What is the greatest American novel?

[Brian]

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.

[Florestan]

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" . 

Sounds strikingly similar to Oscar Wilde's "America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."   

My candidates:

East of Eden
The Winter of Our Discontent
Absalom, Absalom!

[bwv 1080]

Blood 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/

[Karl Henning]

Hmm, Underworld, eh?

[Ken B]

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?

[Brian]

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.

[zamyrabyrd]

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.

[Parsifal]

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

[Karl Henning]

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.

[ritter]

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...

[Ken B]

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...

[BasilValentine]

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.

[Cato]

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...

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.

[PerfectWagnerite]

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.

[mc ukrneal]

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.

[bwv 1080]

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/

[PerfectWagnerite]

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...

[mc ukrneal]

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!! 

[Cato]

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.

[Parsifal]

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!