I Read 100 Great Books

So one of my Facebook friends posted a link at some point in the near past to a story on the NPR Web site about the 100 best fictional characters since 1900. The article was in fact called NPR: 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900. It piqued my interest, not only because I like these kinds of lists in general, but also because I have a masochistic streak that goads me into finding out just how well-read I'm not.

I had a lot of fun in high school. I had a lot of this fun in lieu of reading many of the books which had been assigned in my English classes (why read when there's Cliffs - or now, my favorite, SparkNotes?), and which had returned to haunt my guilty conscience on the NPR list. I also had a lot of artsy friends who could comment wistfully about how now they really understood Catcher in the Rye (starring Holden Caulfield at number 2 on the NPR list). I would nod in sage agreement while quietly popping open and sipping another PBR. But all the cheap beer in Washington, D.C. couldn't keep me from knowing the truth: I was a literary dope.

I've aspired to read books on "100 greatest" lists before. The problem was that the selections always seemed so daunting: great tomes and grimoires by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and any number of other thick slabs written by the great Russian tangled-beard-growers of history. But the NPR list was a little gentler - there were a few on the list that I still found daunting. Kafka. Proust. But there were a couple of downhill titles, too. Winnie the Pooh? Hell, yes! The Thin Man? How could I go wrong? The fact that this was a character-driven best-of list was also appealing: it made tackling the list a little more tractable since I had a goal: somebody said this character was interesting - let's find out why!

So that's what I started to do.

Even though I hadn't read many of the great books of human history, I am still an avid reader. Books are in fact a passion of mine, so much so that I ended up spending a lot of money on them over the course of my life. I've read all or most of them and I've amassed a decent-sized library. But there came a time when I just had to say enough is enough and scale back my book purchases and to instead turn to the alternative: the public library.

There's a lot I don't understand about the public library. There are computers on pedestals that I sensibly assumed were updated card catalogs. However, when I went to look up my first title (The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow), I realized that I needed some sort of PIN or reservation number to use the computer. Surely, I thought, they wouldn't require jumping through such hoops just to use a digitized card catalog? And surely these computers, so uncomfortably situated at standing height, couldn't be intended for use as computer computers, for general purpose use?

Fuck it, I thought. I know the alphabet. Head to the section of the library labeled "Fiction" and head for the Bs.

Good strategy, but no Augie March. No Saul Bellow at all, actually.

Young adult? No good, apparently Saul Bellow is not one for the tween set.

So no Saul Bellow at all in the library. On to #99: The Color Purple, Alice Walker.

Head to the section of the library labeled "Fiction" and head for the Ws.

No dice.

Heart of Darkness? Joseph Conrad? Fiction section. Cs.

Nada.

Ashamed at my ignorance of the card catalog, I wandered around the library looking for maybe a "classics" section or maybe a slick "NPR: 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900" section. Finally, I happened on a section called "reading list" or "assigned reading" or something like that. And there I found the Darkness and Purple I had been looking for. Still no Augie March, though. I'll have to pick up Augie used online. I had wanted to stick to the order of the list but I wasn't going to let lack of material stop me. I checked out The Color Purple (my first reading selection) and Heart of Darkness.

And so my endeavor began...