Guardian Newspaper 1000 Novels discussion

I'm not talking about some of the odd categorisation (Finnegans Wake in the Comedy section, for example), no I'm talking about works that ought to have been disqualified from appearing in The List entirely as part of the list's own T&Cs, because they aren't novels.

To pick just three examples from the top of my head that could never be described as a novel: The Snow Goose, Death in Venice and The Westminster Alice - none of these is more than 80 pages long (Westminster Alice is under 50!) and so could never justify the term Novel - for two of them novellla doesn't even feel justified, they're just short stories.

And then there's the novels that aren't novels because they're actually enormous conglomerations of separate novels: Remembrance of Things Past, Dance to the Music of Time, Discworld. And in the case of Balzac's Human Comedy, consists of about 40 novels and 50 short stories - and several of the novels constituting it, eg Pere Goriot, are in the list separately anyway!

I don't understand how some of these got through. Is there an explanation in the longer write up?

I don't know if the Guardian explained these anomalies but I have noticed a few others. For example, My Family and Other Animals is a memoir and so should have been excluded since it isn't fiction. Delta of Venus is a collection of short stories.

It bugs me also about the series being listed as a single entry. A Dance to the Music of Time (12 book series) also has 3 of its books included separately... unfortunately for me, I gave up on the series before I got to those.

The novellas don't bother me as much.

La Comedie Humaine and the Discworld series seems especially egregious to me. Both are probably worthwhile (I've only read one Balzac and no Pratchett), but it's unlikely that I'd read all these titles--especially if I have another 998 I'm supposed to read before I finally kick the bucket.

I have the Human Comedy as an ongoing separate personal quest and am on to entry 15. It's pretty uneven (as you'd expect). But, yes, I agree with Leslie that the inclusion of book series is the worst of the sins.

As though there weren't enough books to read on the list, they have single entries that consist of 7, 12, 45 and 90+ separate works.

I expect to read Lost Illusions someday, and I've read Pere Goriot and just remembered that I also read Cousin Bette (obviously didn't make a huge impression), but beyond that, I feel I'll be lucky to read much more of Balzac's output.

I have Anthony Powell's series on tap for someday, but gee whiz--I've only got so much time left in my life. If I get to one of the Discworld entries, I think I'll be doing good.

The Things They Carried is another short-story collection on the list. I don't have too much trouble with that because I think that title story is a legitimate masterpiece.

I thought there was Flannery O'Connor short-stories on the list as well, but now I don't see them.

I thought I'd find out which of the entries on the lists are actually series of books. These are the ones I've found so far, including the ones previously listed on this thread. Are there any I've missed out?

La Comedie Humaine by Honore de Balzac (91 novels, novellas and short stories)
The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett (41 books)
A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell (12 books)
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis (7 books)
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (7 volumes)
The Earthsea Series by Ursula Le Guin (6 books)
Fortunes of War by Olivia Manning (6 books)
The Rabbit Omnibus by John Updike (4 books)
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (3 books)
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (3 books)
To the Ends of the Earth Trilogy by William Golding (3 books)
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster (3 books, though they've been combined into a 300+ page single book)

The Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield (5 books). The most renowned is The Diary of a Provincial Lady, but the list specifically says ‘The Provincial Lady’ so I assume means the series.

Thanks Pamela!

Maggie wrote: "I thought I'd find out which of the entries on the lists are actually series of books. These are the ones I've found so far, including the ones previously listed on this thread. Are there any I've ..."

Doesn't Trollope have some books on the list? Not to mention Agatha Christie.

I found "The Ragazzi Pier" by Paolo Pasolini, which I suspect is meant to be "The Ragazzi" by Pier Paolo Pasolini