I know that there are several examples of "The Great American Novel" (Moby-Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, Gone with the Wind, for ex.) but there are several others and several more or less completely hidden gems. What, in your opinion, is the greatest of them all American novels?
This one is easy: The Grapes of Wrath.
For me, it's Mason & Dixon.
Don't know if it's the "greatest", but Manhattan Transfer certainly is a great American novel
Wise Blood or As I Lay Dying.
My four authorial candidates:
Barth The Sot-Weed Factor
Nabokov Lolita
Pynchon Gravity's Rainbow or V. or Mason & Dixon or The Crying of Lot 49
Stephenson Cryptonomicon
Sarge
My only candidate:
Infinite Jest
I don't do greatest. In case you can't tell from my screen name ;), William Gaddis's The Recognitions is a favorite. It's had me coming back for the last two decades. It yields its deeper mysteries only on rereading. Cormac McCarthy's Suttree is another of my favorites.
Candidates
Last of the Mohicans
House of the Seven Gables
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Huckleberry Finn
The Ambassadors
The Virginian
Great Gatsby
Intruder in the Dust
Grapes of Wrath
Criteria being novels by American writers which focus on a significant aspect of experience which is distinctly American. (That latter phrase is why I don't include anything by Hemingway, or most of Faulkner, or Melville. They wrote novels which are incontesably great, but more universal in their focus.)
More recent writers are just too recent for me to properly judge. Plus many of them I have never read. So I will put forward only one tentative candidate: The World According to Garp.
There is no single Great American Novel, of course. Just as there is no Great British/French/German/Spanish/Russian/..... Novel.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on June 04, 2017, 11:03:46 AM
My four authorial candidates:
Barth The Sot-Weed Factor
Nabokov Lolita
Sarge
Good to see these get votes! Great American comic novels. But you forgot
Catch-22, the greatest of them all.
One little known candidate I want to mention is
Horn of Africa by Caputo. Maybe not the greatest, but worth anyone's time.
The Old Man and The Sea deserves some consideration.
I guess my vote would
Grapes-22.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on June 04, 2017, 11:03:46 AM
Barth The Sot-Weed Factor
Really chuffed that you think so well of this, too. And I only learnt of it via a quotation heading a chapter in a T. Coraghessan Boyle novel!
Thread DutyAnd, you know: maybe
The Sot-Weed Factor is the Great American Novel . . . .
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on June 04, 2017, 11:03:46 AM
Nabokov Lolita
Why, you'll propose
Stravinsky's Symphony in C as the Great American Symphony, next! 8) 0:)
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 05, 2017, 04:14:07 AM
Why, you'll propose Stravinsky's Symphony in C as the Great American Symphony, next! 8) 0:)
Nah, it's the Great French Symphony ;D
Sarge
Quote from: Ken B on June 04, 2017, 05:14:37 PM
Good to see these get votes! Great American comic novels. But you forgot Catch-22, the greatest of them all.
Arrrggghhh! How could I have forgotten
Catch-22? That was my bible during my army career 8)
Another great American comic novel, worthy of consideration, is
A Confederacy of DuncesSarge
Man. A slow fat one, waist high.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on June 05, 2017, 05:25:10 AM
Arrrggghhh! How could I have forgotten Catch-22?
... A Confederacy of Dunces
Quote from: Ken B on June 04, 2017, 05:14:37 PM
Good to see these get votes! Great American comic novels. But you forgot Catch-22, the greatest of them all.
Great but kind of dated and aimed at an easy target. Two of the greatest recent comic novels are by William Gaddis.
JR crucifies the American education system and short-sighted corporate greed while addressing the dilemma of the arts in modern America. His last novel,
A Frolic of His Own, is a brilliant send-up of American litigiousness. Most everyone in the novel is involved in multiple lawsuits and many of the most hilarious parts are legal briefs and judicial opinions.
Huck Finn, there is no debate.
20th century worthwhile mentions are
John Dos Passos - USA Trilogy (forget Scott & Hemingway, this was the greatest writer of the first half of the century)
Nabokov - Lolita
McCarthy - Blood Meridian
21st cent
Vollmann - Dying Grass
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on June 05, 2017, 05:25:10 AM
Another great American comic novel, worthy of consideration, is A Confederacy of Dunces
Sarge
High time I re-read that 'un.
I don't think anyone's mentioned To Kill a Mockingbird, which would certainly get consideration if one has to choose only one. I think Faulkner is more satisfying for me personally, but his style is so unique, I'm not sure it really fits the title of the thread.
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 05, 2017, 04:14:07 AM
Why, you'll propose Stravinsky's Symphony in C as the Great American Symphony, next! 8) 0:)
I don't know about that, but I always propose
The Rake's Progress as the Great American Opera.
I think Stoner by John Williams - 'discovered' just a few years ago, when I read it - comes close. And much by Philip Roth.
No mentions of Saul Bellow, or is he considered to be Canadian?
A couple quasi-novels are worth mentioning
The Executioner's Song, Mailer
In Cold Blood, Capote
I suppose the answer depends on how much emphasis is on American vs Great, and whether the goal is to designate an novel which is an epitome of American Life or simply the best book written by an American. I will assume the former.
Faulkner is my literary god, but I think of his books as literary fantasy, like Tolkien. For works that show the essence of what it is to be an American, these come to mind:
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables
Theodor Dreiser: Sister Carrie
Elizabeth Wharton: House of Mirth
John Steinbeck: In Dubious Battle
E.L. Doctorow: Ragtime
Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye
Philip Roth: The Human Stain
If any novel is to upset the clear front-runner,
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I should like it to be -
Quote from: Christo on June 05, 2017, 12:49:52 PM
I think Stoner by John Williams - 'discovered' just a few years ago, when I read it - comes close. And much by Philip Roth.
Stoner is extraordinary, as are both of his other novels,
Butcher's Crossing (a sort of proto-
Blood Meridian meets
Moby-Dick) and
Augustus (which, however, is not very American except in its allegory of the corrupting dangers of power and celebrity).
Other novels I would like to see considered:
Infinite Jest
The Great Gatsby
Lolita
the collected novels of Raymond Chandler (someone else help me choose!)
(Aside: I'm reading through the complete Cather and soon plan to read
The Caine Mutiny. Cather seems likely to make my shortlist at least once.)
Finally, some slightly lesser novels I'd like to mention here as favorites: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, McTeague, The Expendable Man, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, You Know Me Al
Not yet published are several candidates! 0:)
Quote from: Scarpia on June 05, 2017, 04:00:16 PM
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables
Much as I like this, I think I like
The Blithedale Romance one better.
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Quote from: Cato on June 05, 2017, 04:30:08 PM
Not yet published are several candidates! 0:)
:)
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Quote from: Brian on June 05, 2017, 04:24:09 PM
If any novel is to upset the clear front-runner, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Emoticon- and snark-free, why is this the clear front-runner rather than
Moby-Dick? I've missed the clarity, and ask humbly for a diagram.
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Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 05, 2017, 04:49:33 PM
Emoticon- and snark-free, why is this the clear front-runner rather than Moby-Dick? I've missed the clarity, and ask humbly for a diagram.
Hmmm, a fair question! Perhaps it is not so clear!
Quote from: Ken B on June 04, 2017, 05:14:37 PM
Catch-22, the greatest of them all.
winner winner chicken dinner!!!!
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 05, 2017, 04:49:33 PM
Emoticon- and snark-free, why is this the clear front-runner rather than Moby-Dick? I've missed the clarity, and ask humbly for a diagram.
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
I'll give my reason for not listing it among my nominees: it reflects universal human experience, not specifically American experience. Captain Ahab and his crew could have been from any seafaring country in the world. Huck could only have his adventures here in the US.
The same logic applies to Hemingway, which is why I left out For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea.
If the criteria is simply one of the world's best novels, then both Hemingway novels would fit. But I still would leave out Moby Dick: I think Billy Budd is a much better novel.
Moby Dick does not deal with race and slavery which is the core of America and Huck Finn - which makes it great. You can't really call something the greatest American novel if it does not deal with the core issue of our culture.
Quote from: Scarpia on June 05, 2017, 04:00:16 PM
I suppose the answer depends on how much emphasis is on American vs Great, and whether the goal is to designate an novel which is an epitome of American Life or simply the best book written by an American. I will assume the former.
Faulkner is my literary god, but I think of his books as literary fantasy, like Tolkien. For works that show the essence of what it is to be an American, these come to mind:
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables
Theodor Dreiser: Sister Carrie
Elizabeth Wharton: House of Mirth
John Steinbeck: In Dubious Battle
E.L. Doctorow: Ragtime
Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye
Philip Roth: The Human Stain
To the list I would add
Carson McCullers: A Clock without Hands
Willa Cather: Death Comes for the Archbishop
Quote from: Wendell_E on June 05, 2017, 12:08:46 PM
I don't know about that, but I always propose The Rake's Progress as the Great American Opera.
I submit
Porgy and Bess.
As a non-American who has read only a fraction of the nominees, I see Moby Dick as the strongest candidate so far. (I have not read any James (or at least nothing of novel length), Dreiser or Dos Passos or Pynchon. And I did not understand Faulkner, so I gave up on him for the time being but some of his must be strong candidates as well. I like Steinbeck but not sure if they are "great great".)
Of course it depends on what one means with "great" and "American". I think for the latter it is sufficient that the author is American. For "great" I think a novel usually needs a certain dimension to be considered a candidate. Something like "Old man and the sea" which is closer to a novella seems too short and not weighty enough. I mean, the "greatest novel" has to be somwhow up there with Ulysses, Zauberberg, War and Peace etc., so I guess for me great books like Lolita (regardless of the whether Nabokov is "American" and I always found that it gets weaker in the last third or so) or Great Gatsby seem a little "small". So does Huckleberry Finn and I think the silly ending (with Tom Sawyer showing up again) also disqualifies it for great. Of course, this is highly debatable and sheer length is certainly not the main point. And one could argue that a main contribution of American literature were shorter forms and therefore a rather shorter novel would be more quintessentially American.
I read "Butcher's Crossing" and "Augustus" in the last year or so and while very good, I don't think they are "one in a century great". I was bored by the Updike I read (and interestingly nobody has named any of his, I think) and of Roth's I have not read enough (mainly Portnoy's complaint which is not a contender, IMO).
Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on June 05, 2017, 06:23:49 PM
I'll give my reason for not listing it among my nominees: it reflects universal human experience, not specifically American experience. Captain Ahab and his crew could have been from any seafaring country in the world. Huck could only have his adventures here in the US.
Thanks.
Quote from: bwv 1080 on June 05, 2017, 07:29:29 PM
Moby Dick does not deal with race and slavery which is the core of America and Huck Finn - which makes it great. You can't really call something the greatest American novel if it does not deal with the core issue of our culture.
Well, that is an argument.
Of course, there is arguably a tension between the great and the parochial.
Quote from: Jo498 on June 05, 2017, 11:44:45 PMI was bored by the Updike I read (and interestingly nobody has named any of his, I think) and of Roth's I have not read enough (mainly Portnoy's complaint which is not a contender, IMO).
I am not enthusiastic about that whole postwar generation (Updike, Roth, Bellow, DeLillo, Mailer, etc.) - cited by David Foster Wallace as the Great Male Narcissists and "probably the single most self-absorbed generation since Louis XIV" in his takedown review of a late, failed Updike novel. I suspect that, except for the very best of their work (and, thanks to Trump,
The Plot Against America, which now is an even more electrifying read), these writers will eventually be set aside as generally pretty dull. It doesn't help that many of them are misogynist and a major theme of their work is the alleged coldness and inaccessibility and temptation of women.
Quote from: Jo498 on June 05, 2017, 11:44:45 PM
[...] I was bored by the Updike I read (and interestingly nobody has named any of his, I think) . . . .
I've enjoyed a number of his short stories, but I have not succeeded in finishing either of the novels I started to read.
Separately, maybe this should go to the
Unpopular Opinions thread, but 6 days out of 7 I think that
Life on the Mississippi is a better book than
Huck Finn 0:)
I should not propose it as The Greatest, but in the Honorable Mention spirit of much of the present discussion: Richard Brautigan, perhaps either
Trout Fishing in America or
In Watermelon Sugar.
Quote from: Brian on June 06, 2017, 04:30:06 AM
I am not enthusiastic about that whole postwar generation (Updike, Roth, Bellow, DeLillo, Mailer, etc.) - cited by David Foster Wallace as the Great Male Narcissists and "probably the single most self-absorbed generation since Louis XIV" in his takedown review of a late, failed Updike novel.
I share your lack of enthusiasm. It's a good thing for American art that the post-war symphonists acquitted themselves rather better. Probably it helped that Music is the abstract art.
My late father (who, mind you, was quite the phlio-American, having gone to college in Oklahoma and later lived in New York City for many years), used to quote this bon mot of some Spanish essayist (Ortega perhaps, but I cannot for the life of me find the source): "The American novel has gone from its promising beginnings straight to its decadence, without ever having reached its zenith" . ;D
On another note, Spanish critic Carlos Boyero (in an article in El Pais) is baffled by the quest for "the great American novel". You don't usually have people asking about the "great English", "great French", "great German" novels... Why should a novel being "American" be such a defining quality?
There is something curiously . . . self-conscious about the exercise, isn't there?
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 06, 2017, 05:20:08 AM
There is something curiously . . . self-conscious about the exercise, isn't there?
Or....parochial?
(*runs for cover*)
(* chortle *)
Quote from: ritter on June 06, 2017, 04:48:04 AM
"The American novel has gone from its promising beginnings straight to its decadence, without ever having reached its zenith" . ;D
That's really an interesting idea, there.
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 06, 2017, 04:35:53 AMSeparately, maybe this should go to the Unpopular Opinions thread, but 6 days out of 7 I think that Life on the Mississippi is a better book than Huck Finn 0:)
I seem to recall thinking the first half of Life on the Mississippi was the very best of Twain, but that the second half of the book lost the momentum.
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 06, 2017, 04:37:22 AM
I share your lack of enthusiasm. It's a good thing for American art that the post-war symphonists acquitted themselves rather better. Probably it helped that Music is the abstract art.
Amen! 0:)
Quote from: ritter on June 06, 2017, 04:48:04 AM
On another note, Spanish critic Carlos Boyero (in an article in El Pais) is baffled by the quest for "the great American novel". You don't usually have people asking about the "great English", "great French", "great German" novels... Why should a novel being "American" be such a defining quality?
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 06, 2017, 05:20:08 AM
There is something curiously . . . self-conscious about the exercise, isn't there?
Amen again! 0:) 0:)
Transcending time and space: does the story resonate in spite of those factors?
Of course, time and space are always involved: one can consider not only the time and space of the story, but also the time and space of its creation, along with those of the reader's. Nevertheless, if the story breaks free of its roots, then you might have something!
Moby Dick does that, as does some of
Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, S. J. Perelman and
Flannery O'Connor (the latter two known mainly for short stories:
Perelman wrote no novels, but
Wise Blood is
O'Connor's candidate here).
Quote from: Brian on June 06, 2017, 04:30:06 AM
I am not enthusiastic about that whole postwar generation (Updike, Roth, Bellow, DeLillo, Mailer, etc.) - cited by David Foster Wallace as the Great Male Narcissists and "probably the single most self-absorbed generation since Louis XIV" in his takedown review of a late, failed Updike novel. I suspect that, except for the very best of their work (and, thanks to Trump, The Plot Against America, which now is an even more electrifying read), these writers will eventually be set aside as generally pretty dull. It doesn't help that many of them are misogynist and a major theme of their work is the alleged coldness and inaccessibility and temptation of women.
Your list of the "whole postwar generation" leaves out one of the most important authors, William Gaddis. DFW read his work. Has anyone here?
The quote I recall is clearly miso-american and does not refer to literature only; roughly: "America has gone from a barbaric state to decadence without achieving the high cultural state in between" (and Ortega seems a likely suspect as a source).
I tend to share the idea Boyero seems to be expressing. I think great, or even only pretty good books should transcend the subject matter and background culture to a considerable extent and I think many manage to do that. Moby Dick would be a failure if it was restricted in its artistic scope by being about whaling.
Without falling on jingoism, the idea of an 'American' novel as a work of art implies that it illuminates and helps define what it means to be American. Everyone knows what it means to be German or French, but the US is a seemingly hopeless tangle of contradictions. I would argue that the only 19th century novel to come close to giving us an idea who we are is Huck Finn. Sure the ending is perhaps trite, but that is part of the genre conventions the book follows and subverts. Similarly, Jim's character begins as pure minstrelsy but Twain subverts that as well, all the while staying within the convention. Twain is too good to try to really write from Jim's POV, rather he is a mirror against which is reflected a vicious dissection of white attitudes on race. In reality the book is dark enough to compare with Cormac McCarthy, but the darkness is obscured behind its adherence to popular conventions. This is not a flaw, its what makes the book great.
Quote from: bwv 1080 on June 06, 2017, 06:08:15 AM
Without falling on jingoism, the idea of an 'American' novel as a work of art implies that it illuminates and helps define what it means to be American. Everyone knows what it means to be German or French, but the US is a seemingly hopeless tangle of contradictions. I would argue that the only 19th century novel to come close to giving us an idea who we are is Huck Finn. Sure the ending is perhaps trite, but that is part of the genre conventions the book follows and subverts. Similarly, Jim's character begins as pure minstrelsy but Twain subverts that as well, all the while staying within the convention. Twain is too good to try to really write from Jim's POV, rather he is a mirror against which is reflected a vicious dissection of white attitudes on race. In reality the book is dark enough to compare with Cormac McCarthy, but the darkness is obscured behind its adherence to popular conventions. This is not a flaw, its what makes the book great.
'Tis a great book, no quarrel there.
Quote from: Jo498 on June 06, 2017, 05:54:59 AM
The quote I recall is clearly miso-american and does not refer to literature only; roughly: "America has gone from a barbaric state to decadence without achieving the high cultural state in between" (and Ortega seems a likely suspect as a source).
I tend to share the idea Boyero seems to be expressing. I think great, or even only pretty good books should transcend the subject matter and background culture to a considerable extent and I think many manage to do that. Moby Dick would be a failure if it was restricted in its artistic scope by being about whaling.
So what is the counter-example - the country that achieved the high cultural state against which the US falls short?
I think the point of the joke is rather the timescale of the American development. Say for France one has 800 years of high culture from Charlemagne to Louis XIV, the apex in the 17th and 18th century and decadence afterwards. Or, if the quote is really from Ortega: Spain struggling for about 600 years with the Reconquista, followed by a golden century and decadence.
In such terms the quote about the US was premature in the 1930s (again, assuming, it stems from that time) because the US was still on the rise (both in political power and cultural influence).
But it also expresses that for virtually all European intellectuals in first half of the 20th century, be they conservatives like Ortega or progressives like Adorno or something in between like Huxley, the American popular culture, mainly Hollywood movies were the epitome of fluffy, brainless decadence. They really detested American popular culture and were horrified at its spread throughout the world to the apparent detriment of traditional European high culture. Think of "Brave New World" with the "feelies" (when Huxley wrote it "talkies" were the newest rage) giving cheap thrills but Shakespeare locked up in the safe.
As frontier America was probably still quite "barbarian" in the 19th century, there is almost no space for a plateau of high culture on the scale of 17th century France, late 18th century through 1914 Vienna and the likes.
(Of course this is unfair and denies the considerable achievements of Poe, Melville and other 19th century American writers. But jokes usually aren't fair and balanced.)
Quote from: Brian on June 06, 2017, 04:30:06 AM
I am not enthusiastic about that whole postwar generation (Updike, Roth, Bellow, DeLillo, Mailer, etc.) - cited by David Foster Wallace as the Great Male Narcissists and "probably the single most self-absorbed generation since Louis XIV" in his takedown review of a late, failed Updike novel. I suspect that, except for the very best of their work (and, thanks to Trump, The Plot Against America, which now is an even more electrifying read), these writers will eventually be set aside as generally pretty dull. It doesn't help that many of them are misogynist and a major theme of their work is the alleged coldness and inaccessibility and temptation of women.
I don't think Roth's best work falls victim to this pitfall to the same extent as the other writers you mention.
Quote from: Scarpia on June 06, 2017, 06:58:58 AM
I don't think Roth's best work falls victim to this pitfall to the same extent as the other writers you mention.
I'm a little prejudiced because my first Roth was
Sabbath's Theater, but
Plot Against America really is fantastic, especially if you forgive the wishful-thinking plot machinations that bring about the ending, which I do. Which Roth do you suggest as his best work?
Quote from: Brian on June 06, 2017, 07:16:02 AM
I'm a little prejudiced because my first Roth was Sabbath's Theater, but Plot Against America really is fantastic, especially if you forgive the wishful-thinking plot machinations that bring about the ending, which I do. Which Roth do you suggest as his best work?
I sort of like the way Sabbath's Theater skillfully luxuriates in the narcissism and self-absorption you sense. I wouldn't say it makes it the "great American novel," though. But the Plot Against America is one of the greats, along with American Pastorale and The Human Stain, which I stuck in my list above.
Quote from: Scarpia on June 06, 2017, 07:26:15 AM
I sort of like the way Sabbath's Theater skillfully luxuriates in the narcissism and self-absorption you sense. I wouldn't say it makes it the "great American novel," though. But the Plot Against America is one of the greats, along with American Pastorale and The Human Stain, which I stuck in my list above.
Thanks.
Quote from: ritter on June 06, 2017, 04:48:04 AM
My late father (who, mind you, was quite the phlio-American, having gone to college in Oklahoma and later lived in New York City for many years), used to quote this bon mot of some Spanish essayist (Ortega perhaps, but I cannot for the life of me find the source): "The American novel has gone from its promising beginnings straight to its decadence, without ever having reached its zenith" . ;D
Sounds strikingly similar to
Oscar Wilde's
"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between." ;D
My candidates:
East of EdenThe Winter of Our DiscontentAbsalom, Absalom!
QuoteBlood Meridian (1985) seems to me the authentic American apocalyptic novel, more relevant even in 2010 than it was twenty-five years ago. The fulfilled renown of Moby-Dick and of As I Lay Dying is augmented by Blood Meridian, since Cormac McCarthy is the worthy disciple both of Melville and of Faulkner. I venture that no other living American novelist, not even Pynchon, has given us a book as strong and memorable as Blood Meridian, much as I appreciate Don DeLillo's Underworld; Philip Roth's Zuckerman Bound, Sabbath's Theater, and American Pastoral; and Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and Mason & Dixon. McCarthy himself, in his Border Trilogy, commencing with the superb All the Pretty Horses, has not matched Blood Meridian, but it is the ultimate Western, not to be surpassed.
https://theeveningrednessinthewest.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/harold-bloom-on-the-visionary-in-cormac-mccarthys-blood-meridian-and-all-the-pretty-horses/ (https://theeveningrednessinthewest.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/harold-bloom-on-the-visionary-in-cormac-mccarthys-blood-meridian-and-all-the-pretty-horses/)
Hmm, Underworld, eh?
Quote from: ritter on June 06, 2017, 05:29:11 AM
Or....parochial? (*runs for cover*)
Maybe.
Now correct me if I am wrong. A German couple can move the USA and become American, and their kids be born Americans.
No nonsense about blood ties -- because that would be parochial.
So the reverse is true too?
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 06, 2017, 08:18:27 AM
Hmm, Underworld, eh?
I remember
Underworld...to an extent. It starts off with that long, excellent prologue about a baseball game. Then - I read this in my Contemporary American Literature class, and at around page 250, the professor asked us, "Are you guys liking this?" We all said a polite mixture of "It has interesting traits" / "Sometimes" / "Not as much as the other books." And Dr. Doody said, "I'm not feeling it either. Let's skip the rest and go to the next book."
EDIT: By the way, the books I can remember from the curriculum were:
Blood Meridian
Beloved
The Known World (which deserved mention in this thread, certainly)
Sabbath's Theater
Underworld
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Independence Day (Richard Ford)
In a letter last year, the professor urged me to read Marilynne Robinson.
Quote from: bwv 1080 on June 05, 2017, 07:29:29 PM
Moby Dick does not deal with race and slavery which is the core of America and Huck Finn - which makes it great. You can't really call something the greatest American novel if it does not deal with the core issue of our culture.
Servitude is not the only kind of slavery. Ahab was a slave to his obsession. A novel aspiring to greatness needs a universal theme. I can't think of any American novel besdies
Moby Dick that is so inclusive of humanity's foibles.
Quote from: Brian on June 06, 2017, 09:27:17 AM
I remember Underworld...to an extent. It starts off with that long, excellent prologue about a baseball game. Then - I read this in my Contemporary American Literature class, and at around page 250, the professor asked us, "Are you guys liking this?" We all said a polite mixture of "It has interesting traits" / "Sometimes" / "Not as much as the other books." And Dr. Doody said, "I'm not feeling it either. Let's skip the rest and go to the next book."
The prologue, describing "the shot heard around the world," was spectacular. The rest of the book was unnecessary, I thought. Never read another book by DeLillo
Quote from: Brian on June 06, 2017, 09:27:17 AM
I remember Underworld...to an extent. It starts off with that long, excellent prologue about a baseball game. Then - I read this in my Contemporary American Literature class, and at around page 250, the professor asked us, "Are you guys liking this?" We all said a polite mixture of "It has interesting traits" / "Sometimes" / "Not as much as the other books." And Dr. Doody said, "I'm not feeling it either. Let's skip the rest and go to the next book."
Interesting. I have a kind of sentimental fondness for
White Noise, although I think the ending something of a non-ending. I have not made my way completely through any other De Lillo.
Quote from: Ken B on June 06, 2017, 09:05:47 AM
Maybe.
Now correct me if I am wrong. A German couple can move the USA and become American, and their kids be born Americans.
No nonsense about blood ties -- because that would be parochial.
So the reverse is true too?
I don't quite understand your question,
Ken. Are we talking
ius soli vs.
ius sanguinis? If so, the latter is applicable in many countries apart from the US (most of South America and, in Europe, France). I do not see what this has to do with novels...
Quote from: ritter on June 06, 2017, 09:56:14 AM
I don't quite understand your question, Ken. Are we talking ius soli vs. ius sanguinis? If so, the latter is applicable in many countries apart from the US (most of South America and, in Europe, France). I do not see what this has to do with novels...
We are. It has nothing to do with novels. It might be related to the charge of parochialism...
I liked DeLillo's Underworld a lot. The opening scene with J. Edgar Hoover, Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason sitting together at a baseball game is priceless. I think it's the best of his work. And given the huge canvas, the way the critical plot events turn out to be subtle and personal is unexpected and moving. DeLillo takes big risks, which I admire, even after reading three or four of his novels that don't quite hit the mark.
I don't think Blood Meridian is McCarthy's best work. I prefer Suttree, The Crossing, and even his strange first novel, The Orchard Keeper.
Quote from: Cato on June 06, 2017, 05:45:42 AM
Amen! 0:)
Amen again! 0:) 0:)
Transcending time and space: does the story resonate in spite of those factors?
Of course, time and space are always involved: one can consider not only the time and space of the story, but also the time and space of its creation, along with those of the reader's. Nevertheless, if the story breaks free of its roots, then you might have something!
Moby Dick does that, as does some of Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, S. J. Perelman and Flannery O'Connor (the latter two known mainly for short stories: Perelman wrote no novels, but Wise Blood is O'Connor's candidate here).
To add a few more thoughts, now that I have a short respite from certain duties... 8)
An epic in the tradition from ancient times deals with heroes and their allegiance to their country. Kings and princes or half-divine figures representing the nation (e.g. Gilgamesh, Achilles, Aeneas, etc.) would need to be involved in such a definition.
In modern times, the epic needs to be expanded or redefined - to include the average person, to see the epic whether in warfare among the average soldiers or in everyday life among the lowest of the citizens, an epic aspect of Life which the ancients could not see or believe existed, given their biases.
Melville's Moby Dick,
Morte d'Urban by
J.F. Powers,
My Antonia by
Willa Cather, and
Wise Blood by
Flannery O'Connor find that epic aspect among people who are not aristocrats or demigods.
Good thread guys. I am frantically jotting down books that I will read once I have some free time. We got some really smart people on this forum.
Forgive me, but I could never really connect with Moby Dick. It's about a guy who wants to kill a whale...for six hundred pages. Just shoot me now....
Probably didn't help that I was forced to read it in school.
Think all of William T. Vollmann's Seven Dreams series, all tragedies dealing with the intersection of Europeans and native Americans, would be contenders, but the latest - a 1500 page nearly day-by-day account of the Nez Perce war really stands out
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/manifold-destiny-vollmann/ (https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/manifold-destiny-vollmann/)
Quote from: mc ukrneal on June 06, 2017, 12:37:49 PM
Forgive me, but I could never really connect with Moby Dick. It's about a guy who wants to kill a whale...for six hundred pages. Just shoot me now....
Probably didn't help that I was forced to read it in school.
When I was in elementary school I read
Moby Dick in a version called Illustrated Classics where it was condensed to 200 pages or so and every other page was an illustration. I never could read the actual version...
Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on June 06, 2017, 12:43:04 PM
When I was in elementary school I read Moby Dick in a version called Illustrated Classics where it was condensed to 200 pages or so and every other page was an illustration. I never could read the actual version...
I always did claim you could cut out half of it and not miss anything. But I guess I was wrong - you could cut out two thirds!! >:D :laugh:
Quote from: mc ukrneal on June 06, 2017, 12:37:49 PM
Forgive me, but I could never really connect with Moby Dick. It's about a guy who wants to kill a whale...for six hundred pages. Just shoot me now....
Probably didn't help that I was forced to read it in school.
As a teacher, I will be the first to admit that teachers are too often guilty of destroying interest in a book or books among their students, too often by "teaching" the book instead of discussing it and guiding their students through it. In fact, my wife had a teacher who - for
Moby Dick - insisted that students memorize assorted minutiae about whale anatomy, e.g. my wife still recalls memorizing how many ribs a sperm whale has (10 to a side).
Not the best way to interest students: rather, discuss why
Melville includes such things. He is building a universe, and a universe needs all sizes of gears and nuts and bolts.
Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on June 06, 2017, 12:43:04 PM
When I was in elementary school I read Moby Dick in a version called Illustrated Classics where it was condensed to 200 pages or so and every other page was an illustration. I never could read the actual version...
I read the entire thing, but found the detailed description of whale fishing technology tedious. One striking thing I recall from the book, at one point Melville ask himself if whale fishing could ever endanger the survival of the whales, and he answers no. Wrong answer!
Did anyone ever do more to benefit whales than John D Rockefeller?
Quote from: bwv 1080 on June 06, 2017, 01:54:49 PM
Did anyone ever do more to benefit whales than John D Rockefeller?
Nice!
The book would be better with that treatise on whaling hacked out. I cannot think of any comparable part of Huck Finn longing for excision. So
Brian,there is your answer to
Karl: lean runners to the front.
Tangentially (you cannot make this stuff up):
If you've never gotten around to sitting down and reading Moby Dick, fear not, Bob Dylan will summarize it for you. (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/06/bob-dylan-nobel-literature-lecture-moby-dick-explanation/529284/)
Quote from: mc ukrneal on June 06, 2017, 12:37:49 PM
Forgive me, but I could never really connect with Moby Dick. It's about a guy who wants to kill a whale...for six hundred pages. Just shoot me now....
Probably didn't help that I was forced to read it in school.
A great friend of mine tried reading it, and couldn't stick it out; whether or not there are reasons more, he mentioned the whaling stuff.
Me, I think it's a bit like the lists in some of the
Whitman poems. One can either accept it and roll with it, or not.
It was a book I failed to read for (10
th grade?) English. I should call that laziness rather than
rebellion . . . although I had to pretend that I knew what the teacher was talking about, I really did enjoy the lectures on the book. Nevertheless, back in 10
th grade, no, I did not read it, not at all.
Years later, in Charlottesville, my eye fell upon the Norton Critical Edition at the UVa book store. I suddenly felt curious to read it. I
did read it, and loved it.
I had read
Huckleberry Finn earlier, much earlier. In fact, at an age when much of the import of the novel went clear over my head. I think this could be why I am marginally fonder of the Melville, in that the first time I read it through, I was with the author, to a degree I was not, in the case of the Twain. (The Melville would, of course, have only partially gotten through had I read it in school, too.)
I wonder if I took to the, erm, narrative peculiarities of the Melville as easily as I did, as a result of having read Kerouac, and T. Coraghessan Boyle's
Water Music, before.
Quote from: Scarpia on June 06, 2017, 09:31:50 AM
The prologue, describing "the shot heard around the world," was spectacular. The rest of the book was unnecessary, I thought. Never read another book by DeLillo
Perhaps DeLillo is to lit what Jn Adams is to music . . . a lot of promise, some undeniable brilliance, even. But ultimate compositional failure.
Quote from: Ken B on June 06, 2017, 04:03:40 PM
Nice!
The book would be better with that treatise on whaling hacked out. I cannot think of any comparable part of Huck Finn longing for excision. So Brian,there is your answer to Karl: lean runners to the front.
I thought everyone knew to skip that bit, along with the chapter detailing every work of art with a whale as its subject. It's like reading Hugo. Toilers of the Sea begins with a fifty page travel guide to the Channel Islands. Sane people skip it. And when reading The Hunchback one can skip "This Kills That" and "A Bird's-Eye View of Paris." That's why the material is conveniently cordoned off in separate chapters in the first place. Many 19thc writers just couldn't stand to see all of that background research go to waste but that doesn't mean they thought everyone would actually read it.
Quote from: BasilValentine on June 07, 2017, 04:51:07 AM
I thought everyone knew to skip that bit, along with the chapter detailing every work of art with a whale as its subject. It's like reading Hugo. Toilers of the Sea begins with a fifty page travel guide to the Channel Islands. Sane people skip it. And when reading The Hunchback one can skip "This Kills That" and "A Bird's-View of Paris." That's why the material is conveniently cordoned off in separate chapters in the first place. Many 19thc writers just couldn't stand to see all of that background research go to waste but that doesn't mean they thought everyone would actually read it.
Interesting.
Al que quiere.
Quote from: ritter on June 06, 2017, 04:48:04 AM
You don't usually have people asking about the "great English", "great French", "great German" novels... Why should a novel being "American" be such a defining quality?
I am not so sure if people do not ask about the Great French/English/Spanish/German novel. (I seem to recall that there was a lot of talk about the desire a "great novel" dealing with Germany at the end of the 20th century and unification that never really came along. There was the Tin Drum (and a few more) for postwar Germany but not really anything in the 1990s or early 2000s.)
But America is obviously different in such that it is a comparably young culture that at first was strongly dependent on the "mother culture" and became a fairly powerful nation before it developed anything like a genuine high culture of its own (or, if Wilde was right, it actually never did). So disproving Wilde's quip might be another motivation.
Germany is another odd one out but almost the other way round. Because it is probably the most prominent case where a strong high culture preceded political unity for a century or more, so cultural nationalism was basically the basis for political nationalism in the 19th century.
Quote from: Jo498 on June 07, 2017, 05:31:36 AM
I am not so sure if people do not ask about the Great French/English/Spanish/German novel. (I seem to recall that there was a lot of talk about the desire a "great novel" dealing with Germany at the end of the 20th century and unification that never really came along. There was the Tin Drum (and a few more) for postwar Germany but not really anything in the 1990s or early 2000s.)
There was WG Sebald
Quote from: bwv 1080 on June 07, 2017, 05:52:39 AM
There was W. G. Sebald
Aye! A much better writer than
G. Grass, and also much better than
H. Boell, whose cement-flavored works I suffered through because my main German professor was America's main scholar on him.
Sebald does not really fit. He did not write anything dealing with the situation/aftermath of the German reunification (he had been living in Britain since the 1980s). Admittedly, I only know his name (he apparently was at first better known abroad than in Germany) but in any case his last big novel "Austerlitz" does not deal with that topic either and also appeared after the time from which I seem to recall the desire for the "Great German novel" of the late 20th century.
Whatever, my point was that "the Great ... Novel" is not a rare reflection in literary criticism or anything especially American.
Quote from: Jo498 on June 07, 2017, 07:44:44 AM
Sebald does not really fit. He did not write anything dealing with the situation/aftermath of the German reunification (he had been living in Britain since the 1980s). Admittedly, I only know his name (he apparently was at first better known abroad than in Germany) but in any case his last big novel "Austerlitz" does not deal with that topic either and also appeared after the time from which I seem to recall the desire for the "Great German novel" of the late 20th century.
Whatever, my point was that "the Great ... Novel" is not a rare reflection in literary criticism or anything especially American.
True, his work deals with WW2 and the Holocaust or earlier history
While we are discussing German writers writing in German who wrote the Great American novel set in Germany, don't forget Effi Briest. I am curious about which Polish writers wrote the Great American Novel in Polish set in Poland.
Quote from: Ken B on June 07, 2017, 10:12:23 AMI am curious about which Polish writers wrote the Great American Novel in Polish set in Poland.
Jerzy Kosiński,
Painted Bird ;)
Sarge
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 07, 2017, 04:34:25 AM
Perhaps DeLillo is to lit what Jn Adams is to music . . . a lot of promise, some undeniable brilliance, even. But ultimate compositional failure.
Well, he does describe himself as "a writer of sentences", and I think that may well be the best way to look at his work. His stories are often aimless, but this reflects, I think, a kind of jadedness particular to the kind of society he depicts in much of his work. He's certainly an idiosyncratic, sometimes weird, sometimes very difficult writer, but I will say I like his words much better than I like John Adams's notes. Besides, any writer who can fascinate me with sports stories, as in the brilliant prologue of
Underworld (a highly unwieldy novel which I liked very much in general), is a keeper.
Quote from: Ken B on June 07, 2017, 10:12:23 AM
While we are discussing German writers writing in German who wrote the Great American novel set in Germany, don't forget Effi Briest. I am curious about which Polish writers wrote the Great American Novel in Polish set in Poland.
Well, there's a minor American character (Mme. de Farcy) in
Time Regained, so
Remembrance of Things Past could qualify as the Great American Novel in French set in France... ;)
Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner: The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today
Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Last Tycoon
Herman Melville: Mardi
Herman Melville: Moby Dick
Also, not really novels but in other American literature I really enjoy Twain's Roughing it, Poe's The Gold-Bug and Washington Irving's Wolfert Webber.
Quote from: Crudblud on June 07, 2017, 11:28:20 AM
Well, he does describe himself as "a writer of sentences", and I think that may well be the best way to look at his work. His stories are often aimless, but this reflects, I think, a kind of jadedness particular to the kind of society he depicts in much of his work. He's certainly an idiosyncratic, sometimes weird, sometimes very difficult writer, but I will say I like his words much better than I like John Adams's notes. Besides, any writer who can fascinate me with sports stories, as in the brilliant prologue of Underworld (a highly unwieldy novel which I liked very much in general), is a keeper.
DeLillo absolutely captivates me at times, at others confuses and bores. When he's on, boy he can write. One of his that I think is particularly good (and relatively approachable) is
Libra, his imagining of how the JFK assassination might have happened (not that he tries to claim it for anything other than fiction).
I can't believe no one has suggested Philip Roth's
The Great American Novel as the great American novel. :P
Quote from: Alberich on October 08, 2017, 09:50:15 AM
Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner: The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today
Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Last Tycoon
Herman Melville: Mardi
Herman Melville: Moby Dick
What about Hemingway? I think he was a better writer than Fitzgerald.
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on October 10, 2017, 02:03:04 AM
What about Hemingway? I think he was a better writer than Fitzgerald.
His six-word novel is indeed great: "For sale, baby shoes, never worn". Genius.
Quote from: bwv 1080 on June 06, 2017, 08:04:28 AM
https://theeveningrednessinthewest.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/harold-bloom-on-the-visionary-in-cormac-mccarthys-blood-meridian-and-all-the-pretty-horses/ (https://theeveningrednessinthewest.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/harold-bloom-on-the-visionary-in-cormac-mccarthys-blood-meridian-and-all-the-pretty-horses/)
Before I saw your post I knew I was going to suggest
Cormac McCarthy,
Blood Meridian. Also for consideration,
William Faulkner,
Absalom, Absalom!.
Sherwood Anderson's
Winesburg, Ohio is also a contender, although, technically, it is a short story collection.
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on October 10, 2017, 02:03:04 AM
What about Hemingway? I think he was a better writer than Fitzgerald.
I haven't read much Hemingway yet, to be honest (yes, I know it is a glaring fault, I just never haven't got around to his works yet). When I do, I may make a new post to see if any of his books would qualify in my opinion.
Quote from: sanantonio on October 10, 2017, 02:32:02 AM
Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio is also a contender, although, technically, it is a short story collection.
A great book, which I highly esteem. Although, as you note, it's not really a novel. It also had an influence I consider to be highly negative, in that it encouraged the composition of hundreds of identikit "novels-in-stories" by writers in MFA programs.
East of Eden is the american novel I have read the most times (once every decade since my teens). So I guess that would be my entry. Also notable: Light in August, Intruder in the Dust, The Bostonians. The novel that impressed me the most though was The Sound and The Fury. But that was over 40 years ago. I don't know if I could summon the concentration to give it a second run. Heck, why not ?
Quote from: André on October 11, 2017, 12:31:25 PM
East of Eden is the american novel I have read the most times (once every decade since my teens). So I guess that would be my entry. Also notable: Light in August, Intruder in the Dust, The Bostonians. The novel that impressed me the most though was The Sound and The Fury. But that was over 40 years ago. I don't know if I could summon the concentration to give it a second run. Heck, why not ?
Pleased to see so many Faulkner novels in your list.
Quote from: sanantonio on October 10, 2017, 02:32:02 AM
Before I saw your post I knew I was going to suggest Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian. Also for consideration, William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!. Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio is also a contender, although, technically, it is a short story collection.
Absalom, Absalom is lodged in my head as the greatest Faulkner novel. I read it 30 years ago, I think. Frankly, I'm afraid to read it again.
Quote from: sanantonio on October 11, 2017, 02:38:09 PM
Pleased to see so many Faulkner novels in your list.
Sartoris and As I Lay Dying come to mind also, but the ones I mentioned have all been read more than once, with much pleasure. I haven't read Absalom, Absalom.
Quote from: André on October 11, 2017, 03:37:56 PM
Sartoris and As I Lay Dying come to mind also, but the ones I mentioned have all been read more than once, with much pleasure. I haven't read Absalom, Absalom.
Have you read any in the Snopes Trilogy?
No, unfortunately. Faulkner is not all that easy to find in french translation. Should I read his southern gothic trilogy ? I read Pylon, too, but scarcely recall it (that's really from a long time ago).
Quote from: André on October 11, 2017, 03:56:03 PM
No, unfortunately. Faulkner is not all that easy to find in french translation. Should I read his southern gothic trilogy ? I read Pylon, too, but scarcely recall it (that's really from a long time ago).
I'm not sure a translation would do justice to some of Faulkner's writings, especially The Sound and the Fury, for stylistic reasons.... Faulkner did things with words that may not be reproducible in other languages.
That said: I read the Snopes books years ago, and never felt impelled to read them again. As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Intruder in the Dust connected far better with me.
As the saying goes, "translation is treason". But that's how the world communicates. Reading Proust in English is also a stylistic impossibility, and yet it's been done...
Quote from: André on October 11, 2017, 03:56:03 PM
No, unfortunately. Faulkner is not all that easy to find in french translation. Should I read his southern gothic trilogy ? I read Pylon, too, but scarcely recall it (that's really from a long time ago).
I found myself ready to type that, given the command of English you demonstrate on the board, you'd have no trouble with Faulkner in the original. Then I remembered my own struggles to understand certain passages of Faulkner, despite being born and bred in the U.S.
In any case, I'd put the Trilogy near the top of Faulkner's output, particularly the first volume, The Hamlet.
Quote from: André on October 11, 2017, 03:56:03 PM
No, unfortunately. Faulkner is not all that easy to find in french translation. Should I read his southern gothic trilogy ? I read Pylon, too, but scarcely recall it (that's really from a long time ago).
All of Faulkner's novels are easily available in french. He's probably more respected in France than he is in the US. Absalom, Absalom is available in Gallimard's L'imaginaire collection, probably one of the best collection in the world.
Most of Faulkner's books were translated by one of the major french translators of the XXth century, Maurice-Edgar Coindreau, who translated pretty much every major american author of the century (Dos Passos, Hemingway, Steinbeck, ...). His translation are not without problems, but he did a great job overall.
Monsieur Coindreau is the "official" translator of Faulkner in France, in fact he's the only game in town, if I can say so. Even the Gallimard editions use his translations. I've never had any awkward feeling reading Faulkner (or Steinbeck, Mann, or Hesse) in French. I read all the time in English, but mostly undemanding stuff (internet or newspaper articles, Grisham or Crichton novels for example). Reading "serious" books requires one to enter the author's mind and world. Doing so in a foreign language can reveal as much as it can hide, so there are as much pros than cons.
My vote:
"Visions of Cody" -- Jack Kerouac