I love posts in which commenters are challenged to name a handful of books and/or movies that meet some specific criteria. (Here's a previous post along the same lines) If anything else they often add to my lists of must-sees and must-reads.
Name in the comments the five works of fiction that you believe best explain – not define or symbolize or exemplify, precisely – but in some way explain the past century to (in Brecht's phrase) 'those who come after.'
Lots of suggestions there already, including many that I've never read. I don't know if I'd keep the list down to five, but among the suggestions that I agree do explain the parts of the 20th century I lived through are Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons and Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I'm almost embarrassed to find myself agreeing, too, with another Wolfe work, The Bonfire of the Vanities. Wolfe's a stylistic and journalistic genius and it translated to his novels.
As for the others listed, mostly what's been produced is a catalogue of novels that have palpable senses of place and time. The Great Gatsby. Catch-22. To Kill a Mockingbird. Lolita (which may seem like an odd choice to explain the 20th century, if you've never actually read it). 1984 is a strange choice in some ways, but in others it is not. Did the events come to pass or did they not? I think I'd defer to the judgment of a citizen who actually lived under a real 20th century totalitarian regime, when deciding whether 1984 turned out to be an accurate portrayal.
Love the list — I'm going to have to read some of the suggestions.
A lot of people wondered what it means to "explain" a century. I would say it means a novel which has a strong sense of the time and place, so that the reader of the future can understand the answers to some of the questions of "How could people have lived that way? How could so many have made the choices they did? What were they thinking? Why did history take the turns it did? How did the choices and beliefs of individuals come together to create the conflicts and movements that shaped history during those years?"
bearing blog 