It once started in the last century with the hit parade in pop music, then you saw them everywhere: lists with the best 10, 50, 100 of some cultural goods. So came NRC and The standard Recently with ‘the 50 best Dutch -language books of the 21st century’. No fewer than 81 connoisseurs could each submit their own top 10.
They were all undoubtedly qualified people, yet I missed a group that is not unimportant in this context: the writers themselves, in particular the writers of fiction. I only came across two well -known names on that list: Arnon Grunberg and Marja Pruis. For me a pity, because I owe a lot to the good reading tips of writers. With football I also have that: that I attach more value to the judgment of the practitioner – Marco van Basten, Theo Janssen – than that of the football journalist.
That list of Grunberg was immediately surprising with titles that you did not come across elsewhere. 1. Carrier Autumn – Charlotte Mutsaers. 2. Artenio’s father – Frida Vogels. 3. The theater, the letter and the truth – Harry Mulisch. 4. Specht and Son – Willem Jan Otten. 5. The book Ont – Anton Valens. 6. Happy slaves – Tom Lanoye. 7. Hokwerda’s child – Oek de Jong. 8. The guardian – Peter Terrin. 9. Dinner – Herman Koch. 10. Roundhay, Garden scene – Marente de Moor. None of these titles were with the final top 20.
Yet there are extensive lists on which writers expressed their preferences. In 1984 De Bijenkorf took the initiative for a booklet under the title The literary top 100 ‘all time’. In it, six writers (Maarten Biesheuvel, Cees Buddingh ‘, Hella Haasse, Maarten’ t Hart, Doeschka Meijsing and Ethel Portnoy), three critics (Kees Fens, Jaap Goedegebuure and Carel Peeters) and the publisher Martin Rosmaker each put their top-100 shipmaker together.
For an eager list reader like me it was feasting. Take the first ten of Biesheuvel. 1. The meeting room – A. Alberts. 2. Fairy tales – HC Andersen. 3. Keefman – J. Arends. 4. Ranger – Isaac Babel. 5. Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac. 6. Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett. 7. Headpieces – Godfried Bomans. 8. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë. 9. Sil de Strandjutter – Cor Bruijn. 10. De Meester and Margarita – Mikhail Boelgakov.
I add that of Maarten ‘t Hart for a while: 1. False heights – Emily Brontë. 2. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens. 3. The gray house – Charles Dickens. 4. Great expectations – Charles Dickens. 5. War and Peace – Lev Tolstoy. 6. Anna Karenina – Lev Tolstoy. 7. Doctor glass – Hjalmar Söderberg. 8. Light in August – William Faulkner. 9. Experiences of Zeno – Italo Svevo. 10. Moby Dick – Herman Melville.
With the critic Kees Fens I noticed the low rating for Dutch literature from the second half of the 20th century: WF Hermans, Gerard Reve, Louis Paul Boon and Hugo Claus end with him around the 90th place, just before the older Willem Elsschot.
All those lists from world literature resulted in this winner: Fairy tales from HC Andersen. The first Dutch -language book: in tenth place The Kapellekensbaan from Louis Paul Boon. A book from 1953. Would it still be read a lot?