Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1940

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers -- unimpeachable

Slan by A.E. Van Vogt -- theoretically English prose, absolutely terrible

The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich -- entertaining batshit

Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler -- his other best book

Sapphira And The Slave Girl by Willa Cather -- minor Cather is still fucking awesome

The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead -- utter masterpiece, still wish her editor hadn't made her de-Australianise it

Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler -- grim as fuck, brilliant, shame he was a rapist

Journey Into Fear by Eric Ambler -- another top-tier Ambler, his 30s/40s books were pretty amazing

The Naughtiest Girl In The School by Enid Blyton -- Blyton was a narc

The Power And The Glory by Graham Greene -- even though the Catholic stuff threatens to overwhelm it, still a brilliant book

Kallocain by Karin Boye -- tremendous weird SF novel of global totalitarianism, brainwashing and drugs; Huxley wishes he'd been this good

The Invention Of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares -- another tremendous SF novel, one of my favourite books

The Strangers In The House by Georges Simenon -- creepy going-to-seed man caught up in intergenerational shenanigans crime novel, really really good

The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati -- nothing much happens, but it's a brilliant book

Great movie too.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Can I mention that one of the "missed connections" in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is between a 14-year-old who wants a mature man and a middle aged man who is an ephebophile? Which, okay, nothing ever happens, but also, that is some dangerous territory.

There’s a bunch I have read (Hemmingway, Greene, Trease) and remember stuff all about.

The only one I’m really familiar with is Fame is the Spur and than through a 70s radio play starring Ian McKellan as ur-melt Hamer Shawcross. I should probably read the book.

There’s a bunch I have read (Hemmingway, Greene, Trease) and remember stuff all about.

The only one I’m really familiar with is Fame is the Spur and than through a 70s radio play starring Ian McKellan as ur-melt Hamer Shawcross. I should probably read the book.

I've reada couple of Koestler's biographies of people, not sure if they were fictionalised accounts or novelised. They tied in with a history of Science module I did at University possibly to other courses too. I liked his writing.
Have meant to read more.
Wasn't aware of rape thing.

McCullers. Quite like to read The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead and don't care for Casares

I've only read The Power and the Glory, which is probably due for a re-read since I don't remember it very well.

Slan by A.E. Van Vogt -- theoretically English prose, absolutely terrible

Van Vogt was a strange person. He had a mechanical, almost Oulipian technique for writing. He didn't seem to understand what literature was.

I have never read the repulsive Slan and never will. But the penumbra around it is the very stuff of literature.

These lists are wonderful for including the likes of Slan with the likes of For Whom The Bell Tolls.

Yes. Where are these lists coming from again? Daniel is making them up or...?

wikipedia has per-year pages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1940_novels

but it's not that simple

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

All right, what joker cast the vote for Slan?

Yeah, I select from the wikipedia per year pages, trying to give particular emphasis to non-US/UK stuff (which nonetheless always dominates). I also try to fit in as many curios as possible and hit a good balance between literary and genre fiction, but it's getting harder as the number of books listed per year starts to pile up and tons of hugely canonical works show up in one year.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1941