tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256801828148573136.post7534584444865159345..comments2024-01-26T17:29:53.415-05:00Comments on Reader's Almanac: After 150 years, readers and writers still wonder: Is there—or can there be—a Great American Novel?The Library of Americahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17586915922688562543noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256801828148573136.post-50136776767676714642011-04-15T02:44:46.037-04:002011-04-15T02:44:46.037-04:00"The Great Gatsby" comes awfully damn cl..."The Great Gatsby" comes awfully damn close, particularly for Fitzgerald's exposure of the Horatio Alger myth (distinctly American) as rotten at it's core.Rodger Jacobshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10304919234100807226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256801828148573136.post-75416572528811003202011-04-14T16:59:28.884-04:002011-04-14T16:59:28.884-04:00Sometimes I feel like "the Great American Nov...Sometimes I feel like "the Great American Novel" is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You search and reach for it your whole career/life but while you might get close, you can never actually get to it. It's almost like this beautiful myth - a quest a good writer goes on but can never truly fulfill.<br /><br />But it's still fun to point fingers and come up with winning titles regardless this occasional sentiment...Meytal Radzinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15805413335735169073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256801828148573136.post-17659822365289697092011-04-14T00:02:36.525-04:002011-04-14T00:02:36.525-04:00Maybe it's saying something about novels, but...Maybe it's saying something about novels, but it strikes me that a lot of the books on the Wikipedia list are quests of one kind or another. Regardless, I go with Moby Dick.Guy Aronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00178412788745855166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256801828148573136.post-30540429911467872682011-04-13T22:14:39.209-04:002011-04-13T22:14:39.209-04:00I do think the trick really is to go back to De Fo...I do think the trick really is to go back to De Forest's criteria. The Great American Novel was a well-defined concept at its inception, regardless of how we have idealized or elevated the concept even further (look at us all capitalized it like a proper noun!). For my own part, I can't help but think that De Forest was either promoting his own writing style - which conveniently followed his own concept of the Great American Novel - or maybe he was just being rhetorical.Rob Velellahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14284492589098267999noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256801828148573136.post-88492089301874671012011-04-13T21:32:29.283-04:002011-04-13T21:32:29.283-04:00I'm inclined to agree with Martin Amis: "...I'm inclined to agree with Martin Amis: "<em>The Adventures of Augie March</em> is the Great American Novel. Search no further."<br /><br />It's true, though. Augie seems to represent America itself--a hopeless dreamer ruled by his passions, starting out with nothing and ending up with that same nothing, though having learned more than a few lessons along the way. It's a novel that's thoroughly American all the way down to its prose, as Amis points out in his essay "The American Eagle":<br /><br />"Why is 'loud-played music', in a dimestore, so much better than 'loud'? Because it suggests wilfulness, vulgarity and youth, whereas 'loud' is just loud. <em>Augie March</em> isn't written in English; its job is to make you feel how beautiful <em>American</em> is, with its jazzy verbs: 'it sent my blood happy', 'to close a deal', 'to run [a nickel] into a fortune', 'we were making twelve knots', 'cover the house' (get around it), 'beat a check' (leave without paying it), 'to make time with Mimi' (seduce), 'This is where I shake you, Augie' (reject). Never mind the p's and q's of fine prose."<br /><br />Certainly there are other novels on the Wikipedia list that are Great American Novels (and great American novels), but for there to be THE Great American Novel? Maybe the search, as Amis says, is over.<br /><br />But then again, speaking as a writer, I might want to say that the search for the Great American Novel will go on. I think all writers might wish that, out of our delusional optimism.Patrick Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00855610511439148391noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-256801828148573136.post-78780286725620048562011-04-13T11:52:16.755-04:002011-04-13T11:52:16.755-04:00Maybe Huck Finn or Gone with the Wind or my two fa...Maybe Huck Finn or Gone with the Wind or my two favorite American novels The House of Mirth or Blood Meridian. And perhaps even American Pastoral or Revolutionary Road. Or the Grapes of Wrath. KevinAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com