american lit

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Originally Posted by JBI

You forget that a) there is more to literature than novels, and b) even novelists know this, and many of them read poetry extensively.

Not having read the central poet, and commenting on the whole, is like talking about Southern Gothic without having read Faulkner.

But yeah, I guess since it's not a novel it doesn't count - yeah right, good luck then.

Either way though, the second half of the twentieth century in American literature doesn't seem to be about the betterment of the individual as you suggest, but more about the failure of the individual.

But then again, you haven't read Stevens, so who knows what other giants you haven't read.

One genre, novels, isn't literature, and isn't enough to understand a time period, even if you are only talking about novels.

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It would be impossible to dispute that poetry is not literature but, notwithstanding the fact that some authors have also written poetry, the reading public are largely concerned with novels. If that were not so, there would be as many books on poetry as there are novels in the average bookstore. I don't doubt that poetry can open up insightful perspectives in a way that novels cannot, but they are two different disciplines and if someone prefers novels as a way of seeing the world, that is what they will read.
I dont think I said that post-WW11 American writing is about the betterment of the individual, but I agree with you that it's more about the failure of the individual.

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

I cannot agree with your comment on American literature but I would say that there has been a dirth of great writing both in the USA and Europe since WW11; I cannot speak for other parts of the world as I have not studied them but it is likely that a similar situation applies.
Much of the writing that has achieved recognition since WW11 is as a result of clever marketing; a case in point being `Catch-22` a mildly, but self- consciously, funny book about the folly of war. It is this `Hey! Look how clever I am ` quality that denies so many post-war writers any claim to importance.
The American authors you have mentioned favourably did not need this form of self-advertisement in their writing and neither, I would contend, did Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Steinbeck etc. etc. The difference in their style was partly occasioned by the disruption of WW1 on the arts per se but I would submit that they are not inferior to their predecessors.
However, the hallmark of post WW11 writing , as with the arts in general, is a lack of profundity that relegates much of it to the superficial. Obviously, I am not referring only to the `best sellers` but writing in general.
Perhaps this post will engender a negative response from those who identify with the post-war period more readily than I do and names such as Roth, Bellow, Rushdie, Amis, Grass, Boll etc.etc.will be mentioned, but I suggest that they only go to underline my theory.
If that is not the case, a glance at the writers most frequently mentioned within this forum will.

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there's some validity to the notion that affluence is anathema to great literature, the premise being that great literature is synonymous to great subject matter, and that comfortable middle to upper middle class lives are hardly the stuff to inspire awe and wonder.

i wouldn't be so cynical to think, however, that acclaimed post ww2 american literature is due to slick advertisement, nor naive enough to think that publishers of melville, hawthorne, hemingway and scott fitzgerald were above exaggerations and embellishments. furthermore i wouldn't classify fitzgerald's stories about young, idle and rich americans squandering their wealth and making *** of themselves in europe and elsewhere exactly thought provoking.

Oh yeah, so we should ignore the poetic tradition - it has had no effect on American letters...

Seriously that's closed minded. You'd be surprised how many people are effected by Wallace Stevens, how many wannabe poets scribbling crummy lyrics are so enveloped by him without even knowing. Just go to the Personal Poetry board - it wreaks of Stevens.

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Originally Posted by Dr. Hill

Lolita was written by Vladimir Nabokov, a Russian, and The Great Gatsby was mediocre. Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird were not awful, though I can't claim impressed.

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Fair enough for the first one :)
To Kill A Mockingbird was actually mediocre, I just put that on because some people like it.
The Great Gatsby was not mediocre. You may have not liked it, but how can you dismiss this as 'mediocre'?:
And as I sat there, brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out Daisy's light at the end of his dock. He had come such a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it. But what he did not know was that it was already behind him, somewhere in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning ——

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Originally Posted by PabloQ

I've read Gravity's Rainbow twice and I can't tell you much about it except the first line:
A screaming came across the sky.
The name of its main character:
Tyrone Slothrop
I know that it's nihilistic and absurd. I also know that I didn't get the jokes or the point. I have it on the shelf and I'll probably read it again, but Pynchon writes from a place that I don't quite get. But he's like a car wreck, you can't look away.
Other post-WW2 writers/works I'd recommend are Vonnegut (Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhous-Five), Barthelme, Cheever, and Barth (try Giles Goat-Boy).
Never read The Bell Jar. Probably won't.

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I find it thought provoking that all of the books you have on your pending list are pre WW11. We can't know for certain but we can be reasonably sure that few, if any, of the post WW11 writers you have recommended will still be in demand some 80 years after they were written.
Incidentally, I know from previous posts that you have read McTeague and The Octopus by Frank Norris as part of your tour of American writers. I don't know if you have read The Pit but it is the culmination of his work; being the last book he wrote before he died at the age of thirty-two. He never lived to write The Wolf; the last in his projected trilogy. I would so liked to have read it. His death is a real American tragedy.

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

Fair enough for the first one :)
To Kill A Mockingbird was actually mediocre, I just put that on because some people like it.
The Great Gatsby was not mediocre. You may have not liked it, but how can you dismiss this as 'mediocre'?:
And as I sat there, brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out Daisy's light at the end of his dock. He had come such a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it. But what he did not know was that it was already behind him, somewhere in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning ——

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Yes, it's wonderful writing and one can only feel sorry for those who are unable to see it.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Oh yeah, so we should ignore the poetic tradition - it has had no effect on American letters...

Seriously that's closed minded. You'd be surprised how many people are effected by Wallace Stevens, how many wannabe poets scribbling crummy lyrics are so enveloped by him without even knowing. Just go to the Personal Poetry board - it wreaks of Stevens.

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Why are you trying to put words into my mouth? I haven't suggested or implied that poetry isnt integral to American letters and I don't deny that there are many people who find poetry wonderfully inspiring. There are plenty of contributers to this forum who participate in both.

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Originally Posted by chasestalling

there's some validity to the notion that affluence is anathema to great literature, the premise being that great literature is synonymous to great subject matter, and that comfortable middle to upper middle class lives are hardly the stuff to inspire awe and wonder.

i wouldn't be so cynical to think, however, that acclaimed post ww2 american literature is due to slick advertisement, nor naive enough to think that publishers of melville, hawthorne, hemingway and scott fitzgerald were above exaggerations and embellishments. furthermore i wouldn't classify fitzgerald's stories about young, idle and rich americans squandering their wealth and making *** of themselves in europe and elsewhere exactly thought provoking.

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Where have I said that affluence is anathema to great literature? And why are comfortable middle/upper class lives unable to inspire great writing?
There is plenty of evidence to the contrary; Jane Austen and John Galsworthy are but two examples. One of the greatest German novels ever written is Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann and is in similar vein.
You may think I am being cynical with regard to the hype that surrounds so much post WW11 writing and naive about pre-war publishers but it is hardly possible for someone to a cynic and a naif at one and the same time.
As for Fitzgerald's stories about wealthy young americans swanning around Europe and elsewhere, it's in the writing that they become interesting.

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

I find it thought provoking that all of the books you have on your pending list are pre WW11. We can't know for certain but we can be reasonably sure that few, if any, of the post WW11 writers you have recommended will still be in demand some 80 years after they were written.
Incidentally, I know from previous posts that you have read McTeague and The Octopus by Frank Norris as part of your tour of American writers. I don't know if you have read The Pit but it is the culmination of his work; being the last book he wrote before he died at the age of thirty-two. He never lived to write The Wolf; the last in his projected trilogy. I would so liked to have read it. His death is a real American tragedy.

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The primary purpose of my post was to respond to the original post in the thread. I quite agree that only time will tell if any of the authors I recommended will stand the test of time. I suspect Vonnegut's got a better chance than Pynchon does because Kurt's easier to understand. Pynchon though is clearly the better artist. He labors over the words whether the reader appreciates it or not. I still remember looking for missing pages at the end of The Crying of Lot 49. That one's right there on the reread list as well.

I was trying to give the original poster some other as yet unmentioned post-WW2 novelists to consider. More come to mind -- Mailer, Malamud, Bellow. All we know is that in their time, these authors have held critical acclaim, which gives them a better chance of survival over 80 years than selling a gazillion books about teenage wizards (sorry JBI, couldn't resist:brow:). I think some will be taught in high schools and colleges and others will fade away.

Which brings me to Norris. He's the best naturalist I've read thus far. The Pit is on the shelf in the post Dos Passos morass. I'm very much looking forward to it. But first, I've lined up America's 20th century giants for some samples -- Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Faulkner. I've read them before, but when I was younger and much less appreciative. Reading them on the heals of Fitzgerald and Dos Passos (not to mention Norris, Howells, Crane, and James) should give me enough background on this segment of American Literature (novel division) to post a few opinions.

p.s. I know Rowling is Scottish. Not the point.

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

Why are you trying to put words into my mouth? I haven't suggested or implied that poetry isnt integral to American letters and I don't deny that there are many people who find poetry wonderfully inspiring. There are plenty of contributers to this forum who participate in both.

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Plenty is quite a hyperbolic word. I would ballpark at 10 - give or take, unless participate means post once.

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

Why are you trying to put words into my mouth? I haven't suggested or implied that poetry isnt integral to American letters and I don't deny that there are many people who find poetry wonderfully inspiring. There are plenty of contributers to this forum who participate in both.

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As regards your last statement there, the majority of people who would be reading any of the 20th Century American novels with any seriousness (I mean this in a literary way, if catch my drift), would undoubtedly read poetry as well and not just stick to the genre of novels.

Indeed, when I first began reading novels when I was younger (slightly younger - I'm not too old even now), I quickly realized that if I was to understand anything about literature during any time period, I would have to read a ton of poetry. At first this seemed a chore, but my mind has obviously changed since then.

"hey, look how clever i am," [a] quality that denies so many post war writers any claim to importance....you're asserting that the great majority of post ww2 writers who have achieved some sort of acclaim have earned their acclaim not on literary merit but clever marketing. that's a lot of books and writers you're throwing under the bus. and if you know you can do better, the more power to you.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Plenty is quite a hyperbolic word. I would ballpark at 10 - give or take, unless participate means post once.

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There are a good many more than ten contributors to the Poems, Poets and Poetry Forum and the very latest is a thread on Wallace Stevens.
You might care to check it out.

EDIT: Ah, I hadn't realized the discussion continued much further without me.

I think the most modern American poet I take quite a liking to is Charles Bukowski. Granted, his literature is much less serious than that of most, but I find it entertaining nonetheless.

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Originally Posted by chasestalling

"hey, look how clever i am," [a] quality that denies so many post war writers any claim to importance....you're asserting that the great majority of post ww2 writers who have achieved some sort of acclaim have earned their acclaim not on literary merit but clever marketing. that's a lot of books and writers you're throwing under the bus. and if you know you can do better, the more power to you.

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I'm afraid that hype characterises much of the post WW11 writing scene; here's what I felt obliged to reply another member who complained about the obsession with Harry Potter.

The reason why "everyone is so obsessed over it" is because they are too gullible to see that they are being used.
In a world where the lowest common denominator has become the touchstone for excellence it is hardly surprising that so much juvenilia fills the bookstores.
Obviously, there are some childrens' books that might be considered as literature but they were written before the advent of mass marketing and the band-wagon syndrome that has reduced publishing to an outlet for whatever people can be gulled into buying.

I'm old enough to know that this scenario has prevailed for some time.