What is THE American novel?

[five-trey]

How do you explain that, in the space of two years, while Byron was in Venice I think, he estimated that he had at least 200 women? Do you really think his behaviour was exceptional for a strong-willed attractive man? Such people are to be found today, as they were back then, as they were in Shakespeare's time, as the were in Abelard & Heloise's time, and St Augustine's time, and Plato, at the time of Alcibiades.

You say 18thC Puritan America was very different to 19thC Secular America. But it's those terms and ways of describing as Puritan and Secular that I disbelieve in. Where do you get that info? It's not from the great novels. If you read The Scarlet Letter, and compare it with - well, I don't think I've read any American 18thC novel - but compare it with an 18thC English novel, like Tom Jones: the people to be found in both books are absolutely no different; the same human nature on display. There's no mention of puritanism and secularism at their most insightful part.

All such terms don't flourish until you read the parasitical commentaries, which is the writing least read in all times.

Excuse me for using saying 19th century America. What I was meant to say was early, secular 20th century America, or very late 19th century.

Anyways, compare the society portrayed in The Scarlett Letter to that in The Great Gatsby.


Of course humans have the same natural drives throughout history, but as the standards of society change, so does the definition of these drives. All men want success; in The Scarlett Letter that is defined as being a good Chrsitian, remaining in your role, and following "the way of God;" in The Great Gatsby, that success lies in material gain and expensive entertainment. Most end up hollow and hypocritical, but that doesn't change the fact that the two time periods are far different from each other.

[The Comedian]

I'll say it's Walden -- it has the voice of protest, the hypocritical undertones, experimental spirit, soul-searching, delight, agrarianism, and more. It contains the kind of life, the kind of soul that most Americans would be proud to own.

[Virgil]

Originally, yes, but look at the books being named - the term has long since lost its meaning - Faulkner, even, sits outside that. Melville perhaps is the last in the line - I don't particularly care for Twain, or for Hawthorne for that matter, but really, the fact that such a term can be applied to a modernist work is absurd - the notion should have, by your definition, died with the turn of the century, or at least the Great War, but still you hear this term thrown around a lot. What more could it mean than simply the great American vision, the great American piece of art. I don't see people speaking that way about, for instance, Manzoni, who is perhaps the most read Italian novelist, and I would think most certainly wrote the most read Italian novel, I Promessi Spossi, yet we don't go out and say, the Great Italian novel.

I can't speak for the Italian novel, but I do know they also feel a sense of insecurity when it comes to modern literature. I maintain that Americans still feel insecure about the novel. Frankly other than Faulkner we do not have a novelist that has churned out more than one great novel. What was the last great American novel? It's still pathetic compared to European tradition. Perhaps Bellow is OK, and Morrison has Beloved and Capote has In Cold Blood. Updike is superficial and while I've never read Pynchon or DiLilio, they don't strike me as heavyweights. I maintain that we Americans are still insecure about the novel, and so we still search for that Great American novel.

[jon1jt]

This is a great discussion. I like what JBI is saying about Faulkner, Melville, and Fitzgerald having localized voices and as Virgil states, the same goes for Huck Finn. I think about this topic often, and for me personally, the Great American Novel is Call of the Wild by Jack London followed by On The Road by Jack Kerouac.

Objectively, I have to agree with semi-fly


According to this criteria, I would award the title of The Great American Novel to East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

As for the recent turn in this conversation, I have one statement:
America is not a country, it is an expanse of land - a landscape popupulated by individuals each with their own attributes and nuances of perspective. Therefore, the varied political climates, social spheres, and religious ideologies that have become our cultural watermarks should be omitted from consideration in this topic as they are more fabrications and generalizations than inherent truths. Patriotism and nationalism and all that jazz belongs in the arena of "The United States", NOT America. We seem to be confusing mountains and freedom with parades and flags.

You pay us Americans a big compliment. I'll leave it there.

Twain never inspired anybody and neither did Faulkner or Steinbeck. Call Of The Wild is a nice adventure story. Melville wrote a masterpiece that just happened not to rise to Great American Novel status. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby died with the Stock Market Crash of 29. The Great Gatsy was a fun story.

The award goes to Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and Jack Kerouac's On The Road. Unlike Hemingway and his book, On The Road was written in America about America by an author who loved and appreciated America and saw himself as an American traveling the land and writing about the good and sometimes ugly things he did. Most critical lit mags as well as US high school and college textbooks in history, culture and society agree with this selection. Now you don't have to agree, but that's the consensus---a consensus I should mention, that goes beyond America's borders.

[PabloQ]

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.

Joining the party late kids and staying on theme of the The American Novel. I don't believe the original question says Greatest or Best, so I think this thread qualifies as interesting discussion. It qualifies as the usual thread of this kind in that includes Ye Olde Rat Hole, that dungeon of off-topic tripe seemingly designed to bore the crap out of me.

Anyway, Virgil's point about the vastness of the United States (and yes, kids that is what we mean by American in this discussion) is key. The work has to capture the width and breadth of this country, its vastness, the diversity of its peoples, its culture, its ethos, and its heartbeat. With all due respect to the other novels nominated, I put forth USA by John Dos Passos. Although it is written in three novels it is a comprehensive whole. What qualifies it for this discussion is that its a landscape and not a portrait.
One of Dos Passos' inspirations for the style of USA is the work of Mexican muralist Diego Garcia. Dos Passos uses vignettes he calls NewsReels to capture headlines, snippets of news stories or ads, song lyrics, and quotations to provide some of the range of events indicative of the times. He includes a series of biographies on influential individuals who helped to form the character of the US in one form or another. He includes brief recollections that he calls the Camera's Eye. The reader is never quite sure who the narrator is, but they are stream of conscious recollections appropriate to moving the story along. But most of all USA is the story of people. These people cross each other's paths. They interact with the times between 1900 and the stock market crash of 1929. Some of those characters actually make a part of that history.

Gatsby is a portrait and may be the best written novel by an American author (according to some), but that wasn't the question. Steinbeck is to California what Faulkner is to Mississippi. And I don't mean to begrudge any American author his or her due, but the arguments are in this thread against the regional voice and the points are well made. Dos Passos transcends regionalism and gives a truly nationalistic view, although his politics do drip through the seams more than a few times.

One last thought, when you start a post with "I haven't read the Great Gatsby, but..." and then go on for four more paragraphs, none of us should read beyond those first seven words. So in conclusion, JBI, I haven't read My Antonio, but it's sitting yonder on the shelf and I look forward to reading it based on your comments.

[jon1jt]

Joining the party late kids and staying on theme of the The American Novel. I don't believe the original question says Greatest or Best, so I think this thread qualifies as interesting discussion. It qualifies as the usual thread of this kind in that includes Ye Olde Rat Hole, that dungeon of off-topic tripe seemingly designed to bore the crap out of me.

Well maybe that's because the OP asks, What is THE American novel? the capitalization creating the ambiguity. All interpretations being equal, that Ye Olde Rat Hole of off-topic tripe includes your commentary, which in fact bored the crap out of me.

[five-trey]

I haven't read the Great Gatsby, but I've read similar novels from the same time period, so I know what you're talking about.

We're not going to agree on this, so I won't keep going on, but I do want to answer your last post.

The people who seek material gain in the Great Gatsby, do you really think such people were not to be found in the society Hawthorne was observing, every inch as materialistic and successful as the people from a 20thC novel? And equally, do you also think the humble, homely, grateful, but fiercely strong woman who bore the scarlet letter was not to be found in the society observed in Gatsby, or Tender is the Night? If not somewhere acknowledged in the novel, then written about by another novelist down the road from Fitzgerald?

To let one idea define a whole time, I think that way of conceiving of the past is totally half-baked. It does not correspond to the facts: there were wealthy, powerful people in the society to be found in the Scarlet Letter novel. Did they get that by being pious and knowing their station? No, of course not: wealth is to be had by aggressive assertion and cunning wiles in any time period. Hawthorne could only do so much in one novel. These definitions you talk about are wiped off the face of the earth by a novel like War and Peace, which, in the space of one novel, contains all these sorts of people which you bracket off stiffly into different time periods. So, how do you explain the existence of a panoramic novel like War and Peace? Your definitions for certain time periods do not allow it.

Everyone seems to have this funny way of looking at history, like it's some one-dimensional fairytale land that you step into. There is no reason to think that at any stage the past has been different to how things are today. Of course, I take into account advanced technology, that some countries are wealthier than others, that some laws are more oppressive. But the behaviour on the ground on a daily basis was identical - identical, I must re-iterate. And it is all this daily activity that life is made up of and which novels reflect, else they'd have no relevance. Otherwise, ancient poetry and fiction would simply not make sense to us today.

Read The Great Gatsby. What I'm describing to you, is not just parts of the population, its an enormous culture that Fitzgerald portrays. Society in the two novels is so wholey different. I know people are composed of the same drives and ideas throughout history, but the time they grow up in has a tremendous impact on them.


The main thing to compare is the contrasting views of adultery. The Scarlet Letter shows it as something completely immoral; absolute damnation. The Great Gatsby shows adultery and promiscuity as a nonchalant act that everyone is used to and society accepts.

[PabloQ]

Well maybe that's because the OP asks, What is THE American novel? the capitalization creating the ambiguity. All interpretations being equal, that Ye Olde Rat Hole of off-topic tripe includes your commentary, which in fact bored the crap out of me.

Insights such as these truly advance the discussion of the thread. Looking forward to more.

The award goes to Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and Jack Kerouac's On The Road. Unlike Hemingway and his book, On The Road was written in America about America by an author who loved and appreciated America and saw himself as an American traveling the land and writing about the good and sometimes ugly things he did. Most critical lit mags as well as US high school and college textbooks in history, culture and society agree with this selection.

Well, if the US high school is the source to be trusted, I nominate Treasure Island. I doubt The Sun Also Rises qualifies but it's next on my list and I'll see how it compares to USA. I doubt it captures the broad landscape of America that Dos Passos does. And I guess I'm going to be forced to read Kerouac so I can refute the view or be overwhelmed by how wrong I am about Dos Passos.

[phoenix151]

I'm sorry, but I'm a bit confused about The Sun Also Rises. I get the whole "expatriate" and "lost generation" thing, but how does one associate the book with the "American novel"? It isn't set in America - it isn't about America - I'm not even sure there is any mention of America in it whatsoever. It is a "war is bad but life goes on anyway" story in which a group a people wonder around, argue, get drunk, and go fishing. The book's original title was Fiesta and although charming, it is aimless and cheeky.
I DID enjoy the book, and I revere Hemmingway, but I can't wrap my mind around how the book is considered in this thread.

?????

[Virgil]

I'm sorry, but I'm a bit confused about The Sun Also Rises. I get the whole "expatriate" and "lost generation" thing, but how does one associate the book with the "American novel"? It isn't set in America - it isn't about America - I'm not even sure there is any mention of America in it whatsoever. It is a "war is bad but life goes on anyway" story in which a group a people wonder around, argue, get drunk, and go fishing. The book's original title was Fiesta and although charming, it is aimless and cheeky.
I DID enjoy the book, and I revere Hemmingway, but I can't wrap my mind around how the book is considered in this thread.

?????

Most of the major characters are American, including the central character who reflects on his Americanism. Actually the other countries stand in contra-distinction to Jake's American values.

[phoenix151]

That makes sense. Thanks.

[jon1jt]

Insights such as these truly advance the discussion of the thread. Looking forward to more.

Pot calling the kettle black, eh? Now if you only listened to the advice you give others the discussion would advance.

Just in case others missed it, I want to let them know what you said about those who didn't follow the thread according to Pablo.

Joining the party late kids and staying on theme of the The American Novel. I don't believe the original question says Greatest or Best, so I think this thread qualifies as interesting discussion. It qualifies as the usual thread of this kind in that includes Ye Olde Rat Hole, that dungeon of off-topic tripe seemingly designed to bore the crap out of me.

*
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Well, if the US high school is the source to be trusted, I nominate Treasure Island. I doubt The Sun Also Rises qualifies but it's next on my list and I'll see how it compares to USA. I doubt it captures the broad landscape of America that Dos Passos does. And I guess I'm going to be forced to read Kerouac so I can refute the view or be overwhelmed by how wrong I am about Dos Passos.

From what I've read of yours, Pablo, Treasure Island is a good reading level for you, yes.

[phoenix151]

I think the criteria for these discussions boards includes one having a penchant for banter, and I think we all meet this requirement.

[hellsapoppin]

I agree that Moby Dick was the definitive 19th century novel. What a visionary Melville was to write a book of such great depth!

Back then Melville was laughed at. Critics said his writing was the most stupid book ever written. Today the book is acknowledged by many as the USA's greatest writing.

Imagine what a daring thing it was for someone to portray a black man such as Queequeg forging a brotherhood with a white man like Ishmael. An integrated church in segregated New England presided over by a black preacher in Father Mapple. Mapple was a fictional character based on Edward Thompson Taylor who preached in integrated churches -- very unusual for that era.

The color white is usually portrayed to this day as representing good, purity, or cleanliness. In Moby Dick it is portrayed as being the embodiment of evil (the whale is white; see also Chapter XLII where several examples are given which display white as evil). Critics of that era viewed that as blasphemy!

There is so much to that book that one could write an encyclopedia just to analyze it. What a writing!

[five-trey]

^^^Queequeg wasn't black as I recall. The way Melville described him, he sounded more like a kind of Mayan/Aztec or some type of South American tribe. Maybe African but not black. Dagoo was a black harpooner and I doubt Melville intended for two of the three to be of the same ethnicity.


But yeah, Moby-Dick is so deep and has so many interpretations. Its really brilliant.