’s version of it.
CM: Marcovaldo was fun, but Invisible Cities went right over my head.
BSK: Excellent YA novel. Read it as an adult. Too advanced for Grant’s class?
Glen L: Never read any Irving.
A little disappointed to see no Pynchon on this list, but I think it’s a great list.
As far as more Dostoyevsky goes, certainly read Brothers K. And if you’re ever going to get to a third book of his (and you should), Demons is the way to go (even over The Idiot, which is good, but not great). Demons is possibly one of the most overlooked great books. It’s almost a shame his other novels are so great because it keeps Demons from getting the love it deserves.
What books are next on your horizon?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this list will remain incomplete until Klaw reads War & Peace!
Keith,
Which Kurt Vonnegut novels would you consider over Slaughterhouse-Five?
MJ: I’d consider Cat’s Cradle, Mother Night, Breakfast of Champions, and God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. It’s hard to choose.
Matt: I’ve only read Lot 49 and didn’t care for it – or even really understand it. Just started Tarkington’s Alice Adams, another Pulitzer winner.
I love Cat’s Cradle, and really like Breakfast of Champions. I’ve started Slaughterhouse several times, but can’t get past about the 30% mark. Am I missing something, or does it get better as it goes
I have the Giver set for an end of the year unit. Specifically to work on critical thinking. Right now it’d be a bit abstract for the majority of the students, but should be a little more in their wheelhouse in a few months.
Haha, you hated Moby Dick? I read it last year. That book has changed my life and completely gotten me into literature.
Keith- You have said in the past you do not have a copy of The Master and the Margarita. If you would like me to send you my copy I would be more than happy to.
Nice list … Catch-22 is on my list of books to re-read soon, have never read A Clockwork Orange and would love to.
Not a book that belongs on this list, but I think you would really enjoy Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. Entertaining stuff.
Quick baseball chat note – I got a big kick out of Bob from Providence who suggested Kelly, Westmoreland and Bard for A. Gonazalez.
It has be more like Buchholz, Michael Bowden (he’d be more valuable in the NL West in that big park; AL East is not for him), Manny Delcarmen, Lars Anderson, and their choice of Reddick or Kalish for talks to start.
Great recommendation of Strange & Norrell. I loved it.
Have you read “Vanity Fair” by Wm Makepeace Thackeray? I heard that it compares to Wuthering Heights (which I’ve not read yet)
Happy Tgiving
Keith just read the chat, does Lincecum really have 4 years of arbitration? You threw out a projected progression that had 4 years. I thought the standard was 3 years but I don’t know any of the true intricacies that may alter that.
Mitch:
Lincecum is a Super 2 meaning he has 4 years of arbitration. Here’s the rule from the Basic Agreement:
In addition, a Player with at least two (2) but less than three (3) years of Major League service shall be eligible for salary arbitration (Super 2) if:
a. He has accumulated at least 86 days of service during the immediately preceding season
b. He ranks in the top seventeen percent (17%) (rounded to the nearest whole number) in total service in the class of Players who have at least two (2) but less than three (3) years of Major League service, however accumulated, but with at least 86 days of service accumulated during the immediately preceding season. If two or more Players are tied in the ranking, ties shall be broken consecutively based on the number of days of service accumulated in each of the preceding seasons. If the Players remain tied, the final tiebreaker will be by lot.
So his first year doesn’t count as a full season? Essentially the Giants have his services for 7 years, but 4 of those he will get big time money.
That’s right. Same thing happened with Ryan Howard, Dontrelle Willis, Kerry Wood, to name a few.
[...] week, Keith Law revealed the Klaw 101, his list of his top 101 works of fiction. Klaw makes his living writing about baseball for ESPN, [...]
Keith- I Liked Cry, The Beloved Country and was wondering your thoughts on Disgrace by Coetzee. It seems more relevant now in exploring the issues of the race/class struggles in South Africa
Keith will you be making this list available on google docs? Thanks
Thanks for the list of books that were cut. Have you ever considered doing a Top 10 or 20 books without the guidelines (i.e., popular fiction, non-fiction are fair game too)? Do you already have such a list on this blog somewhere?
Thanks for updating the list and for reviewing so many books. I have to say, though, that despite being a big time Master and Margarita booster for years, I recently re-read it (for I think the fourth time) and was a little underwhelmed.
As for David Foster Wallace, have your read any of his non-fiction? I adore Infinite Jest but recognize its flaws. His non-fiction, on the other hand, includes some of the best essays I’ve ever read.
KLaw (and others)-
As both a dad and a literary snob, do you have a list of fave kid books? I teach pre-school, and have an arsenal of books, but I’m always looking for more. I’ve seen you talk a bit about some kids lit and kids media in general, so I feel like I can trust your perspective.
Speaking of, I got to take a graduate class in which we studied children’s literature the way you’d study any other type of literature. Really fascinating stuff to look at Sendak or the Brothers Grimm from this perspective.
I have to push some more for my favorite book of all-time (in my short 17 years of life.)
What was it you didn’t like about Moby Dick? I think the most common complaint regards Melville’s frequent digressions into the seemingly mundane nature of whaling. For me those are some of the most interesting parts, though. Each chapter starts from a simple object and eventually becomes a metaphor for some kind of deeper philosophical thought.
Just the plot, maybe?
Neil: The whaling digressions were maddening. The plot is pretty slow. And his prose is very slow and dated. Getting through that book (which I read in ’02, not as a kid) was torture. I finished it out of sheer stubbornness.
Keith,
I hope you get a chance to read Brothers Karamazov. It was one book that brought me to tears.
Heh. Well, I’ve certainly met a lot of people who didn’t really enjoy it. It was the right book for me, though.
I would say that one factor in my… perseverance, if you would call it that, was simply fascination with a book that has a great reputation. Another factor might be that it was assigned reading. Anyway, when I read it, we spent more or less three months discussing the whole thing in class, so I think I was generally able to see more in it than I might have at first.
I’m not entirely sure how to explain it, I guess.
the llonesome dove series was quite good. too bad mcmurtry didn’t stop with that book though. streets of laredo was a real downer. especially after lonesome dove.
i’m partial to michener. although most of his books you really have to commit to reading. they’re so long. you should really try tackling some gary jennings. his aztec books are my favorites, but all of them are very good.
Like Grant I teach fifth grade, and the Giver is a fantastic novel for the children in the class that are higher order thinkers and are very fluent readers. Lack of fluency means you miss too much in that novel. Listening to it might help, but still a bit too abstract for most of them to understand. I keep it on my shelf and love giving it to the kids that I know will get it. They always get it back to me in a week’s time and rave about how great it was!
Keith,
Appreciate all the writing and insight you provide on baseball, literature, cooking, etc. If only you covered music, I’d never have to leave your web site!
On to your list…
- Was looking for “Anna K,” and assumed you must not have got to it. Upon reading your responses in this commenting section, I can’t understand how you’ve read it and can’t find a spot for a novel like that in the top 100!!! Especially with the likes “The Kite Runner” and “Jane Eyre” earned admittance. Why the lack of Hemingway? I’m not a huge fan myself, but “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is so masterfully written, I can’t imagine you’ve read it and didn’t fit it in to your list. Only one Vonnegut entry kind of baffled me too.
- There’s a lot I love and appreciate about your list as well. Awesome that you have “Tender is the Night” way up there. Such a gem, that is often overlooked because of the “importance” of The Great Gatsby. Have you got to “This Side of Paradise” yet? I’d have to include that in any list like this I may make in the future. My other favorites in your top 10 are “100 Years of Solitude,” “Absolom! Absolom!” and “Beloved,” all would find their place in my top 20.
- Shocked that you haven’t read “Brothers K” or “East of Eden” – both are in my top 5-10, and I know you’ll enjoy both of them. “Eden” goes pretty quick, considering its length.
- Recommendations:
* “Infinite Jest” Motivated by this website http://infinitesummer.org/, I finally gave in this summer and finished it. Always loved DFW’s essays and reporting (“Consider the Lobster” is a must read), IJ may be my favorite novel of the last 25 years. If you want to get it done in 2010, you’ll need to start it soon, can’t imagine you’d have the time during baseball season.
* “Adventure’s of Augie March” “Seize the Day” or pretty much anything else by Saul Bellow. Those two are my favorites, but everything he writes is gold.
* “Portnoy’s Complaint” “Goodbye, Columbus” – Phillip Roth. Roth is not for everyone, and he’s not quite as good as his Jewish counterpart Bellow, but those two are tremendous. “Columbus” is in my top 5.
While the core story in Anna Karenina is outstanding (and oft mimicked), the digressions are brutal, and Tolstoy’s prose hasn’t handled the translation to English or the passage of time that well. This list is in part a recommendation to readers, and I couldn’t recommend a book I would call myself “uneager” to revisit, even though I liked it and am glad I read it.
I hated Herzog and disliked Portnoy’s Complaint. I had mixed feelings on American Pastoral (link goes to my blog entry on it), but can’t say I’m compelled to read any more Roth. I’ve read many or most of the major works of Jewish-American literature, and it’s just not my subgenre.
I’ve read four Hemingway novels, including For Whom the Bell Tolls (my favorite, but not list-worthy). Again, not my favorite style. I find his prose dry and his outlook monolithically bleak.
If you enjoyed 1984 and Brave New World, you may be interested in the Soviet writer Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We”. Orwell and Huxley each borrowed liberally from the book, I would say to the point of at least near-plagiarism.
I absolutely agree with you about Hemingway. However, how could you leave James Joyce off of this list? Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was the first book I read that I considered truly life-changing.
Keith – love the list…just updated my amazon wish list to include a bunch of these.
A couple of comments…
I was happy to see a widely praised novel, Love in the Time of Cholera, omitted. Between that and 100 Years of Solitude I must admit that I much preferred the later. Not sure if you intentionally omitted Cholera or if it just hasn’t gotten a read yet.
Have you had a chance to read any Paul Auster yet? My favorite contemporary author. The New York Trilogy is great, but I think Mr. Vertigo would be a spectacular addition to the list (I think it would be a great companion to Huck Finn and Watership Down as books that could be enjoyed by younger adult readers as well).
Bonfire of the Vanities get any consideration? I know the luster is off of Wolfe a bit after Man in Full and Charlotte Simmons, but damn that was a good book.
I despised Portrait of the Artist. No plot, unreadable prose, repetitive, self-loathing … no thanks.
Bonfire was just sort of meh. Unlikeable protagonists are generally a tough sell for me. Granted, I read it when I was 22, and might feel differently now. Never read Auster. Didn’t care for Love in the Time of Cholera, which I reviewed in January 2008.
I agree that Tolstoy’s prose is not his strength, and that his digressions can be maddening (though it’s more understandable if you remember he was writing a serial, not a novel in the way we think about it today), but if you ever do get around to reading War and Peace, I highly recommend you read the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation. I know you’ve said you don’t usually pay attention to translation, but there are cases when it really matters, and if you read AK in the dated and widely available Garnett translation, that may have played a big role in you not liking Tolstoy’s prose.
And when you read Brothers K (best novel ever written, in my opinion, and right there with The Road as my favorite), I’d recommend going with the P and V translation again.
Finally, great list! We disagree pretty profoundly on a lot of points, but that’s inevitable, and I’ve read a lot of books that are important to me because of your recommendations, so thanks!
Klaw –
Love the lists (both the Klaw 100 and 101). I was wondering what the most haunting book you’ve read has been….. a book where the imagery can’t be shaken from your head. For me, McCarthy’s books are high on that list (both Blood Meridian and the Road had scenes that I can’t scrub from my mind). Just wondering what thoughts you had on this.
Klaw– the “full review” link for Lucky Jim is broken. That’s my favorite book ever, and I’d sure like to read the review.
John – Fixed. Thanks.
Two comments. I love P.G. Wodehouse, but do you really find the two novels you included to be much superior to his other work, or did you just want to slip him in their somewhere and these were your favorites? I’ve read about 15 of his books and I’m really not sure how I’d single any one out over the others (though I haven’t read The Small Bachelor). Secondly, I understand it’s your list, but to me Persuasion is the best of Austen’s novels. I’m a straight man and not ashamed to say it.
The Small Bachelor really is my favorite. The Jeeves choice was (as explained above) because it made the Bloomsbury list, and I wanted something representative.
I won’t argue Persuasion. It’s excellent.
No Ayn Rand? I’d put The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged way up there. Two incredible stories despite a strong philosophical agenda. And what about “Underworld”? It even has a baseball theme strung throughout.
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Unlike Khaled Hosseini, Ian McEwan can actually write.
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Interesting list, but no Jose Saramago? Endo Shusaku?
[...] Ishiguro appears twice on the Klaw 101, at 96 with Never Let Me Go and at 62 with Remains of the Day. That latter novel was preceded by An [...]
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Keith-great list-not sure I could do it without feeling regret at the ones I left off. Oh the conversation and arguments we could have. Love the Toni Morrison-read Jazz. I taught freshman English for Ten years before taking over Junior English, and it just crushes me that I will no longer be able to teach To Kill a Mockingbird-it never gets old. Atticus Finch is one of the greats. Too bad you didn’t like Melville. I agree with everyone else-you need to read Brothers K. It’s one of the great achievements by man. I haven’t read M and M, but will soon. On a side note, it Kills me that you don’t like Pearl Jam. You sound like a buddy of mine and I can’t figure it out. Go back and listen to No Code and Vitology. Jack Irons is a god on the drums. There two of the best albums of the 90′s and nobody really listened to them. Keep Listening.