by Dayla Alberge, Arts Correspondent and Erica Wagner, Literary Editor
Times of London, 20 January 1997
The epic fantasy novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings,
has been voted the Book of the Century by the buying public. Many
critically acclaimed names such as T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway,
Thomas Mann and Samuel Beckett failed to make it into the top 100
selected by the 25,000 voters.
George Orwell's dystopian
Nineteen Eighty-Four and his political satire
Animal Farm reached second and third places respectively, followed by
James Joyce's Ulysses, though many of those who voted for this
dense novel may not have read it.
More than 5,000 titles were nominated in a national survey
conducted in the autumn by Waterstone's, the booksellers, and
Channel 4's Book Choice programme. The public was invited to
suggest up to five books.
Auberon Waugh, Editor of The Literary Review, expressed disbelief
at Tolkien's win. "It's a little bit suspicious. It's like Mr Major
coming out as the most popular man," he said. He suggested that the
author's fans might have orchestrated a campaign, a charge rejected
by Martin Grossel, a university lecturer in chemistry and leading
light of Oxford's Tolkien Society. Tolkien fans "are not that sort of
people", he said.
Mr Waugh felt that although Orwell's support was genuine, votes
for Ulysses, whatever its merits, were "totally bogus". He suggested
that the votes either came from English literature students or from
people who were showing off.
Germaine Greer noted: "As a 57-year-old lifelong teacher of English,
I might be expected to regard this particular list of books of the
century with dismay. I do." Good writers such as Somerset
Maugham and J.B. Priestley were among many who had been
overlooked, she added.
While Kingsley Amis made the list with Lucky Jim, his son Martin
was omitted. Some bestselling authors such as Jeffrey Archer did
not make it.
Ross Shimmon, chief executive of the Library Association, said: "It
seems to me a very sound selection. It's quite interesting that it's
very different from the public lending rights figures."
Jung Chang's Wild Swans, an account of three generations of
Chinese women surviving the nationalist and communist regimes,
was the highest non-fiction entry at No 11. It was one of only 13
books on the list by women.
Alan Giles, managing director of Waterstone's, said: "Memories fade
and therefore there's an over-representation of more recent writing.
If we were to conduct the survey again in ten years, I wonder how
many of those would still be on the list."
The Lord of the Rings is a tale of good and evil, the story of Frodo
the Hobbit's search to return the Ring of Power to its source. First
published in 1954, it achieved cult status in the Sixties and has
remained in print ever since. On Booktrack's list of the top 5,000
bestsellers in Britain, The Lord of the Rings currently stands at No
537, selling 155 copies a week. Its author, born in 1892, was
Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford, and
an authority on Anglo-Saxon literature. It is perhaps the escapism
which its mythology offers that has provided its enduring appeal, the
same escapism that has kept Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek going
for decades.
Malcolm Bradbury, Professor Emeritus of American Literature at the
University of East Anglia, said that, while he would not consider it a
great work of literature, he was not surprised at its triumph. "It has
a very special cultural value," he said. "It's a book that crosses the
magic line between childhood and adulthood."
Extra Info: Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London also placed in the top 100.
