Stupid lists

So I stumbled over Time's list of the "All-time 100 novels" since 1923. Needless to say, I have some issues with their choices. For crying out loud Are You There God? It's Me Margaret Bleah!!! Too many Americans and not enough Anyone other than Brits. The only Canadian novel is The Blind Assassin? Not even Margaret Atwood's best, imho... On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised to see Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children . Oh well; I don't suppose you could get two people to agree on even 10 great novels, let alone 100. (but Judy Blume... give me a break!)

But on the subject of great novels...

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson is terrific. "You'll laugh; you'll cry" is a terrible cliche, but it's true. I found myself getting quite misty-eyed at times, but at others I was literally laughing out loud. Atkinson has a wonderful ear for dialogue, and also a sense of the absurd. Her characters are sincerely likeable - Jackson, Julia, Amelia, Theo, the strange girl with the yellow hair - they are all memorable, real, lumpy, three-dimensional figures. The connections between them never seem forced; you just think about the way we all seem to have those few degrees of separation from everyone we meet... yet there's the poignancy of the "cases," the lost girls, those who are left behind and have to live with their loss. It's a rich, intricate, funny, sad, clever novel. What more can I say?