When Random House's Modern Library imprint came up with the list a couple of weeks ago, the sniping began immediately.

"Brave New World," the modestly admired book by Aldous Huxley ranked No. 5? Many lovers of literature wouldn't have placed in the top 100. At fifth, it was an embarrassment.

It turns out that the rankings were not the product of the panel of literary lights, as The Washington Postreporter David Streitfeld revealed on Aug. 5. "The 10 eminent Modern Library board members, the panel that supposedly put (Brave New World) there, don't have much of a clue," Streitfeld wrote. Five members of the panel -- Arthur Schlesinger Jr., William Styron, A.S. Byatt, and Shelby Foote, agreed that they didn't understand the rankings.

"I didn't vote for it at all," says novelist Byatt.

Foote, author of a distinguished trilogy about the Civil War, said, "I can't believe that even one of us thought Brave New World, was one of the top five."

Modern Library claimed that the panel "selected and ranked" the 100 books. Panelists told Streitfeld they "never ranked much of anything. The board members merely checked off books from a master list of 440 titles supplied by the classics publisher, without putting them in any particular order."

Shame on you, Modern Library.

The puzzling position of No. 42 for James Dickey's "Deliverance" (a fairly good book made into an excellent movie) actually didn't come ahead of Vladimir Nabokov's "Pale Fire," which was 53rd on the list. The judges didn't even agree on how they picked their favorites, whether the choices were made because of importance or influence. One judge, not identified in the Post article, acknowledged he had voted for books he hadn't read.

Additionally, several of the panel members didn't vote for 100 books at all. Styron said he voted for only 50 or 60. Historian Edmund Morris chose only "something like 37."

Streitfeld interviewed nine of the ten panelists. Styron now wishes he had insisted that Modern Library bring the group together, to hash out their choices in a face-to-face encounter. Byatt, whose "Possession" is one of my favorite books of the past two decades, agreed. "It wouldn't matter so much if everyone wasn't taking it so seriously.

Christopher Cerf, son of the late Bennett Cerf, late founder of Random House, said he didn't consider the list "a scientific or even a valid process. I consider it a swell process. It's got everyone I know talking about books, and its books they don't usually talk about. This has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."

But it's a fraud.

It's wonderful to encourage people to read, especially to read books beyond the usual Stephen King and Danielle Steel fluff that dominates the bestseller lists of the '90s. But it's not a "swell process" to defraud the reading public, to send avid readers rushing to the neighborhood book shop under false pretenses.

Cerf even confessed that he voted for many books he'd never read. "I voted for about 20 or 30 because I thought they belonged there based on reputation or influence."

Did James Joyce's "Ulysses" belong at No. 1? To many, including this intrepid reader, perhaps. But I must confess that in three attempts to conquer the novel of a single day in 1904 Dublin, I've never made it beyond page 150 out of 783.

I will give the makers of the survey a compliment, however: their phony creation reminded me that it had been far too long since I'd tasted the extreme pleasures to be found in Nabokov's "Lolita," currently "hot" not only because of the Modern Library's list, but also due to a controversial new film now playing on premium TV and soon to hit theaters in the major cities.

Said Cerf of the hullabaloo: "I think the process is to some degree a scam, but it's a good scam. I mean that in the best sense of the word."

As Streitfeld notes, "In other words, the ends justify the means."