Bookseller Commentary

Yesterday morning I was drinking coffee with The Most Ethical Man in the World. We were sitting in our kitchen discussing that Top 25 Novels list that the New York Times printed a few Sundays ago. (We've been batting the subject about off and on since it got printed. It's not like we just found out about it or anything like that.)
I'm annoyed by the list for many reasons and at the same time I really don't care about it all that much; but one strong feeling I have about it is that it's very sad that the Times doesn't have the sense to realize that the list is just fundamentally silly and bound to be laughable not just now but increasingly so as time goes on, fifty or a hundred years from now. If one looks at books, which do exist, which reprint various ratings and awards that were issued to and from the literary world over the years, it's remarkable how many titles that once seemed like huge deals are now... worse than obscure. I mean, they're just non-existent. I firmly believe that the NYT list is just another contribution to that cosmic file.
I don't understand why no one is talking about this. People are pissy about the list for various political reasons -- not enough women on the judging committee, not enough women on the final list (though a woman is at the top of the list); presumably other folks are mad about the ethnicities of those on the list, and I'm sure there are other identity-politics agendas I can't think of off the top of my head which are getting others riled up too. And I've had some customers who've come into the bookstore slobbering to get a copy of each book on the list so that they can feel that they're well-read (which is hysterical, but we won't discuss that now). But none of it ultimately matters. All these books will, one day, be out of print. All of these books will, in time, be viewed as, at best, decent portrayals of a certain period in time. If they are read, they'll be read the way we read Trollope now: to find out about daily life for a certain group of people at a certain time. We don't read Trollope for art's sake (most of us don't anyhow). We read him as social or cultural anthropology. Which I'm not knocking, not at all. I just wish folks would SAY this rather than just going around with their noses in the air saying high-toned things that mean squat.
The Most Ethical Man in the World is for some reason fixated on Updike. Perhaps it's because his father is a fan; perhaps it's just because Updike seems to dominate these kinds of debates about 20th c. literature. But yesterday morning I got fed up talking about Updike, and stormed, "Updike has been worse than ridiculous for the last twenty years!"
Ethical Man looked at me, gawped, and began to laugh.
Ok. Maybe I was overreacting. And it's true I probably haven't read an Updike novel since I was about 25 (which was, yes, exactly eleven years ago). But Jesus. I wish Updike would take a break and just stop writing fiction. I cannot believe that any book with a title like Gertrude and Claudius is actually worth reading; I cannot believe that I will have to sell his new one, Terrorist, with a straight face. It is all I can do to get through the day, sometimes, in my job in books. I try very hard to not be hypocrite but the publishing industry sure doesn't make it easy on me.
For the record, I admire Updike's non fiction tremendously. I just think there are way, way too many novels.
So for anyone who's reading this, all upset about that New York Times list. Take it from me, Tante Gadfly: it does not matter one whit. Read whatever the hell you want.