Tom Sawyer hands down. Anybody care to argue with me I'll zap your butt into oblivion. Because, we do exist.
Tom Sawyer hands down. Anybody care to argue with me I'll zap your butt into oblivion. Because, we do exist.
Zap away, ET. To date in this thread, we've cast off great American authors whose works are regional and less representative of the entire of the nation as a whole. Tom Sawyer falls into that category. Beyond being representative of Twain's Missouri/Mississippi River writings, TS isn't even the best offering in that regard. Huck Finn is far better.Originally Posted by ihavebrownhaira
Tom Sawyer hands down. Anybody care to argue with me I'll zap your butt into oblivion. Because, we do exist.
The original post ask what is THE Amercan Novel and offerd Moby-Dick for discussion. For the sake of this discussion, I don't feel that Twain wrote anything better than Moby-Dick. Moby-Dick is a great novel with strong themes written by an American, but it's themes seem universal and not particularly American. That's what I jokingly refer to as Ye Ol' Rat Hole. I don't argue that any one work doesn't qualify as great. I argue that the novel doesn't capture an essence that is specifically and particularly American. And to qualify as THE American novel it needs to capture the diversity and grandeur of this nation.
I personally find this version of this topic (I've seen at least 3 other attempts flounder and die) interesting. I have a new list of novels (The Great Gatsby, On The Road, My Antonia, and Moby-Dick) to read to see if any one of them alters my opinion that Dos Passos' USA (a single story written in trilogy) captures the essence of Americain novel form.
I do know it isn't Tom Sawyer. Fine book. Not it.
No damn cat, no damn cradle - Newt Honniker
How about I bring this more up to contemporary times. I would include Truman Capote's In Cold Blood as a Great American novel. It's almost epic in scope and it revolutionizes the mixing of fact and fiction into the novel art form.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Well that question is very easy. The American novel is The Grapes of Wrath. It shows all the sides of the American people and contains an epic movement across the country. It's hard for me to think of one more American.
The U.S.A. trilogy by John Dos Passos should also be mentioned, although I haven't finished reading it yet and can't really talk about it. It is quite excellent though.
When the tupelo
Goes poop-a-lo
I'll come back to youp-a-lo
- Kilgore Trout
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain are all great American novels. However, I believe that this topic can be argued forever seeing as it is all based on opinions. I really don't think there is a definitive American novelist.
This is just the beginning.
I just read The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. It is not the answer to this question. THE American novel needs to have an American theme. Its a nationalist question that I think is focused on the nation rather than the novelist. The US has produced some great novelists (as have other countries) and those novelists have generated some great novels. Hemingway is certainly a great American author, but TSAR doesn't have an American theme to be found. Expatriate Americans living in Paris and going to the bullfighting fiesta in Pamplona does not capture any theme that is intrinsically American. It's one of the reasons I dismiss Henry James' works from consideration.
Virgil, interesting offering In Cold Blood. The difficulty I have with that one is it's almost non-fiction. Capote was diligent in getting all of the facts right and his narrative is truly chilling. I read this book over 30 years ago and I still remember that image of one of the murderers chewing aspirin out of the bottle. I'll update this thread as I work my through the other candidates for THE American novel.
No damn cat, no damn cradle - Newt Honniker
Well, In Cold Blood is a breakthrough in fiction if you ask me. The blurring of fact and fiction.
Nonetheless i think I disagree with you about The Sun Also Rises. The American themes are imbedded. For instance the contrast on the theme of morality from an American versuses a European point of view. There eare many contrasts to be made. Even the sense of freedom between the various characters.
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
The great American novel has to be On The Road. Forget Gatsby, no one does the American journey like Kerouac. He develops the diaspora between the East and West while exemplifying the haunted life. Not that I don't love The Great Gatsby but Kerouac put it all together in a way that meant much more to me.
We have to think- could an aurthor of any other nationality write the story and it would still work? It would be a monstrosity to have had an American author write Brideshead Revisited.
I would agree with that.
~
"It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
~
Kelby, even the most Gung Ho American writer would have steered well clear of Brideshead Revisited, but Evelyn Waugh's novel The Loved One, of which I have just read, through fits of laughter, the synopsis on Wikipedia, is pobably a more accurate depiction of the American commercialisation of death than any American could write. Being a recent convert to Waugh, I will make a special point of reading The Loved One.
Good point. Novels are all linked indellibly to an author's time and place. You know I would consider Brideshead the great British novel. (Among other of course.)
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
Let's hear it for Henry James! So many wonderful novels and short stories intimately showing the American experience and thought life. He helped establish respect for the American author to a degree few have matched. Whether the story is entrenched in American life and place (eg. Washington Square), or showing how Americans carried their prejudices with them to Europe (eg. The Ambassadors), James never left the American nature of his characters fail to show through. No matter that just before the end of his life he defected to the mother land...
Hmmm... well the only American novel I really liked was On the Road. In fact I thought it was pretty brilliant, it even influenced me to pack my bags at the end of last year and travel around Australia...
So which novel do you pick? No doubt James is a great American author, but that's not the question. I have difficulty accepting that any of James' works qualify as the American novel and I'd have to see a pretty sound argument to convince me. The James novels I've read seem to treat Americans and American themes from a distance. I'm not sure that the American novel can take place in France or England or any other distant place. That's why I'm more likely to accept Gatsby or The Grapes of Wrath or even On The Road as a potential answer to the question.
I've spent a lot of time of late reading through American novels and I have a long list in front of me. I'm open to any argument that gives me a basis to understand why a particular work qualifies as THE American novel. I don't buy anything by James as the answer.
I had to read In Cold Blood in high school a gazillion years ago and back then you had to go to the nonfiction section of the library to find it.Well, In Cold Blood is a breakthrough in fiction if you ask me. The blurring of fact and fiction.
No damn cat, no damn cradle - Newt Honniker
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