The Great American Novel

It's been ages since I read it, but there's not a day goes by something doesn't put me in mind of Catch-22. It's not just about America but about the way the rest of the world sees us. It's hilarious and horrifying, often simultaneously.

I can't think of any book that crystallizes the America of the last 30 years better than Bonfire of the Vanities. It's satire, but it absolutely nails the gulf between class and race that continues to define this country.

It's Huck Finn, hands down. "Alright then, I'll go to hell!" could be the best line ever uttered by a character in American Literature.

I was thinking Huck Finn as well, especially if you look at the Civil War as the defining event in American history. Huck's journey down the river is basically America's journey out of the war, with him coming to the realizations Twain hoped America would come to.

Is Dean Koontz American?

Huck Finn is the obvious choice. I'll throw in a vote for Lonesome Dove and A Farewell To Arms.

Modern choices, and perhaps too much about America's troubles and not enough about what makes it great, but I think both Slaughterhouse Five and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man are contenders.

A more positive choice: On The Road, natch.

I see where you're coming from in terms of the subject matter but to me the overall tone of that book being so cynical is the opposite of the way the rest of the world sees America, which is as (overall) the most optimistic developed nation on Earth. I mean, I think you're right in that it feels like it was written by a Brit or a Frenchman, but for that reason it also feels - to a dirty foreigner like me - like it's much less of a quintessentially American novel than the other contenders.

You do make me want to read it again though.

Sometimes, it takes a foreign perspective to really get at a subject, though. I'd argue that, despite Nabokov's origins, Lolita's got a legit claim to the title Greatest American Novel of the 20th Century (although not necessarily moreso than Gatsby, and Catch-22's also one of my all-time favorites).

A dark horse and, perhaps problematic because it's kind of gunning for GAN status - Roth's American Pastoral.

Ooh, nice one. My own pick would be Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men.

In the middle of Moby-Dick now, coincidentally, and I've been surprised by how much I've been laughing. It's a very funny book.

Has Jack London fallen out of favor?

Henry Miller & William Faulkner have several contenders.

(It has been nearly twenty years on Tropic of Cancer, but it was one of those books that changed preconcieved notions)

True, true. I guess it depends on what each person is looking for in The Great American novel, and truth be told it's obviously going to be something I've thought less about than you American guys and gals would have.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE.

Heh.

I finished Lolita several months ago. It's a powerful book and the ending felt like a punch in the gut.

Of course it is. It's filled with Dick jokes.

Of Mice and Men.

Or American Psycho.

Thanks for the laugh. I should have seen that coming but I'm glad I didn't.

I'm feeling deeply cynical today, so I'll vote for HELLS ANGELS.

Fat, stupid animals capable of great violence but only occasionally exercising this one virtue. Overall aspiring to nothing more than to ride and eat and drink and fuck their ugly hags. HST reveals that the great menace that everyone was so terrified of were just loathsome slugs thrilled at the idea of becoming legends without actually doing anything to earn it. HST is the outlier of the book, the one Great American that comes along once in a while.... as much of a degenerate as the others but in the end capable of turning it into something useful.

This is tough, I'd definitely say Huck Finn though. That book is just perfect.

But sociologically? Pelecanos's Hard Revolution makes a strong case and even Wambaugh's The Choirboys, because its a big rambling dramedy about men and society. It's the Catch 22/MASH for the LAPD(Or police and their role in society in general) The New Centurion's too.

Would any Hemingway qualify?

Huck Finn, Moby Dick, Great Gatsby should top line it in terms of canon.

Personally, I'd give it up to As I Lay Dying/Sound and the Fury and Invisible Man.

Of the last couple of decades, Sabbath Theater by Roth (shamefully haven't gotten around to American Pastoral, as I just completed the first Zuckerman cycle, and want to keep things in order) and Blood Meridian. S.T. is just a sucker punch of emotion that encapsulates much of America's post-war trajectory via a modern day Falstaffian misanthrope's survey of his seventy-plus year life, and it's a comic epic that really digs deep and earns its shattering emotional conclusion.

Blood Meridian people around here should be aware of. It makes it's own case.

Also, Rath, while I would never argue against the quality or cultural importance of To Kill A Mockingbird, it feels too slight to me to be considered one of the preeminent Great American Novels. It's a powerful story, but it doesn't go much deeper into the themes or story or characters than surface level. That's not a strike against the book in and of itself, I think the type of book you're talking about needs to be a bit denser. And while it's very well written, I don't know that it's up to the standards of a lot of the other titles bandied about. It's certainly a great American novel, but not (IMO) one of the G.A.N.

Huckleberry Finn for the win!

The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath and Dos Passo's USA Trilogy for best of the 20th century.

Moby Dick will always be my choice for The Great American Novel.

Melville was so ahead of his time with that book, but what makes it a strong candidate for me is that he was really pushing the literary envelope and trying to develop a uniquely American voice. So much of what was being written in America at the time was defined by European tastes.

Aside from all the context, however, it's an amazing novel. Mindblowing in its narrative execution, it's an encyclopedic examination of such a huge range of human experience. It's also, as Rath mentioned at the top, very funny.

Ishmael is one of literature's greatest narrators, and the novel is as much--if not more--about him and his attempt to wrestle with his story as it is Ahab. In fact, if you think Moby Dick is a revenge story, I think you missed everything that makes it unique.

Of course, everyone hated it when it came out.

I'll throw in for Richard Ford's Independence Day.