Favorite books vs. the best books

There is a distinction, isn't there? You can say that a book is one of your favorites without claiming it's a literary masterpiece. And there are also novels that you don't really like that you have to admit, grudgingly, are among the most sublime examples of the form.

Samuel Johnson, who was never wrong about anything, so far as I know, said of Paradise Lost: "No one ever wished it longer." The same can be said about Finnegans Wake (which I never made it through, to be honest), Gaddis's The Recognitions, and probably Gravity's Rainbow, which I loved when I was in my twenties but I'm afraid to go back to now, because I think I'll find it self-indulgent. And the same could probably be said about Nabokov's Ada and all of Proust. They are difficult and frustrating masterpieces which only a small minority of readers remember with real affection. And most of those readers are paid to say so--in other words, they are professors of literature.

And then there are novels which are by no means "sublime examples of the form," but which nevertheless are great stories, stories that readers go back to again and again. To Kill a Mockingbird is the best example. What is it about this simple story that is so engaging? More recently, Water for Elephants captivated experienced readers without so much as one stylistic flourish. How does it do that? This really is very mysterious.

The best novels, of course, combine literary excellence with powerful storytelling. The Tolstoy of The Death of Ivan Ilych and Anna Karenina. The Joyce of Dubliners. More recently, Cold Mountain and Atonement. These books just send shivers up and down your spine.