The great american novel, your thoughts.

In My Humble Opinion
1

What do you think is the great american novel?

I am doing this to see if there are any common bonds in the books to see if I could write a great american novel. So I figure if I see what the masses like maybe I can write something completely different and unsuspecting. thanks for the input.

as for me I would have to say Catcher in the rye. hopefully no explination is needed.

2

Never read Catcher in the Rye (shame on me!), but my favourites would have to be “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men”

3

This

4

There really is only one choice: Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn

However, I’ll add two more:

The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth – Grand in scope, bawdy, funny, and – amazingly – based on actual events (includin the eggplant).

Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon – 800 pages of utter brilliance.

5

I must agree with Huckleberry Finn. Even Hemmingway said everything starts there.

Yes, The Great Gatsby will be up there too.

6

Laugh out loud funny and a treat for sports fans.

I’ll second To Kill a Mockingbird and add

On the Road
The Sun Also Rises
The Great Gatsby which I read again recently and it is absolutely flawless - read it looking for a clunky phrase and tell me if you find one.
The Maltese Falcon
The Sheltering Sky

and one that no-one else will mention but has the hallmarks of all those above - I can read it regularly and the author has a a voice all his own. Read any of these 8 and you’ll marvel at the individuality of their vision. And you could start at the top of the list again. Anyway it’s

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius which is certainly not perfect but last time I read it I wanted to hop a flight to California. The book sounds and smells and feels like some Gen X descendent of the others.

7

Reality Chuck said,

How much of it did you actually understand? I couldn’t get through one fucking paragraph.

8

Don’t Ask mentioned A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I loved this book. I saw him on Dinner for Five the other night, and he’s very different than I imagined when reading the book. I liked him a lot.

9

As a collector of first editions, there is some general, conventional wisdom worth sharing here - you are welcome to disagree with it completely.

For the 1800’s, the G.A.N. candidates most often cited - and which are considered the most collectible, to the extent that matters - are:

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Twain
Moby Dick, or The Whale by Melville
The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne
Red Badget of Courage by Crane

Others get mentioned - e.g., Little Women and a few others - but these are really the Big Four. Of these 4, Huck and Moby Dick are generally considered the standouts. And, typically, you can think of them differently - Huck is the more accessible Voice of the Common Man type of book and Moby Dick is the academically rich, critically respected book - obviously Huck is critically appreciated, too - but Huck’s popularity started from the people and reached the critics, whereas MD sold poorly and was basically forgotten until it was re-discoverd by academics and re-introduced to the public about 50 years later…

My preference is Huck.

As for the first half of the 20th century - the books commonly held to be the best are:

The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald
A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises made a big splash, but Farewell is considered his best book)
Sound and the Fury by Faulkner (some prefere Light in August or As I Lay Dying)
The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (some prefer Babbitt, with his breakthrough book, Main Street, not as well respected. Lewis is making a bit of a comeback as the first American to have won the Nobel…)

Of these, Gatsby is pretty much considered the G.A.N. because of the beauty of the prose and more importantly the subject matter of class distinction and trying to live the American Dream of re-inventing yourself to move between classes, the way Gatsby tried and succeeded in doing only to fail in the end.

As for the 2nd half of the 20th century, the generally held best are:

On the Road by Kerouac
Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee
Catch-22 by Heller
Gravity’s Rainbow by Pynchon

Of these, Catcher and Mockingbird are considered to be the standouts, simply because Pynchon’s book is critically hailed, but almost no one has read it, whereas Cather and Mockingbird have such huge, enduring crossover appeal that they simply leave Pynchon in the dust. If a Great American Novel is only read by a cult few and academics in the forest, will it make a sound?

Of Catcher and Mockingbird, while Catcher captures the voice of the newly-recognized and disillusioned teenager, Mockingbird tends to win out because it centers on American themes of racism and shows America, in the form of Scout, transcending its racist past, with Atticus in the form of a virtuous founding father.

I would add Tim O’Brien’s The Things they Carried to the 2nd Half of the 20th Century list, and Richard Wright’s Native Son to the 1st half list (and others have been adding Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, too), but they are as widely recognized as of right now…

10

Okay - typos abound - sorry.

Catcher, not Cather.

And in the last sentence, s/b NOT as widely recognized…

Darn hamsters.

11

I can’t emphasize this enough, and it seems very few people have read this book, but The Brothers K, by David James Duncan is as close to the G.A.N. as I’ve ever read. (And I’ve read most of the previous books listed.) It’s not only Great, but EXTREMELY American - baseball, 60’s politics, religion, family strife. INCREDIBLE book. Has anyone else read this book?!

12

It is amazing how many of these books appear in another thread called The Worst books you were ever assigned," [or something close to that.]

I think things that you will have to include in your GAN would include, but not be limited to:

Racism
Journey
Isolation
Class
Individualism

Rule of the Bone, by Russell Banks is a great modern re-telling of the Huckleberry Finn story.

13

It is amazing how many of these books appear in another thread called The Worst books you were ever assigned," [or something close to that.]

I think things that you will have to include in your GAN would include, but not be limited to:

Racism
Journey
Isolation
Class
Individualism

Rule of the Bone, by Russell Banks is a great modern re-telling of the Huckleberry Finn story.

Tom Sawyer is an under-appreciated work of genius, unfairly overshadowed by Huck Finn.

14

hamsters are quick

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Mailman, you touch on a key point - what is the criteria for judging a G.A.N.? IMHO, it should be:

  1. Written by an American.
  2. Addresses one or more deeply American themes, like the ones you listed in your post.
  3. Is part of the American Canon - in other words, is assigned in school - hence leading to the overlap with the Worst Books list. Some kids are assigned books that either they simply don’t like or are assigned at the wrong time for them (again, I listed Dickens as a book I was assigned at age 10 - eesh.). I tend to favor books that are accessible and assigned to kids in the 13- 15 year old range, like To Kill a Mockingbird - they get the kid at a very impressionable time and if the book moves them, is one they will remember forever. That, IMHO is why Catcher in the Rye remain popular even those, again IMHO, it is more American in its voice than it is in is addressing of an American Theme…it is also why I am less inclined to look to Moby Dick or Gravity’s Rainbow - assigned in school, but have not crossed over as much as the other books (even though MD has be the basis for movies…)
16

Never did like “Catcher in the Rye” can’t figure out why its so popular or important. Other American authors are more interesting…

17

What about it was hard to understand? I’ll admit the early going can be daunting, but once the book takes off, it leaves everything in its dust.

18

I’m going to have to go with The Great Gatsby. There’s something about Jay Gatsby that makes him the quientessential American. I don’t really know how to say it without veering into cliche territory. His obsession with Daisy and his conclusion that he must totally remake himself in order to be worthy of her really struck a chord with me. I not only see it in myself, but I see it everywhere. Understanding Gatsby helps me navigate America better.

I love Gravity’s Rainbow, and just about all things Pyncheon (although I will admit I never finished Mason and Dixon). I spent an entire summer reading it, and images from it keep popping up in my head at random times. It’s slow going, but well worth it.

19

Clunky, no, but buried deep in that incredible spell of perfect writing is one phrase that makes me wince. Something about the “sound” of a tuning fork struck against a star… just a hair overripe. I’ll have to look it up tonight.

For myself, I would qualify your judgement of the book as, “It is as flawless as they come.”