What is THE American novel?

[five-trey]

I'm sure this has been beat to death, but I have not been here to witness it. haha

I like to believe its Moby-Dick. I just loved the style, the plot, etc. And Ahab's struggle really felt American; out there to conquer nature because of some unholy force within compelling him to sail against the tides of fate. Driven by a self-professed religion, never acknowledging failure as an option.


I've heard some people say, however, that the novel really doesn't portray the "American voice" because like other mid 19th century literature, it tries to immitate the British style. I wouldn't say so. The only American work that I have honestly thought to sound British was Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I was shocked to find out Stevenson was American.


Huck Finn is supposed to be "the American voice" but I just can't bring myself to give it that title. That's mostly out of my dislike of Huck as a character.


Discuss.

[Virgil]

I'm sure this has been beat to death, but I have not been here to witness it. haha

I like to believe its Moby-Dick. I just loved the style, the plot, etc. And Ahab's struggle really felt American; out there to conquer nature because of some unholy force within compelling him to sail against the tides of fate. Driven by a self-professed religion, never acknowledging failure as an option.

What religion is behind Ahab? I don't recall any. If anything he's rejecting religion.

I've heard some people say, however, that the novel really doesn't portray the "American voice" because like other mid 19th century literature, it tries to immitate the British style. I wouldn't say so. The only American work that I have honestly thought to sound British was Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I was shocked to find out Stevenson was American.

Stevenson wasn't American.

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. He was the man who "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins", as G. K. Chesterton put it.[1] Stevenson was greatly admired by many authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling, Vladimir Nabokov,[2] and J. M. Barrie.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Louis_Stevenson

[five-trey]

Religion, as in figuratively speaking. He was of no established religion but he was following the superstitions and prophecies of Fedallah (FedAllah?) like a type of religion almost. As you recall, he baptized his harpoon in the name of the Devil with blood from the three harpooners. You can make a case for some religion, but I was not referring to a real religion.


As far as Stevenson, that's even more surprising. My English teacher told me he was American and it didn't really fit with me.

[mayneverhave]

The English department chair at my university claimed it was "As I Lay Dying", to which I had to disagree - if only because I think "The Sound and the Fury" superior.

If I had to choose one, I would choose "The Great Gatsby" in its treatment of the American dream, and the paradoxical nature of attitudes toward America.

Faulkner is the best American novelist, however.

[Lokasenna]

I'm glad no one has mentioned Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which people always seem to tout as the definitive american voice. I personally think its hideously overrated.

Would it be twee to say T. S. Eliot? I know he was completely anglicised, but he was technically American...

Can't really think of an american novelist I like, so actually I'll go with Emily Dickinson - she can be a voice for America!

[Virgil]

Religion, as in figuratively speaking. He was of no established religion but he was following the superstitions and prophecies of Fedallah (FedAllah?) like a type of religion almost. As you recall, he baptized his harpoon in the name of the Devil with blood from the three harpooners. You can make a case for some religion, but I was not referring to a real religion.


As far as Stevenson, that's even more surprising. My English teacher told me he was American and it didn't really fit with me.

Oh I see what you're alluding to in Ahab. You're right, there is an element of an anti-religious ferver, quite religious in zeal. Gotcha. As to Stevenson, wow, how did your teacher make that kind of mistake?

I'm glad no one has mentioned Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which people always seem to tout as the definitive american voice. I personally think its hideously overrated.

Would it be twee to say T. S. Eliot? I know he was completely anglicised, but he was technically American...

Can't really think of an american novelist I like, so actually I'll go with Emily Dickinson - she can be a voice for America!

Good points Lok. Those are good picks. I've never heard anyone say that The Catcher in the Rye was the definitive American voice but that is a novel that has exxagerated importance.

I will say there are many American voices, probably becasue we are such a huge country and the speech patterns are different across the nation, especially before television and movies brought about a singular voice. So I'm not sure one can say there is a quitessential American voice. Some have always said Twain's Huck Finn, but I don't speak anything like Huck. The voices are varied. One voice that gets forgotten, though I have always thought it quite original to my ear is that of James T. Farrel, who wrote The Studs Lonigan Trilogy. He has sort of faded as an important writer, if he ever was one, but I do think his voice was particularly American from an immigrant and city life point of view. You can read about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_T._Farrell.

[mortalterror]

Huck Finn, Moby Dick, or Gatsby. All three are fine works of fiction and I wouldn't mind any of them taking the laurels. Your choice will differ of course depending on your own particular taste and view of America. In this case, all three of the works are so tremendous that it is no shame to be second to any of them. They remind me of what Livy said at the beginning of his book:

Countless others have written on this theme and it may be that I shall pass unnoticed amongst them; if so, I must comfort myself with the greatness and splendour of my rivals, whose work will rob my own of recognition.- The History of Rome

[joseph90ie]

There's only two types of novel - the good and the bad. Art has no nationality. Who knows, perhaps rubbish writing does. All other distinctions are the purest waffle.

[Lokasenna]

There's only two types of novel - the good and the bad. Art has no nationality. Who knows, perhaps rubbish writing does. All other distinctions are the purest waffle.

I'd disagree, to be honest. The cultural background of a novel can inform our opinions of that culture, and indeed may be rooted in that culture - I can't believe that any literature can exist beyond nationality and culture, because they are so pivotal to the realms of art. Hamlet, for example, is rightly considered one of (if not the) greatest thing ever written, and is in its nature quite transcendental. Nonetheless, in order to fully understand the concepts it plays with, you would have to have a least a basic understanding of the social constructs of Renaissance Europe.

I would perhaps invert your argument, and say that only rubbish writing could exist with requiring reference to external factors.

[semi-fly]

Shouldn't the American novel incorporate the westward movement of the mid-to-late 19th century?

[JBI]

I'm glad no one has mentioned Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which people always seem to tout as the definitive american voice. I personally think its hideously overrated.

Would it be twee to say T. S. Eliot? I know he was completely anglicised, but he was technically American...

Can't really think of an american novelist I like, so actually I'll go with Emily Dickinson - she can be a voice for America!

Eliot, from The Wasteland on, seems more the poet of London, than anything else, despite his American style and influences.


Strangely enough, when I consider the concept, I think I come up with a book most people will not agree with - Willa Cather's My Antonia. I don't particularly like the concept of "The Great American Novel", as that seems to be such a propaganda statement (I don't hear anyone mentioning the Great German novel, or the Great French novel, or The Great Canadian Novel, yet we all know the American term) and in truth, I feel the term comes from the whole manifest destiny mentality of the 19th century in America, with the desire to prove the greatness of said nation, which sort of became extreme in the 20th century. But even so, if I were to vote for the concept, My Antonia seems the best bet.

Faulkner talks for Mississippi, and to a lesser extent, the south. Melville talks for new England. Fitzgerald about the North, and mostly the East (though he mentions the differences between West and East) and without a mention of the South.

I think Cather, though very rooted in the Prairies, seems to speak of a more important American concept - the immigrant experience, and the opportunities of the new world, and its deceptions and destructiveness, in addition to feminist preoccupations, which add to the scope. I don't think many of you will agree with me, but really, Cather offers a more important American feel, in terms of the Platonic ideal of The Great American Novel.

[Virgil]

There's only two types of novel - the good and the bad. Art has no nationality. Who knows, perhaps rubbish writing does. All other distinctions are the purest waffle.

Surely that is only partly right. But a writer can only write from experience, from what he knows. I could never write a novel from the perspective of someone say, just to pick a far away place from me, Indonesia. The novel, probably more so than any other art form, requires an identity from which to see.

[JBI]

Surely that is only partly right. But a writer can only write from experience, from what he knows. I could never write a novel from the perspective of someone say, just to pick a far away place from me, Indonesia. The novel, probably more so than any other art form, requires an identity from which to see.

Only in contemporary times - Anatole France for instance, wrote Thais about early Christian Egypt. The actual foundation of the novel, I think mostly in English, from Swift's Guliver, through Lewis's The Monk, all the way from Otranto, through Gaskell, Walter Scott, and all the way to the 20th century didn't need to follow this convention. In truth, the romance genre still tries to not follow this convention in many examples, in adhering to dated Gothic sentiments about setting. I think the real reason for the "writing about where you know" comes out of the fact that so many writers begun to be rooted in particular settings. One thinks of Dickens, Eliot, Hardy, or even modernists like Woolf, Joyce, Faulkner, and Cather.

The convention of course, has taken an even greater turn in the States more recently, where it is expected for, for instance, African Americans to write about African American issues, and other peoples to write about issues concerning their own group, or even region.

There is though, nothing that says one must write about this or that setting. I think the emergence of Fantasy and science fiction, in some ways, is a way around that - although, I think there haven't been many efforts to write great fantasy fiction, or, more likely, many successful efforts.

[joseph90ie]

I'd disagree, to be honest. The cultural background of a novel can inform our opinions of that culture, and indeed may be rooted in that culture - I can't believe that any literature can exist beyond nationality and culture, because they are so pivotal to the realms of art. Hamlet, for example, is rightly considered one of (if not the) greatest thing ever written, and is in its nature quite transcendental. Nonetheless, in order to fully understand the concepts it plays with, you would have to have a least a basic understanding of the social constructs of Renaissance Europe.

I would perhaps invert your argument, and say that only rubbish writing could exist with requiring reference to external factors.

hey Lokasenna! I don't know that we disagree. I think it's more a case of having conceptions which are so different, they don't contradict or clash, but are out of sight of one another, like we're not in the same solar system; as if it's not a question of who is closer to the light or the sun, but more like, we may be equally close to two altogether different suns in different systems. But that's euphemistic talk; we do disagree.

When you mention cultural background and stories not being able to exist beyond nationality and culture, I'm sure I agree; but I prefer to eschew those terms, since really, I never think they mean anything - they give me no clear images in my head when using those words and phrases. If language doesn't give me clear images, I steer clear of it and suspect humbug.

I never say a story or a character can exist outside anything or transcend anything - culture, or whatever the meaningless words might be. To say that we need to be aware of some of the details and history of the time to appreciate the truth of a story is simply not true. I know nothing of Spain, but understand Don Quixote, Sancho Panza - and their creator, Cervantes - I understand all these people like my next door neighbours of today. I see literally no difference between those characters of 400 years ago and the people I meet today: none whatsoever. If there were differences, I wouldn't read the book, because I would not be able to learn anything.

I don't know why you feel the need to talk about Hamlet being the best this or that. Who says that? Some men and women in educational institutions? Their opinion is no better than yours or mine. All I can say is, I enjoyed Bill Shakes's words as much as I've enjoyed many other mens' words and that's the end of it. William Shakespeare deserves no more praise than that, and would not want any, and rightly so. Anyway, Shakespeare isn't one of my favourite writers. Putting things into a hierarchy is false talk and snobbery. Your message showed not a sign of any of that; I just say, the elite intellectuals - the arbiters of taste - tell us what we should think, and we end up imbibing their bad habits, and limited ways of thinking and talking.

The humble are more intelligent than those people who, though they have cleverer brains than the rest of us, they have malevolent, intellectually competitive hearts, so they've nothing to teach me: I ignore them. It's like the race between the tortoise and the hare. In academia, they are all proud hares who take a nap and lose the race. Because really, it's no race.

[Dedalus114]

I would call the Great Gatsby the greatest. Other serious candidates include The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, The Sun Also Rises, The Sound and the Fury, and The Grapes of Wrath.