January 29, 2009

More on the "Big Books of the Decade"

I've come to realise that my theory of the "Big Book of the Decade" is utterly flawed, based as it is in my own personal taste and blindness to certain books by certain folk. So, considering it's won every Booker of the Booker going, I'm sure that there are some who would argue that Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" (1981) was the Big Book of the 80s. Didn't do much for me, but there we are. Or how about Bolaño's Oedipal father-figure (or perhaps his Claudius), Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who would get the nod from some for both or either of "100 Years of Solitude" (Spanish in 1967, English in 1970, so I guess we could squeeze it into the 60s..) and/or "Love In The Time of Cholera" (1985/1989)? (Mind you, they're both relatively 'short' - more big books in the ground covered than in length). So, yes, I lose. Again. More big books to follow soon. Ooh, Don DeLillo, "Underworld," 1997, hmmm... Vollman, "You Bright And Rsien Angels," 1987, hooray..! etc etc

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