What is "the great American novel"?

[Salmonchaser]

Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn;
Hemingway, For whom the Bell tolls
Jack London, I had read everything by the time I was 8. We didn’t have Tv in Alaska way back then.

 

[brymoore]

The Great Gatsby

 

[Ben Lamb]

Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter

Melville's Moby Dick

Miller's Tropic of Cancer & Big Sur & The Oranges of Hieromymous Bosch (explores post ww2 disenfranchisement that led to the Beat gen)

Burrough's Naked Lunch

And a lot of what Harley said.

 

[Irrelevant]

But what does it mean, "the great American novel"?

 

[Irrelevant]

My take is that it has to define Americans as being uniquely different than people from other locations and also in the process define the American experience

 

[Irrelevant]

Hemingway is great. But I can't think of anything he wrote that fits the bill for me. But Kesey's Sometimes A Great Notion is at the top of my list. To Kill A Mockingbird as well

 

[Irrelevant]

Stegner's Angle Of Repose

 

[Sheltowee]

Huckleberry Finn, Moby Dick or To Kill a Mockingbird for me. Might also throw in Catch-22 by Heller, The Naked and the Dead by Mailer or Invisible Man by Ellison.

Huge, huge fan of Hemingway but none of his novels are set in the US.

No Roth, no Salinger and for the love of God, no Faulkner.

 

[brymoore]

My take is that it has to define Americans as being uniquely different than people from other locations and also in the process define the American experience

You can’t ask the question and then answer two pages later!

I’ve read most of the books listed and could support a lot of them. I chose The Great Gatsby because it demonstrates the pursuit of wealth and the American Dream still has exists but new wealth cannot overcome the barriers between old money, new money, and poverty.

 

[noharleyyet]

Huckleberry Finn, Moby Dick or To Kill a Mockingbird for me. Might also throw in Catch-22 by Heller, The Naked and the Dead by Mailer or Invisible Man by Ellison.

Huge, huge fan of Hemingway but none of his novels are set in the US.

No Roth, no Salinger and for the love of God, no Faulkner.

Faulkner's darkness pales in comparison to McCathy's. Child of God will make ya take a shower.

Good thread but entirely subjective...and rightly so