Hmm… I’ve read all of those except “The Sound and the Fury”, but that signifies nothing.
The problem with citing Hemingway novels as examples of American literature is that they tend not to be set in the US. I would have listed For Whom the Bell Tolls (my favorite Hemingway), but it’s a novel of the Spanish Civil War.
Well, there’s always tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…
Catch 22
Sirens of Titan
Catcher in the Rye
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Graps Of Wrath
5 books that had an impact on me.
But the list could be a lot longer if I considered some more Science Fiction.
Now that you mention it, Irving might be a good choice (either Garp or A Prayer for Owen Meany) if the OP wants to read something recent (i.e. by a living author) that’s not unlike the kind of novels the great English novelists wrote, while still being certainly American and modern. But he’s too recent to be part of a canonical top five “essential” or “classic” books.
Speaking of “Irving”, there’s always Washington Irving, author of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle.
The answer there is yes, there are plenty of academics who’ll accept sci-fi/horror as “literature.” There have been scholarly works on everyone from Lovecraft to Dean Koontz. Recently when I was writing a paper for school that discussed figures like Delany and Butler, I found more scholarly sources than I knew what to do with.
ender’s game is sci/fi (and political) and it’s on a bunch of HS freshmen reading lists.
You have to include Huckleberry Finn. It is the archetype of the modern novel. Everything after that is a matter of taste and style. I noticed Faulkner, Pearl Buck, and Steinbeck mentioned on the lists above, they may be difficult to appreciate in the modern context. If you choose J.F. Cooper, make sure to read Twain’s commentary on his writing, and maybe consider that before or after J.K Rowling. Although he doesn’t get counted by many as producing great literature, try Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption.
I’d say it’s impossible to pick just five books, but try this:
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [Twain] (read Tom Sawyer first if you have the time)
- The Good Earth [Buck], The Grapes of Wrath [Steinbeck], As I Lay Dying [Faulkner] (pick one)
- The Shawshank Redemption [King]
- Cat’s Cradle [Vonnegut] (Slaughterhouse is more well know, but over-rated)
- Portnoy’s Complaint [Roth], or The Cider House Rules [Irving]
Then read all the rest.
If the focus is on getting a feel for American literature, I would probably take a slightly different approach and try to get one western (“Lonesome Dove”??) and one detective novel.
My Antonia - a love letter to the American plains
To Kill a Mockingbird - the best portrait of black/white racism in the American South
Huck Finn - life on the Mississippi, real dialect, skewering of slavery
The Great Gatsby - New York, classes in a ‘classless’ society
East of Eden - I don’t know. It just rocks. Plus, California.
The Good Earth is a great, great book, but its soul is not American.
Why would you be shocked?
The topic of the OP is not “Name a whole bunch of important pieces of American literature.” It’s “The Five Essential American Literature Books.”
The fact that a sci-fi book, or even a Hemingway book, might not make such a short list is not that surprising at all. Any list of only 5 books has to leave off so much important literature that the whole thing is becomes an exercise in futility.
I would add the Short Story to the list of things American Lit excels at. Even authors with great novels often write amazing short stories that give a better look at the “American Experience” than their novels.
As for my top 5:
- A book of American Classic Short Stories - including Twain, Hemingway, Cather, Crane, Emerson, Capote for certain, just to name a few
- Lonesome Dove by McMurtry
- Catch-22 by Heller
- To Kill a Mockingbird - of course
- Something by Elmore Leonard - Take your pick
Also, no foray into American Lit would be complete without Howl by Ginsberg and Leaves of Grass by Whitman
He’s English.
Off the top of my head:
Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five
Mark Twain Life on the Mississippi
Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried
John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath
Herman Melville Moby Dick
Honorable Mention:
Joseph Heller Catch-22
Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea
Try some David Weber. He kind of fits in this discussion, as his “Honor Harrington” series is like Heinlein channeling C.S. Forester, or vice versa.
I found it spoke to the American situation as well as the novels set here. But it’s a matter of taste and style again. I listed three in that genre because each will speak to people differently. To me, Grapes would qualify best as having an American ‘soul’ though.
Five personal favorites of American lit in no particular order:
East of Eden
Moby Dick
Huckleberry Finn
To Kill A Mockingbird
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas
I’m thinking that if you’ll really want to be able to say “oh, I’ve read the most important stuff,” then that automatically leaves you without some of the options you’ve been given. Cat’s Cradle is great, but it’s not going to make it into too many top 100 lists, much less top 5; and more to the point, it doesn’t really feel “canon-y” (I’d have to check tomorrow, but I think none of the traditional “arbiters” of canon, the big anthologies, carry more than a Vonnegut short-story).
My top five of Am-Lit survey through the ages:
- 1820-1860. Moby-Dick. Really, you can’t do without that. It’s wry, engaging, challenging, almost quintessentially American in its nonchalant acceptance of different cultures and peoples.
- 1860-1920. Huckleberry Finn–not Tom Sawyer. Sawyer is essentially a (good) juvenile story, and this is precisely what Huckleberry Finn isn’t until the end, when Twain, that twat, ruins it all. Instead, it’s a serious meditation on good, evil, right, wrong, and what it means to have to make decisions on one’s own, among many other reasons.
- 1920-1950. The Great Gatsby or Manhattan Transfer. Both 1920s novels, both concerned, roughly, with making oneself in the classic American sense (with a twist, of course), rags-to-riches (and, in the case of MT, riches to rags) stories. I’m personally in favor of Manhattan Transfer, which gives you a full dose of modernist stylistics, too.
- 1950-1980. The Adventures of Augie March or The Sot-Weed Factor. Both these books are far more free about doing away with the classic American dream of self-fulfillment, as well as notions of personal heroism. I prefer The Sot-Weed Factor, but that may be because it’s my favorite book ever…
- 1980-today. Beloved. I really don’t like this book, but it’s impossible not to read in such a survey.
Now, essentials that you’re missing:
- The Scarlet Letter. Be glad you do, but it’s also an essential book to understand American literature.
- The Rise of Silas Lapham. Fit it in sometime: not as essential as Huckleberry Finn, but a superb read. I’ve said it before on this board, I am amazed that a single book can be populated by so many good people, and still not make a boring story.
- The Sound and the Fury. I’d also say be glad you do: tremendous achievement, horrible read.
- Lolita; Catch-22; The Naked and the Dead. All superb reads.
- Far too many to count, actually, in the rough time frame.
And having gone through this, you should really read more American literature. This is missing so much great stuff…
Obviously, but that book is in itself a spirited education in early American writing that can easily stand in place of plowing through texts by Hawthorne, Cooper, etc.