Which is the greatest Great American novel and why?

[kev67]

I have not read them all, but for me it would either be Moby Dick or Huckleberry Finn. I think Huckleberry Finn edges it. It is like nothing else I have read, and it really came alive. It is very funny. The best bit for me is when the clever girl keeps catching out Huckleberry Finn in his lies. Nevertheless, it nearly loses first place with its last few chapters. Moby Dick is very long and slow, but it picks up steam towards the end. I loved the discussions Ahab had with individual crew members; I seem to remember with a Manxman in particular.

[Ecurb]

Phillip Roth wrote "The Great American Novel". It's quite good -- a comedy about a war-era baseball team, filled with misfits who find a "breakfast of champions" that turns them into great players (thus anticipating the steroid era). Roth does borrow (uncredited) from Lawrence Ritter's "The Glory of Their Times", which is even better.

[JCamilo]

The Great american novel is the hunt of the great white american novel.

[Ecurb]

The Great american novel is the hunt of the great white american novel.

The U.S has a long and shameful history of racism However, it is Brazil that imported more African slaves than any other nation, and Brazil that didn't abolish slavery until 1888.

[Ekimhtims]

The Great american novel is the hunt of the great white american novel.

JCamilo, this is certainly not the case as there is no exclusion for anyone claiming that Sutton Griggs' Imperium in Imperio is the greatest American novel. The "which is" in this threads title is surely not meant to request anything other than a subjective answer. I may say Melville, you may say James Baldwin. If either of us accused the other of racism because of our selection then that person is racist...unless one of us thought The Turner Diaries the best of course.

[JCamilo]

Are you two in a guiltry trip? In a thread which Moby Dcik, a book about the hunt for the great white whale, was mentioned already, the world white arised such passive-agressive defense from you both about racism. Calm down, I wasnt looking for the skeleton in your closets.

[Ecurb]

Are you two in a guiltry trip? In a thread which Moby Dcik, a book about the hunt for the great white whale, was mentioned already, the world white arised such passive-agressive defense from you both about racism. Calm down, I wasnt looking for the skeleton in your closets.

Gee, I'm sorry JCamilo. However, there are two reasons why a post might be misinterpreted: it might be inaccurately read or it might be badly written.

"Passive-aggressive"? In what way? When you insult your fellow posters (with such silly accusations as "passive-aggressive") it's reasonable for them to respond. (I've been accused of being "aggressive" before, with some accuracy. "Passive"? Never!)

[Ekimhtims]

Are you two in a guiltry trip? In a thread which Moby Dcik, a book about the hunt for the great white whale, was mentioned already, the world white arised such passive-agressive defense from you both about racism. Calm down, I wasnt looking for the skeleton in your closets.

Sheesh, dumb.

[Ecurb]

By the way, the pun about the hunt for the great white American novel (referring both to Moby Dick and to the notion that the G.A.N. must be the product of a white male) is used so often as to be more than slightly shopworn. If JCamilo (not being a native English speaker) was ignorant of the pun, he can hardly blame us for recognizing it. By assuming that he was familiar with this all too popular literary trope, we are paying him a (undeserved?) compliment.

[Danik 2016]

Back to literature. Why schould Moby Dick be the only candidate for the greatest American novel? I confess that I myself have a difficulty in singling out one one novel? What about Huckleberry Finn;Light in August, The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner), The Golden Bowl (James), Invisible Man(Ellison), To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter(Nathaniel Hathorne),The Good Earth (Pearl Buck) a very incomplete selection of my favorites. I think, the first discussion would be, if there is one American Novel that completely outdistances all others and what are these criteria of excellence?

[kev67]

I know it is a hackneyed subject. When I see lists of great American novels, I usually find I have read about half of them. I have not particularly liked most of them. Slaughterhouse 5 was good but I don't like postmodern books. To Kill a Mocking bird was a bit childish. Fahrenheit 451 was nowhere near as good as 1984 or Brave New World. Grapes of Wrath was too miserable. Lolita was good until the last third. The Great Gatsby was entertaining enough. I just don't understand why it is rated so highly, which may be my deficiency. Catch 22 was good, I particularly liked the Milo Minderbender bits. The only books I was really impressed with were Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn. I have read plenty of other American books that I have enjoyed, but they tend not to appear on Great American Novel lists.

[Jackson Richardson]

Why does there only have to be one? There is more than one contender of the Great British, French or Russian novel?

Great implies a wide range of society or historical or cultural background, which would rule out Jane Austen who may be a perfect novelist, but notoriously limited in her social range.

[JCamilo]

By the way, the pun about the hunt for the great white American novel (referring both to Moby Dick and to the notion that the G.A.N. must be the product of a white male) is used so often as to be more than slightly shopworn. If JCamilo (not being a native English speaker) was ignorant of the pun, he can hardly blame us for recognizing it. By assuming that he was familiar with this all too popular literary trope, we are paying him a (undeserved?) compliment.

Oh, please. Neither passive or agressive are offensive words and I am fully aware of the "white dead men" kinds of attack. The fact I was aware of the pun or not is irrelevant to both of you reaction that went up in full with attacks on Brazil or claims that I was calling anyone a racist, both of of it false, since I was also pointing ot Moby Dick (which is, in the end, a white man hunt for the white whale) and also a book about a pointless mania that is more than a century old and not talking about any poster here. Anyone know the GAN is ghost hunting obsession born out of the american need to have a "national book"big enough to claim a literary tradition akim to European peers. It is more a political power trip than a literary.

Obviously, the list of novels listed here so far are most write by white man. Danik is not racist to propose a majority of novels write by white man, nor he should do otherwise (as he listed usual suspects), and I doubt he would be offended by this notion.

Anyways, Danik, in a sense, the Great American Novel hunt is for the Dom Quixote, the Divine Comedy, Iliad or Lusiadas of USA (or more promptly, the Aeneid), so it had to be only one. Moby Dick easily stands out as impact/literary quality (Melville's style inovations, the fact he seems to have stolen characters from Shakespeare dead body and placed them on Pequod, the dialogue, the symbolism richness, the control of the narrative rythim to build tension, the dialogue with other works are all better motives than Twain charming, witty, dynamics of Huck Finn or Hawthorne allegorical works), but also about thematic (Pequod being somehow a museum of individuals that easily can represent some sort of nation). That is not to say you had to read only one, Obviously, the only work that was written with the actual desire to be "THE AMERICAN" novel, is not a novel at all, but Walt Whitman Song of Myself. However, on the XIX century, Poe had already told masses werent reading long poems, so it couldnt do.

[Danik 2016]

"Obviously, the list of novels listed here so far are most write by white man. Danik is not racist to propose a majority of novels write by white man, nor he should do otherwise (as he listed usual suspects), and I doubt he would be offended by this notion."

Camilo, my main aim was to recover and broaden the discussion. My selection above is, as I stated, very personal, there are many American novels I haven´t read at all, like the much commented Catch 22 and others don´t belong to my favorites. Among these you probably noticed "Invisible Man" by the black author Ralph Ellison. Unfortunatelly I haven´t read anything yet by Tony Morrison, I only just got her novel "The bluest eye".

I see you point, Camilo.I think Moby Dick is a great and representative novel, but I can´t say if it is the greatest American novel of all times or not. I am not sure if Moby Dick is as outstanding as the Quixote or Joyce´s Ulisses. I agree about the universality of Whitman, but if we talk about American fiction, Poe is probably much more representative than Meville but he didn´t write novels.

[Ecurb]

A glance at the Modern Library list of 100 greatest English language novels reveals that neither "Moby Dick" nor "Huckleberry Finn" make the list. (I just figured it out "Modern" means 20th century.
http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/

Among the candidates that ARE listed: #2 "The Great Gatsby" -- although it's not my favorite, it does qualify as exposing the American Character (if there is such a thing).

#6 The Sound and the Fury -- I haven't read it -- I tried, once, and got 60 or 70 pages in before I gave up.

#7 Catch 22 -- Huh? It's a fine comic novel, but it ain't the "GAN".

#10 The Grapes of Wrath -- It might be a bit dated.

That rounds out the top 10, if we eliminate "Lolita" which was written in the U.S.

None of these novels, I think, rivals Moby Dick or Huck for the Title. Moby is perhaps more innovative, more literary, and insightful than Huck. However, it's not as American. The Pequod sales International Waters; Huck's raft floats through the dead center of America on the Mighty Mississippi. So the greater artistic depth of the one is balanced by the other's "Americanism". When we talk about the Great American Novel, we mean a novel written by an American, but we also refer to a novel that somehow captures or expresses the character of the country and its inhabitants. (By the way, based on JCamilo's post, I think "Don Quixote" would qualify as expressing the Spanish character (of 1600), and "The Aeneid" was written to express the Roman character ("Sing we of arms and the man...."), etc.

[JCamilo]

Of course, Quixote is the national novel by excelence, but if you think well, Cervantes was hardly a single voice in that Spain. Lope de Vega was there and is a giant looming over Cervantes popular style, you had other names like Quevedo, that worked in quite different style and even language. Not to mention, as spanish, Cervantes was actually representative of the central governament. We can argument, He became the spanish novel because it is the one that is more universal, as the "national novel" is more a war banner in the cultural "battles" in the world.

Borges would argue that often the national writers (Shakespeare, Goethe, Dante) are actually universal writers, with little or very few use for nationalism. Perhaps that would give Melville an advantage over Poe.

I would like to counter that one is less or more american (Huck and Moby) american. I agree both works have a different movement, one that is expansive and the other that is intimist, after all, there is a river and there is the ocean, but I do not think any is less american than the other. Moby Dick is only possible in XIX America. It has all that dialogue with the previous american "tradition", just turns a bleak side. It is a prophecy of a nation and this nation is USA. If we compare with Quixote, Twain is more akim of the first part and Melville to the second part.

Reggarding standing up wih Quixote or Ulysses, I think Moby Dick is one of the few works that can do the trick. In many aspects, Moby was doing russian novels before the russians. We cannot compare with Joyce verbal luxury, but that is style. Cervante language was not rich either, but exactly for this, him and Melville managed to pull greater characters on Sancho, Quixote and Ahab than Bloom, Molly and cia. I think both are rich when they use the scenary to be part of the story, but Melville has the edge here. The Pequod is a psyche and the variations of weather and speed of travel, etfc, are all psychological changes in the trip.

Anyways, Danik, I agree Poe is very representative. He is the first one to think (or at least think and elaborate about it) on the production of texts for the mass, which is a quite an american vision. He has many links wiht Melville (both prophets denied by their peers), but americans may disagree with what we may see as non-american: poe is the most influential american writer, by far. And don't forget, he wrote one novel (Gordon Pym), that may or may not have been an influence over Melville.

[Danik 2016]

@Camilo- "Of course, Quixote is the national novel by excellence, but if you think well, Cervantes was hardly a single voice in that Spain. Lope de Vega was there and is a giant looming over Cervantes popular style, you had other names like Quevedo, that worked in quite different style and even language. Not to mention, as spanish, Cervantes was actually representative of the central government. We can argument, He became the Spanish novel because it is the one that is more universal, as the "national novel" is more a war banner in the cultural "battles" in the world."
Yes of course, there were other and great voices, there was Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca and several poets, but they weren´t novelists. The play writers wrote specially for the court, so I should like to know what is the "national novel" for you, if it is the popular work of art?

Maybe, using Ecurbs evaluation one could argue cautiously that the greatest novels are those that best combine "nationalism" with "universalism". That said, nothing at all is said, because both of these terms which intuitively seem so easy to recognize are both very difficult to define. You show how difficult it gets, when on tries to compare Moby Dick with Ulisses. The difficulty starts with the very different usage the two authors make of the English language. It goes so far as questioning how much of Ulisses ( and by that matter of Finnegans Wake) is actually written in English. In this matter I have only questions.

I think Poe is representative, not as a novelist, but as an pioneer of the American short story, and by his very typical sort of fantastic and horror stories.

[Ecurb]

Melville loved Don Quixote, and thought he was one of the three great literary characters (along with Hamlet and Milton's
Satan). Ahab shares the Don's mono-mania and madness, if not his sense of playfulness.

Of course Don Quixote is universal in its meaning and appeal. However, it is also very Spanish, especially when we think of the Spanish century that preceded it (Don Quixote was published in 1605 and 1615). The famous chapter in which the barber and the curate burn the Don's chivalrous Romances to cure him of his madness mirrors what was actually happening in Spain. The great libraries and stores of knowledge that had been accumulated in Muslim Spain were being consumed in flames -- and those who possessed books written in Arabic (or in the Spanish vernacular using Arabic script) were often consigned to the flames themselves. Could Spain be cured of its "madness" (heretical beliefs) by burning all the books?

If Don Quixote's madness involved playing at chivalry, the sanity (and life) of the conversos (Muslims and Jews who had to pretend to be Christians) was dependent on role-playing. Anyone might be other than he appeared. When Aldonza-Dulcinea is lauded as "the best hand at salting pork... in all La Mancha", Cervantes may be hinting that she is converso. Conversos often resorted to eating pork in public to show off their bona fides as Christians.

Indeed, the narrator of Don Quixote finds the "True History" of the Don being sold as rags, and written in Arabic script. He must find a translator to render the book into Spanish. In Toledo books really were sold as rags, since paper and cloth were valuable, and the books had become illegal.

So the game-playing, the pretense, and the valor of our Don were all played out in Christian Spain, and lampooned in Cervantes' masterpiece.

In addition, the 1500s in Spain was a century of almost unimaginable knight-errantry. While knights were vanishing from the European scene, Spanish adventurers like Pizzaro and Cortez were conquering huge empires in the New World against all odds.

Don Quixote is a comic figure -- but he shares the valor and the madness of Orlando Furioso, if not the strength or skill. Ahab shares much of that same valor and obsessive madness.

"National Character" used to be accepted as a truism, and is now often regarded as a somewhat racist anachronism. However, since culture affects character, and since different cultures emphasize and value different traits, perhaps "National Character" has some basis in reality. Ahab's obsession with revenge (it seems to me) is more a Spanish (or old-fashioned Spanish, or Muslim, for that matter, like honor killings) trait than it is an American trait. Don Quixote wants to return to a romantic past of valor and knight errantry; Huckleberry Finn wants to "light out for the Territories" to avoid being civilized. Their quests (and Ahab's) are similar in some ways, opposites in others.

[JCamilo]

@Camilo- "Of course, Quixote is the national novel by excellence, but if you think well, Cervantes was hardly a single voice in that Spain. Lope de Vega was there and is a giant looming over Cervantes popular style, you had other names like Quevedo, that worked in quite different style and even language. Not to mention, as spanish, Cervantes was actually representative of the central government. We can argument, He became the Spanish novel because it is the one that is more universal, as the "national novel" is more a war banner in the cultural "battles" in the world."
Yes of course, there were other and great voices, there was Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca and several poets, but they weren´t novelists. The play writers wrote specially for the court, so I should like to know what is the "national novel" for you, if it is the popular work of art?

This is not important. Until the XIX century, nobody would consider prose novels (and authors) as representative of the culture. Cervantes is not exactly a novel writer either, it was his failures as playwriter and poet (not always failures) that lead him to, by accident, tackle prose. Iit is kind of an American thing, trying to imply a longer tradition, but without an epic national work, to have novels in the place of epics.

Anyways, the "national novel", "national epics" are also flagships of a culture, they are representative enough but mostly, they are impressive to the others (or suppose to be). It is not about popularity, it is about significance to both inside and outside perception.


Maybe, using Ecurbs evaluation one could argue cautiously that the greatest novels are those that best combine "nationalism" with "universalism". That said, nothing at all is said, because both of these terms which intuitively seem so easy to recognize are both very difficult to define. You show how difficult it gets, when on tries to compare Moby Dick with Ulisses. The difficulty starts with the very different usage the two authors make of the English language. It goes so far as questioning how much of Ulisses ( and by that matter of Finnegans Wake) is actually written in English. In this matter I have only questions.

Melville exploration of different text forms is similar to what Joyce do, they are not that apart (not to mention, Melville reputation was recovered by european symbolists, which are precussors of Joyce. Of course, the language aspect is unique and rather only possible after Mallarmé.


I think Poe is representative, not as a novelist, but as an pioneer of the American short story, and by his very typical sort of fantastic and horror stories.

Poe is, but nobody seem him as such, because he does not "function" for americans at all. He is too anti-evertying to be the representative author. Anyways, I rarely think of Poe as a pioner. Mostly, as an organizer. You had, even considering only american, gothic precussors (such as Washington Irving), but the thing Poe did best, IMO, is to get elements of of popular litereture, who were used without much care and often and give them a more definitive, rounded-up use.

Ecurd:


Melville loved Don Quixote, and thought he was one of the three great literary characters (along with Hamlet and Milton's
Satan). Ahab shares the Don's mono-mania and madness, if not his sense of playfulness.

Ah, of course, Melville could write humorous stories too, in the Swiftlike manner (or even Washington Irving), which is the closer you get him to Cervantes humour. Funny enough, he has a short story that any brazilian would reckon, because it is basically a mockery of portuguese (they are the usual scapegoat in anedoctes here). But that ends the similarities. Ahab is more shakespearean character, his mania is much about him, Quixote goes opening the world, his mania is about reality.


Of course Don Quixote is universal in its meaning and appeal. However, it is also very Spanish, especially when we think of the Spanish century that preceded it (Don Quixote was published in 1605 and 1615). The famous chapter in which the barber and the curate burn the Don's chivalrous Romances to cure him of his madness mirrors what was actually happening in Spain. The great libraries and stores of knowledge that had been accumulated in Muslim Spain were being consumed in flames -- and those who possessed books written in Arabic (or in the Spanish vernacular using Arabic script) were often consigned to the flames themselves. Could Spain be cured of its "madness" (heretical beliefs) by burning all the books?


I think those details, what Peter Woods says that is a glance of reality, are inferior to Quixote. Of course, the scene is beautiful. Cervantes stabilishes himself as a critical judge of the literary genre he will destroy and at the sametime stabilishes his links - it is necessary for a Satyre to the previous tradtion (aptly, with Orlando Furioso, another work with strong satyrical purpose). It is sort like Dante placing Virgil as a guide: this is the tradtion I follow and the one I will abandon.

I think at Cervantes time there was less need to consider the moors as anthing but a past thing, so they are target of his jokes, but at that momment, the great point was the unification. Quixote is sort witness of the lack of logical union in Spain, he is also a ghost from the past to a new age that is coming (with a new burocratic organization that excludes the knights). Cervantes asks - specially in the second part - what kind of character (the national character you say, not in the same of character/individual, but traits of a people) is emerging and the result is not good. The past is gone, but the present is chaotir, mad (Quixote is in the end sane, mad is the world, as Ortega Y Gasset would say, Quixote is "supersane" - something like this, the word was not in english of course).

I do not think Cid Hamet was a comment on the book destruction, it seems to me to a satyrical trick, a way to replace the "once upon a time" or to give authenticity, since chivalirity novels are origem in historical chronicles, added with the knowledge Cervantes had as moors as sotytellers, at the same time calling them liars (or fabulits) and moving the narrarive to "a far away country", in the sense, the narrative come from there.

Yeah, I know Cervantes is pretty much spanish (as Melville is american), but there is not one spain. That is central spain (Madri or Castela). Cervantes cannot be representative of all Spain, because he is representative of a part of Spain, the others had different languages and cultures. Borges was pretty much chastised when younger for professing him opinion that would be better if Quevedo or Vega had the honour to be spain's national writer exactly because of that. Not that I defend that the so called "national" work must represent all nation.


"National Character" used to be accepted as a truism, and is now often regarded as a somewhat racist anachronism. However, since culture affects character, and since different cultures emphasize and value different traits, perhaps "National Character" has some basis in reality. Ahab's obsession with revenge (it seems to me) is more a Spanish (or old-fashioned Spanish, or Muslim, for that matter, like honor killings) trait than it is an American trait. Don Quixote wants to return to a romantic past of valor and knight errantry; Huckleberry Finn wants to "light out for the Territories" to avoid being civilized. Their quests (and Ahab's) are similar in some ways, opposites in others.


Ahab obssession is not with revenge. It is with pursuing a great ideal. His vanished leg was the first relatory saying Moby has WMD, he was already after Moby before losing the leg. He is also able to unite and lead several different individuals in one task. That is quite american. (and the truth is those traits, also revenge, are really not a national trait. but universal. Quixote has no wish for revenge, Hamlet has. USA went after Al-Quaeda after all.). I would say, Quixote wants to find a reference to the fragmented world he was living. The books were his reference, but as soon nobles tried to impose him that world, he was more cautious. Quixote is not very romantic (in the sense, romantic movement renewed celtic old world), but perhaps it is a word imposed upon us (romantic).

[JCamilo]

@Camilo- "Of course, Quixote is the national novel by excellence, but if you think well, Cervantes was hardly a single voice in that Spain. Lope de Vega was there and is a giant looming over Cervantes popular style, you had other names like Quevedo, that worked in quite different style and even language. Not to mention, as spanish, Cervantes was actually representative of the central government. We can argument, He became the Spanish novel because it is the one that is more universal, as the "national novel" is more a war banner in the cultural "battles" in the world."
Yes of course, there were other and great voices, there was Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca and several poets, but they weren´t novelists. The play writers wrote specially for the court, so I should like to know what is the "national novel" for you, if it is the popular work of art?

This is not important. Until the XIX century, nobody would consider prose novels (and authors) as representative of the culture. Cervantes is not exactly a novel writer either, it was his failures as playwriter and poet (not always failures) that lead him to, by accident, tackle prose. Iit is kind of an American thing, trying to imply a longer tradition, but without an epic national work, to have novels in the place of epics.

Anyways, the "national novel", "national epics" are also flagships of a culture, they are representative enough but mostly, they are impressive to the others (or suppose to be). It is not about popularity, it is about significance to both inside and outside perception.


Maybe, using Ecurbs evaluation one could argue cautiously that the greatest novels are those that best combine "nationalism" with "universalism". That said, nothing at all is said, because both of these terms which intuitively seem so easy to recognize are both very difficult to define. You show how difficult it gets, when on tries to compare Moby Dick with Ulisses. The difficulty starts with the very different usage the two authors make of the English language. It goes so far as questioning how much of Ulisses ( and by that matter of Finnegans Wake) is actually written in English. In this matter I have only questions.

Melville exploration of different text forms is similar to what Joyce do, they are not that apart (not to mention, Melville reputation was recovered by european symbolists, which are precussors of Joyce. Of course, the language aspect is unique and rather only possible after Mallarmé.


I think Poe is representative, not as a novelist, but as an pioneer of the American short story, and by his very typical sort of fantastic and horror stories.

Poe is, but nobody seem him as such, because he does not "function" for americans at all. He is too anti-evertying to be the representative author. Anyways, I rarely think of Poe as a pioner. Mostly, as an organizer. You had, even considering only american, gothic precussors (such as Washington Irving), but the thing Poe did best, IMO, is to get elements of of popular litereture, who were used without much care and often and give them a more definitive, rounded-up use.

Ecurd:


Melville loved Don Quixote, and thought he was one of the three great literary characters (along with Hamlet and Milton's
Satan). Ahab shares the Don's mono-mania and madness, if not his sense of playfulness.

Ah, of course, Melville could write humorous stories too, in the Swiftlike manner (or even Washington Irving), which is the closer you get him to Cervantes humour. Funny enough, he has a short story that any brazilian would reckon, because it is basically a mockery of portuguese (they are the usual scapegoat in anedoctes here). But that ends the similarities. Ahab is more shakespearean character, his mania is much about him, Quixote goes opening the world, his mania is about reality.


Of course Don Quixote is universal in its meaning and appeal. However, it is also very Spanish, especially when we think of the Spanish century that preceded it (Don Quixote was published in 1605 and 1615). The famous chapter in which the barber and the curate burn the Don's chivalrous Romances to cure him of his madness mirrors what was actually happening in Spain. The great libraries and stores of knowledge that had been accumulated in Muslim Spain were being consumed in flames -- and those who possessed books written in Arabic (or in the Spanish vernacular using Arabic script) were often consigned to the flames themselves. Could Spain be cured of its "madness" (heretical beliefs) by burning all the books?


I think those details, what Peter Woods says that is a glance of reality, are inferior to Quixote. Of course, the scene is beautiful. Cervantes stabilishes himself as a critical judge of the literary genre he will destroy and at the sametime stabilishes his links - it is necessary for a Satyre to the previous tradtion (aptly, with Orlando Furioso, another work with strong satyrical purpose). It is sort like Dante placing Virgil as a guide: this is the tradtion I follow and the one I will abandon.

I think at Cervantes time there was less need to consider the moors as anthing but a past thing, so they are target of his jokes, but at that momment, the great point was the unification. Quixote is sort witness of the lack of logical union in Spain, he is also a ghost from the past to a new age that is coming (with a new burocratic organization that excludes the knights). Cervantes asks - specially in the second part - what kind of character (the national character you say, not in the same of character/individual, but traits of a people) is emerging and the result is not good. The past is gone, but the present is chaotir, mad (Quixote is in the end sane, mad is the world, as Ortega Y Gasset would say, Quixote is "supersane" - something like this, the word was not in english of course).

I do not think Cid Hamet was a comment on the book destruction, it seems to me to a satyrical trick, a way to replace the "once upon a time" or to give authenticity, since chivalirity novels are origem in historical chronicles, added with the knowledge Cervantes had as moors as sotytellers, at the same time calling them liars (or fabulits) and moving the narrarive to "a far away country", in the sense, the narrative come from there.

Yeah, I know Cervantes is pretty much spanish (as Melville is american), but there is not one spain. That is central spain (Madri or Castela). Cervantes cannot be representative of all Spain, because he is representative of a part of Spain, the others had different languages and cultures. Borges was pretty much chastised when younger for professing him opinion that would be better if Quevedo or Vega had the honour to be spain's national writer exactly because of that. Not that I defend that the so called "national" work must represent all nation.


"National Character" used to be accepted as a truism, and is now often regarded as a somewhat racist anachronism. However, since culture affects character, and since different cultures emphasize and value different traits, perhaps "National Character" has some basis in reality. Ahab's obsession with revenge (it seems to me) is more a Spanish (or old-fashioned Spanish, or Muslim, for that matter, like honor killings) trait than it is an American trait. Don Quixote wants to return to a romantic past of valor and knight errantry; Huckleberry Finn wants to "light out for the Territories" to avoid being civilized. Their quests (and Ahab's) are similar in some ways, opposites in others.


Ahab obssession is not with revenge. It is with pursuing a great ideal. His vanished leg was the first relatory saying Moby has WMD, he was already after Moby before losing the leg. He is also able to unite and lead several different individuals in one task. That is quite american. (and the truth is those traits, also revenge, are really not a national trait. but universal. Quixote has no wish for revenge, Hamlet has. USA went after Al-Quaeda after all.). I would say, Quixote wants to find a reference to the fragmented world he was living. The books were his reference, but as soon nobles tried to impose him that world, he was more cautious. Quixote is not very romantic (in the sense, romantic movement renewed celtic old world), but perhaps it is a word imposed upon us (romantic).

[Danik 2016]

"This is not important. Until the XIX century, nobody would consider prose novels (and authors) as representative of the culture. Cervantes is not exactly a novel writer either, it was his failures as playwriter and poet (not always failures) that lead him to, by accident, tackle prose. It is kind of an American thing, trying to imply a longer tradition, but without an epic national work, to have novels in the place of epics."
national work, to have novels in the place of epics."

If think you are right about the time the novel reached a new status. Of course you remember that Lukács and before him Hegel I think described the novel as a "bourgeois epic". I don´t know If Ahab and his crew can be described as bourgeois, but they certainly are replacing the kings and the aristocratic wariours of the old epics.

Unfortunately I don´t remember Moby Dick so well any more, it´s a long time that I have read it: all I remember about it is that Captain Ahab is obsessessively pursuing a white whale, which on a former journey caused the loss of his leg. If I rightly remember, the captain at last manages to kill the whale, but he loses his whole crew in the expedition, only the narrator Ismael survives. I don´t remember what happens to the captain himself. So I don´t think I am able to contribute to a more profound discussion of this novel.

About the finding of the manuscript of D. Quijote, I think it was an irony on Literature in General and Travel Literature in particular. At that time a lot was written about manuscripts that got lost and lost manuscripts that were found. What regards the Travel Literature of the Renaissance it was often difficult to distinguish fiction from reality.

The chapter on the Library where the books of the Quijote are "judged" is one of my favorites.Not the least of it because Cervantes uses the book judgment to poke fun at the inquisition, something that was rather dangerous at the time.

[JCamilo]

This is not important. Until the XIX century, nobody would consider prose novels (and authors) as representative of the culture. Cervantes is not exactly a novel writer either, it was his failures as playwriter and poet (not always failures) that lead him to, by accident, tackle prose. Iit is kind of an American thing, trying to imply a longer tradition, but without an epic national work, to have novels in the place of epics.

Anyways, the "national novel", "national epics" are also flagships of a culture, they are representative enough but mostly, they are impressive to the others (or suppose to be). It is not about popularity, it is about significance to both inside and outside perception.



Melville exploration of different text forms is similar to what Joyce do, they are not that apart (not to mention, Melville reputation was recovered by european symbolists, which are precussors of Joyce. Of course, the language aspect is unique and rather only possible after Mallarmé.



Poe is, but nobody seem him as such, because he does not "function" for americans at all. He is too anti-evertying to be the representative author. Anyways, I rarely think of Poe as a pioner. Mostly, as an organizer. You had, even considering only american, gothic precussors (such as Washington Irving), but the thing Poe did best, IMO, is to get elements of of popular litereture, who were used without much care and often and give them a more definitive, rounded-up use.

Ecurd:



Ah, of course, Melville could write humorous stories too, in the Swiftlike manner (or even Washington Irving), which is the closer you get him to Cervantes humour. Funny enough, he has a short story that any brazilian would reckon, because it is basically a mockery of portuguese (they are the usual scapegoat in anedoctes here). But that ends the similarities. Ahab is more shakespearean character, his mania is much about him, Quixote goes opening the world, his mania is about reality.



I think those details, what Peter Woods says that is a glance of reality, are inferior to Quixote. Of course, the scene is beautiful. Cervantes stabilishes himself as a critical judge of the literary genre he will destroy and at the sametime stabilishes his links - it is necessary for a Satyre to the previous tradtion (aptly, with Orlando Furioso, another work with strong satyrical purpose). It is sort like Dante placing Virgil as a guide: this is the tradtion I follow and the one I will abandon.

I think at Cervantes time there was less need to consider the moors as anthing but a past thing, so they are target of his jokes, but at that momment, the great point was the unification. Quixote is sort witness of the lack of logical union in Spain, he is also a ghost from the past to a new age that is coming (with a new burocratic organization that excludes the knights). Cervantes asks - specially in the second part - what kind of character (the national character you say, not in the same of character/individual, but traits of a people) is emerging and the result is not good. The past is gone, but the present is chaotir, mad (Quixote is in the end sane, mad is the world, as Ortega Y Gasset would say, Quixote is "supersane" - something like this, the word was not in english of course).

I do not think Cid Hamet was a comment on the book destruction, it seems to me to a satyrical trick, a way to replace the "once upon a time" or to give authenticity, since chivalirity novels are origem in historical chronicles, added with the knowledge Cervantes had as moors as sotytellers, at the same time calling them liars (or fabulits) and moving the narrarive to "a far away country", in the sense, the narrative come from there.

Yeah, I know Cervantes is pretty much spanish (as Melville is american), but there is not one spain. That is central spain (Madri or Castela). Cervantes cannot be representative of all Spain, because he is representative of a part of Spain, the others had different languages and cultures. Borges was pretty much chastised when younger for professing him opinion that would be better if Quevedo or Vega had the honour to be spain's national writer exactly because of that. Not that I defend that the so called "national" work must represent all nation.



Ahab obssession is not with revenge. It is with pursuing a great ideal. His vanished leg was the first relatory saying Moby has WMD, he was already after Moby before losing the leg. He is also able to unite and lead several different individuals in one task. That is quite american. (and the truth is those traits, also revenge, are really not a national trait. but universal. Quixote has no wish for revenge, Hamlet has. USA went after Al-Quaeda after all.). I would say, Quixote wants to find a reference to the fragmented world he was living. The books were his reference, but as soon nobles tried to impose him that world, he was more cautious. Quixote is not very romantic (in the sense, romantic movement renewed celtic old world), but perhaps it is a word imposed upon us (romantic).


"This is not important. Until the XIX century, nobody would consider prose novels (and authors) as representative of the culture. Cervantes is not exactly a novel writer either, it was his failures as playwriter and poet (not always failures) that lead him to, by accident, tackle prose. It is kind of an American thing, trying to imply a longer tradition, but without an epic national work, to have novels in the place of epics."
national work, to have novels in the place of epics."

If think you are right about the time the novel reached a new status. Of course you remember that Lukács and before him Hegel I think described the novel as a "bourgeois epic". I don´t know If Ahab and his crew can be described as bourgeois, but they certainly are replacing the kings and the aristocratic wariours of the old epics.

Yeah, Hegel said. There is some sense on this, but not everything that happened with the novel is exactly burgoise. Hegel probally wasnt aware of Moby and wouldn't consider it seriously. American literature wasnt that respected outside America and Melville was first perceived (and Moby too) as an "adventure novel", they would not consider him as something remarkable. This saying makes more sense when you see something like Balzac-Flaubert. Of course, Ahab and his crew are not good representation of burgoise, but prose became more broader reader around that time. You may consider our José de Alencar and Machado de Assis and to whom they were writting - urban, middleclass or working class, to see the tendencies.


Unfortunately I don´t remember Moby Dick so well any more, it´s a long time that I have read it: all I remember about it is that Captain Ahab is obsessessively pursuing a white whale, which on a former journey caused the loss of his leg. If I rightly remember, the captain at last manages to kill the whale, but he loses his whole crew in the expedition, only the narrator Ismael survives. I don´t remember what happens to the captain himself. So I don´t think I am able to contribute to a more profound discussion of this novel.

Moby sinks with Ahab. Not being an hollywood movie, it doesn ot surface again to swallow Ishmal after the credits, so, it is probally alive.


About the finding of the manuscript of D. Quijote, I think it was an irony on Literature in General and Travel Literature in particular. At that time a lot was written about manuscripts that got lost and lost manuscripts that were found. What regards the Travel Literature of the Renaissance it was often difficult to distinguish fiction from reality.

Yeah, the same goes in the knight's adventures, which is an appeal to credibility (the narrator), so Cervantes is ironic as you say, he places a narrator without much credibility instead, which is pretty much a way to say "my tale is made up, so is yours".


The chapter on the Library where the books of the Quijote are "judged" is one of my favorites.Not the least of it because Cervantes uses the book judgment to poke fun at the inquisition, something that was rather dangerous at the time.

Quixote is always great when Cervantes is playing the metalinguist trumph card, like the many times he is talking about himself.

[Danik 2016]

"Yeah, Hegel said. There is some sense on this, but not everything that happened with the novel is exactly burgoise. Hegel probally wasnt aware of Moby and wouldn't consider it seriously. American literature wasnt that respected outside America and Melville was first perceived (and Moby too) as an "adventure novel", they would not consider him as something remarkable. This saying makes more sense when you see something like Balzac-Flaubert. Of course, Ahab and his crew are not good representation of burgoise, but prose became more broader reader around that time. You may consider our José de Alencar and Machado de Assis and to whom they were writting - urban, middleclass or working class, to see the tendencies."

Yes, I agree with you, the concept of bourgeoisie had to be very flexible, for it usually meant something very different, depending the literature of the country it was applied to, something referring to one or several of the classes that separated the working class from the upper classes (that seems very general, but for me it is not a very strict concept).
I guess the question if Moby Dick is the greatest US novel of all times written in English language and why hasn´t been answered yet. These list of "The hundred best" rarely seem to include more recent works. According to them it is as i if novel writing and reading stopped about the middle of the 20. C.

[WICKES]

I'm English-British, not American, so this is an outsider perspective. I guess the first question is what does it mean to write 'the great American novel'? What is it you have to capture? Presumably, you mean which novel gets to the heart of America, expresses what it means to be an American, etc. The big themes are immigration, slavery, movement, the horizon and the realisation of the dream (and whether that brings happiness or pain).

Many people would nominate The Great Gatsby, and I can understand why. Gatsby IS America: he begins poor and becomes rich. And, like so many Americans, he is a dreamer (or fantasist). One thing that strikes outsiders is America's dream-like character. To me, Americans often seem like actors. And that's what Gatsby is – an actor. He's playing a part. Plus, of course, you get that sublime passage describing the movement west, where the narrator recalls pulling out of Chicago station and seeing the pure snow of the midwest opening out before him. Again, that gets to the heart of the US – the sense of freedom, of the horizon, of something purer and cleaner and better 'over there', away from the east, away from Europe, etc.

Personally, though, I would choose Huck Finn. It doesn't capture the immigrant experience (The Godfather movies do that as well as any novel I can think of), but it does deal with slavery and the frontier. The descriptions of life on the raft are the heart of America, of what it meant to people. And Huck, with his courage, resilience, energy and self-reliance, is the American character at its best. He also distrusts, and despises, what he calls civilisation. Again, that's very American. The story of America, certainly in the 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th century, was one of escape and fresh beginnings. Leaving aside slavery, most Americans are descended from people who wanted to escape, to start afresh. They rejected the old world, meaning Europe, with its kings and aristocrats and so on. At the end, in possibly the greatest moment in American literature, Huck says he can't stand civilisation no more and is heading off to the frontier. That, I would say, is the essence of America. If I was myself an American, my two favourite passages in all literature would be the description of "pulling out into the snow, our snow" etc in Gatsby, and Huck's description of life on the raft, plus his final plan to leave.

[mortalterror]

I reread Huckleberry Finn a year or two ago. While it used to be one of my favorite novels, it no longer is. I'd go with Moby Dick or The Great Gatsby right now.

[Vladimir777]

Moby-Dick is the greatest I've read, and I think it tackles big enough themes and is written in such a grand style that it can easily qualify as "The Great American Novel. That all being said, I am no expert.

[ssubterranean]

I have not read them all, but for me it would either be Moby Dick or Huckleberry Finn. I think Huckleberry Finn edges it. It is like nothing else I have read, and it really came alive. It is very funny. The best bit for me is when the clever girl keeps catching out Huckleberry Finn in his lies. Nevertheless, it nearly loses first place with its last few chapters. Moby Dick is very long and slow, but it picks up steam towards the end. I loved the discussions Ahab had with individual crew members; I seem to remember with a Manxman in particular.

Interestingly enough never really thought about reading Twain's works until I watched Netflix's Dave Chappelle: Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. It started me reading Tom Sawyer and got me purchased a copy of Huckleberry Finn (would have gone to my local library in post-covid 19 time).

[Vladimir777]

Interestingly enough never really thought about reading Twain's works until I watched Netflix's Dave Chappelle: Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. It started me reading Tom Sawyer and got me purchased a copy of Huckleberry Finn (would have gone to my local library in post-covid 19 time).

How was Tom Sawyer? I read Huck Finn and HS or college and loved it, but I don't consider myself as having really "read it," since it's been so long and I hate reading things for deadlines in school.

[Sancho]

How about John Steinbeck’s East of Eden or Wallace Stegner’s Big Rock Candy Mountain?

Both are big, sprawling, American novels. Chronologically speaking, both are post whaling ship tales, and post Huckleberry Finn. Both also deal the sort of things Huck may have dealt with when he “lit out for the territories.”

It’s been a while since I’ve read either and I should probably reread both - you know, whenever I find the time.

[tonywalt]

Underworld by Don Delillo - it's long - but it's a great stack of perfect vignettes describing post-modern life, in the West.

[PeterL]

Without a doubt, the greatest Novel written by an American is The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream by G. C. Edmonson. It covers everything from top to bottom, and it is fun to read. Another candidate is Causation by Peter P. Lewicke. That also covers almost everything, and it is a pleasure to read.
https://www.amazon.com/Ship-That-Sailed-Time-Stream/dp/044176097X
https://www.amazon.com/Causation-Peter-P-Lewicke-ebook/dp/B086P4G1N4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Causation+peter+P.+Lewicke&qid=1595898829&s=books&sr=1-1

[Francis Meadows]

When we talk about the Great American Novel, we mean a novel written by an American, but we also refer to a novel that somehow captures or expresses the character of the country and its inhabitants. (By the way, based on JCamilo's post, I think "Don Quixote" would qualify as expressing the Spanish character (of 1600), and "The Aeneid" was written to express the Roman character ("Sing we of arms and the man...."), etc.

Applying that criterion, I guess On the Road by Kerouac should probably be included as a contender. I have read no other novel that was, at times, such a declaration of love to the United States. At the same time, it is universal to the extent that it clearly lists the differences between the East Coast and the West Coast, and several area's in between. America to some extent becomes the universe... Which should maybe not be spoken to loud nowadays as it may give some in Washington funny ideas.

That being said, I have always felt that the concept of Great American Novel was invented by literary journalists with the intention of never finding a definite answer to the question. As long as the question remains open, they indeed keep having a job.

Francis

[ennison]

The greatest American novel that I read this year past is A Naked Singularity. I wonder if the people of Pakistan fret about What is the Greatest Pakistani Novel. Doubt it.

[hellsapoppin]

So good of folks here to consider Moby Dick by Melville as the greatest American novel. There are many reasons for justifying this but I have one that you likely have not considered up to now: several segments of this classic novel were gleaned from the thoughts, writings, and sermons of Frederick Douglass as discussed in:




https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51G368VB11L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg



This is best illustrated in Chapters VIII & IX entitled "The Pulpit" & "The Sermon":


These chapters introduce us to Father Mapple, a former mariner greatly respected by the congregants. While he is presented on tv or movie productions as white speaking with restrained tones, we are told in the book that he has "large brown hands" (p 51)* and later on that he wipes his "swarthy brow" (p 56)* and speaks like a fire-and-brimstone preacher. Swarthy as you know means black or brown. Father Mapple was a black man! And he utters words that were revolutionary for his times: he addresses the congregants as "brethren" "shipmates" and as his brothers and sisters. And, at bottom, his message is: you and I are equals.

A black man daring to call these white people "equals" was revolutionary in an era where there was slavery, genocide of Native Americans and of Hispanics in the Southwest.

This is why critics in that era called Moby Dick the most stupid book of those times. I recall reading where some critics saying that Melville was the most stupid man walking the earth back then. That two people were seen laughing at him as he was walking the streets of NYC. Small wonder why the book did not become popular until the 1920s.


Writer Wallace shows how Melville's ideas were largely those of Douglass. Thus, as Americans who believe in the equality and brotherhood of humankind, this is our ideal book for illustrating the truth of these beliefs.



















*Moby Dick, Riverside Editions, 1956

[Sancho]

Moby!
I know bounty would probably agree with that assessment. I seem to remember he’s a great admirer of Moby Dick

[bounty]

hah!

I was thinking of skipping this Sancho, but since you brought my name up i think im allowed 30 seconds for rebuttal...smiles...

I think any literary historian who digs into the lives of two people and is able to show the influence of one on another, is to be commended. it sounds like Wallace's book could make a great addition to anyone's library who was interested either in douglass, or Melville, or the history of racial dynamics.

however, there is no amount of egalitarian life that can rescue the book from being an exceptionally boring treatise on whaling, especially when considered in contrast to its lost potential as an actual adventure story.

when I read analyses of why the book is supposed to be "great" I invariably think, "what the heck are they talking about?that's not a true statement, this isnt a true statement, that's not accurate, so what, etc." I don't necessarily think a book has to have universal acclaim for it to be considered good, but given how much moby dick is reviled, I don't know how people can continually put it in the "great" category.

[Danik 2016]

Well I remember that I thought that I would find it boring and then read on and on carried by the intensity of it.

[bounty]

that's to my two points danik.

I didn't find the book intense at all, and even though I can believe people are speaking sincerely about their views, I don't share them.

which then that leads to the second point. there are bunches of people who like the book. there are bunches of people who hate the book. if the position of "this is a great book" is actually true, it has to be built, at least somewhat, on the premise of that all the people who hate the book are unenlightened troglodytes. or perhaps its just not a great book...

[Sancho]

I only read it once, but I’ve recently been considering rereading it, what with all the buzz it’s been getting on the Litnet.

I don’t remember a lot of it, but some parts I remember vividly. Queequeq for instance has some hang time. I thought it odd that Ishmael and Queequeq, strangers at the time, were booked into the same room at the inn in New Bedford. I figured it must be a 19th century thing. Their initial meeting is tense, but they become the best of friends. I laughed out loud when Ishmael woke up the next morning and Queequeq was spooning with him. I don’t remember Father Mapple being a black man, but I do remember Queequeq went to one of his services. Queequeq was a curious soul. He was also an unapologetic cannibal, a Pacific Islander from an obscure tribe, and obviously a non-Christian. Yet he and Ishmael became fast friends. And that, it seems to me, says something about Melville’s attitude towards race, friendship, social hierarchy and the brotherhood of sailors.

[bounty]

major Winchester was my favorite character on M*A*S*H. the following scene isn't essentially about moby dick but the book factors large in it and is nevertheless worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtaKMHZGv1U

my perspective however is that convicted criminals should be sentenced to read the book as punishment.

i'll be curious to hear your thoughts if you do indeed end up rereading it.

[Sancho]

Okay I’m straying pretty far from the original intent of this thread, but here’s a clip from The Life Of Brian that immediately popped into my head when I saw the M*A*S*H clip. And I agree Winchester was a compelling character. He had a depth Frank Burns did not. I’m glad the writers created him instead of just looking for a Larry Linville replacement.

https://youtu.be/TpicfnfcEiM?si=Ojc8ot2ds6N7EFJ4

By the way, enlisted guys have always done what the mad jailer is doing in the Monty Python clip — acting dumb so the brass will just go away and leave them alone.

[bounty]

yes, what made Charles so good, apart from him being a worthy foil to hawkeye, was in the way they were able to take his snobby rich persona and humanize him in desirably humble and very touching ways.

I loved life of brian and probably my favorite scene is when caeser is questioning brian and the centurion keeps smacking him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJMRxbECzow

back on the topic of moby---I mentioned earlier the attraction of pop culture references. here are a couple from my favorite fictional universe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x70v7euYqOE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdp-yKvTT-I