What does the rest of the world think of American Literature?

Being in and of the United States I have no real conception of what the world thinks of contemporary literature beyond what the Pulitzer community or New Yorker Crowd deems superior and was very curious to host a discussion for those members not in the United States to introduce me to how they see Current American Literature- is the Pulitzer Prize of any worth in other countries? are the big names in American literature like Roth, Cheever, McCarthy, Franzen, etc. etc. also big names overseas?

Like I said, being from America it's quite hard to gauge how say those in France take current American Literature - is it revered or reviled?

thank you all in advance for your wonderful input!

I'm in the UK, but still I'm very biased, because I love American modern fiction, much more then modern European fiction. I dont know why. Probably mainly because I love America so much (and my surname is Hussain...who knew :p)

Seriously though, my favourite authors are Cormac Mccarthy, Phillip Roth, Toni Morrison. I care about the stories they have to tell more than authors like Coetzee, or Amis right now.

Albeit My to read list is letting me delve into the classics, instead of lingering within the past 50 years. So we will see if it changes as i get to know authors like Tolstoy, Nabokov, Kawabata etc.

My general understanding though is that American writing is looked upon like anything else American over here. Its American not British. So only a few names will spring out and be well known over here, because they don't really care to make any effort and look into some of these authors. Philip Roth and Toni Morrison aren't very well-known, whereas McCarthy has achieved more fame mainly with the help of the Coen Brothers and Oprah.

Of course the "classic" American writers fare better, Faulkner, Hawthorne, Hemingway etc.

Not much of a reader of american lit, although i do like Poe and Lovecraft. I also liked some short stories by other american writers, but haven't gone out of my way to read them.

I like american literature very much and i believe that for the last two years i have been reading american lit mostly (both classics and recent works). I can only speak for myself of course, since i do not have a proper idea of what is being read in greece in general (athough the last time i checked some local authors and Hislop, Yalom, Saramango and Larsson were very high on the list of sales).

I do not think that most of the readers here in litnet are representative of their countries (as to what is being read in their countries i mean). I may be wrong of course :D

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Originally Posted by grechzoo

I'm in the UK, but still I'm very biased, because I love American modern fiction, much more then modern European fiction. I dont know why. Probably mainly because I love America so much (and my surname is Hussain...who knew :p)

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I'm also from the UK, but I'm very ambivalent about America. Racism, guns, genocide of the native population... there's a lot not too like... This makes for great fiction though! Where would Cormac Mccarthy, Phillip Roth, Toni Morrison, et. al., be without them.

US Fiction is greatly admired in the UK, maybe because the US has taken over from UK as the major player on the world stage - Roth, Bellow, McCarthy. Big authors dealing with big subjects, just like Dickens, Hardy, Eliot... and no modern UK authors...

I disagree about what you say about Philip Roth and Toni Morrison. They are very well-known in literary circles sin the UK, watch any serious review programme (e.g. Newsnight Review) and they are mentioned at least as often as Amis and gang. I think Roth, Updike & Bellow are up there with McCarthy - who watches or cares about Oprah in the UK?

I only encountered Coen + McCarthy in recent months when "No Country for Old men" popped up on the box - an amazing film!

I don't think "classic" American writers fare that well, the competition from Brits in the 19th & early 20th century tends to put them in the shade... in the UK.

Well I was mainly talking about the mainstream readers, no doubt people who know about literature will be in the know in terms of authors like Roth and Morrison.

And while they don't watch Oprah as much as America, the Oprah book club choices usually have good shelf space in the major book stores here. (at least in my experience) so that's why I mentioned her.

You are right about classic American fiction not standing up too well to the classic British authors, however again, I mentioned Hemingway and others because they are well known. Whether they are well respected compared to Dickens et. al is a different matter.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

Racism, guns, genocide of the native population... there's a lot not too like...

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As opposed to the UK's sterling past? And, you do realize much of that genocide took place because of settlers from the UK, no?

Anyways, I think America gets a lot of attention, negative and positive, for literature, as with all of its art. Though, it definitely is not as popular anywhere else as it is here in America, where we tend to see American literature as the end-all, be-all of the greatest literature ever written.

JBI, StLukes, and JCamilo need to chime in on this, they're much more knowledgeable than me on how the world sees American lit.

I think American popular fiction fairs fairly well, it's essentially true that American fantasy/sci-fi, romance, crime, etc. writers are pretty much dominant internationally.

The couple of current world-class American writers probably fair better in the English speaking world, for obvious reasons. I'm not sure McCarthy is being read as much as Saramago. I think that the English speaking bubble of around 500 million people worldwide allows American authors a bit of an edge because publishing in English can be relatively self-sustaining, you can ignore other languages without lacking a steady flow of decent writing. You still miss out on a lot though.

Personally, most of my contemporary reading does tend to jump between Canada and the US.

Edit: China is equally massive, and has an even bigger potential readership though, I'm sure they have their own popular writing that would eclipse American stuff over there.

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi

As opposed to the UK's sterling past? And, you do realize much of that genocide took place because of settlers from the UK, no?

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No, no, he's right. Racism, guns, and genocide; that's all we do here. Just like the Catholic church is just a bunch of dudes having sex with boys.

JBI? Saying what he thinks of American literature? :D

Everything depends, the prizes are just propaganda. Not just the american prizes, but any other. American imperialism of course make easier to all best-sellers come here and top names are often published.
The elite writers too and of course, the relation with hollywood helps (for example, granted a good exposition of McCarthy here). American market is a master of best-seller, so for the average reader or genre reader, it is a great source.
Critic wise, the top names receive their praise, there is not in-deepth analyse of american production.

Historically, names like Faulkner, Poe and Whitman are head to head with others big names of europe and fundamental for XX century literature. Poe perhaps the strongest. Their influence is similar as those of Lord Byron, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Kafka. However, names like T.S.Eliot is considerable minor. Even his criticism is just secundary (albeit, Borges and him got in the same path by their own legs). Wallace Stevens, Mariane Moore for example, not well-read. Political names as Emerson or Thoreau as expected, are in the limbo.

I try to read literature from all corners of the globe, though I'll readily admit I'm often lazy and don't persevere with a novel that requires too strong a knowledge of its own local culture or is written in a style that I can't get to grips with. As far as American literature goes, I really enjoy it - Franzen at the moment, no big surprise there! - with Roth, Hemingway and Fitzgerald also amongst my favourites. Of course in many ways it's galling that there is such a divide between countries - book programmes and review sections in the U.K. will often focus on purely British writers whilst totally ignoring a major release in the States, and I'm sure the reverse is true too.

But then the flip-side of that is that it leaves the reader to hunt down what he or she most wants to read. And when it's not handed to you on a plate the satisfaction of finding a terrific writer or book is all the more satisfying. Which is also why I value forums like this so highly....

Here, in France, the American writers – good or bad, authentic artists or sellers of crap – are known. The average French reader indifferently reads McCarthy as well as Dan Brown. For him, if a book is a best-seller, it’s obviously a must-read, otherwise he’s not in the hype. The American culture is highly influential in every field: detective, thrillers, horror, science-fiction, heroic-fantasy… so that every apprentice or almost tries to write like his American models. The only genre in which the average French reader prefers the products of his country is the sentimental novel: we are very strong to make beautiful crap sold by ton.

Since the Twenties or Thirties, the American novelists had caught the attention of the Europeans by the novelties they brought to this genre (actually, they developed and improved what already existed in European novels): neutrality of the narrator, presentation of the events without any psychology, multiplicity of the points of view, broken narrative, the work as a manifestation of a lost generation… Dos Passos, Hemingway, and Faulkner were highly praised by the French intellectuals. Europe having committed suicide, they thought that the center of culture and innovation had changed. Modernism and what is called post-modernism were symbolized by the American artists, who indeed continued their experimentations with people like Nabokov, Burroughs, Pynchon, DeLillo…

Nevertheless, the American writers are not much studied in the universities. The scholars still focus on the European tradition. It’s true that the Europeans have produced themselves experimentations in the 20th century.

Personally, even if I like the American literature (which I now try to read in English, but acquire a language is so long…), I feel too rooted in the European tradition and I guess that those American writers have not a deep impact upon me. I could be nasty and say that the most interesting with them is that they write in English. But in fifty years, it’s probable that the main language of the European writers will be English. It’s the logical process of a standardized world. We’re already in. I have spent many years in mastering French and now I try to stammer in a foreign tongue.

I really like American Literature. It seems to have a bigger scope than British Literature does. American Theatre is brilliant also.

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi

As opposed to the UK's sterling past? And, you do realize much of that genocide took place because of settlers from the UK, no?

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Yeah, I was kind of scratching my head too. The first people to dispossess the native population were settlers from European nations. I think it's a bit disingenuous to simply wash ones hands over in Europe and say, "Yep, it's those Americans, nothing to see here over seas, don't blame us."

If we're talking specifically after American independence that would be one thing (such as the stories by James Fenimore Cooper such as the Prairie).

there is a lot of american literature i like, but i think there might be a tendency of those in the american literary establishment to give undue praise to writers who, while not being bad per se, just aren't that amazing. Jonathan Franzen, philip roth, don delillo, john updike come to mind.

But i could just be generalising here.