The Great American Novel

by William Carlos Williams

First published in 1923 in Paris in an edition of three hundred copies, this satiric novel by the great American poet is "a satire on the novel form in which a little -(female) Ford car falls more or less in love with a Mack truck." For the most part, however, this work is a serious attempt to write a novel with the recognition that such a work is impossible to write within established conventions. Although long available from New Directions, this edition, by presenting it alone, puts the work into new focus, and reveals its importance in Williams’ career.

Genres: Fiction, Poetry, Novels, American Fiction, Contemporary

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1923

About the author

William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine. Williams "worked harder at being a writer than he did at being a physician," wrote biographer Linda Wagner-Martin. During his long lifetime, Williams excelled both as a poet and a physician.

Although his primary occupation was as a doctor, Williams had a full literary career. His work consists of short stories, poems, plays, novels, critical essays, an autobiography, translations, and correspondence. He wrote at night and spent weekends in New York City with friends—writers and artists like the avant-garde painters Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia and the poets Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore. He became involved in the Imagist movement but soon he began to develop opinions that differed from those of his poetic peers, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot. Later in his life, Williams toured the United States giving poetry readings and lectures.

In May 1963, he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems (1962) and the Gold Medal for Poetry of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. The Poetry Society of America continues to honor William Carlos Williams by presenting an annual award in his name for the best book of poetry published by a small, non-profit or university press.

Williams' house in Rutherford is now on the National Register of Historic Places. He was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2009.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg

I made the proofing of this book and Project Gutenberg will publish it.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

An early étude on the impossibility of writing Grand American Narratives, Williams’s first published prose work is a thorny experiment where various voices, stories, histories, and styles intermix in a muddled manner, with frequently illuminating sentences lurking within the playful bippety-bop. The influence on Sorrentino’s prose is notable, especially in the polyphonic and parodic novels Mulligan Stew and Gold Fools.

[Jack Kelley]

quite enjoyed this. one of the most forward thinking experiments i’ve read. loved that it’s really difficult to tell what is narrative and what is metanarrative.

[Mattilda]

A satire of the novel form that ends up being a scathing critique of colonialism, Americanism, manifest destiny, and the creative process. A lot of wordplay and hilarity and theft of various texts and brilliant phrases here and there like "If it is not flamboyance, it becomes deformity: if it is not hard to becomes crime." It's short, but certainly a struggle to read, as it's supposed to be.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Funny story - I went on vacation and quickly finished the book I had brought with me. I needed to read something, and this slim volume had been tucked away in my bag waiting for just such an emergency. Despite its quarter-page size and only 125 pages it took me awhile to get through. It's basically a long poem formatted into sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. Although collectively the narrative makes absolutely no sense, there are moments of sheer brilliance. There are few connections between the different beautiful images and ideas. In the end, it completely goes off the rails - it gets easier to understand but the subject matters seem utterly random. There is some "American" stuff in here too: cars and contemporary cultural references and brief contemplation of the concept of America. As the title suggests, it is a tongue-in-cheek response to the question of the great American novel; as such it is occasionally sardonic, perhaps with too much condescension. There is occasional mild racism as well. It had its moments for sure, but I was proud of myself for even finishing it and eager to move on.

[Sheridan Cleland · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have never read The Great American Novel by William Carlos Williams, then I suggest one of two options:
A. Skip this intro and dive in cold. Nuevo Mundo!
B. Read this intro so as to better prepare for the coming assault.

Assault because that’s what this book does to my brain: assaults it violently with inspiration, the way Williams bobs and weaves through the composite narrative, rocketing back and forth through space and time willy-nilly, shuffling through a litany of -isms with chaotic precision — Dadaism, literary cubism, imagism, plagiarism — all while embracing modernism, but employing metafiction and postmodernism, both before they were words — and all with an eye set squarely on metamodernism.

All this 100 years ago, just one year after James Joyce published his genre-defining modernist masterpiece Ulysses, and all from a guy who was a physician first.

This tiny book is a lot.

Every time I read this book it spurs me to write, a rocket fuel fill-up for my creative engine bludgeoned into inspired compulsion.

I don’t want to spoil anything more, but there are three quotes I wish I would have chanced upon before reading this book the first time:

“The Great American Novel is in no sense a finished work; it keeps turning back on itself and beginning all over again.”

“. . . an entire book written incidentally while the author searches for an opening sentence.”

“Williams’s title is ironic, for The Great American Novel is not a novel at all but an improvisatory reflection upon the impossibility of writing the Great American novel.”

In short, The Great American Novel by William Carlos Williams is the story of a man obsessed with beginnings writing a story of his attempt to repeatedly begin a story.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Words are the flesh of yesterday" is a nice line.

[Stef · Rating 2 out of 5]

Innovation, but:

Innovation, interesting as it may be, is not a virtue in and of itself. It's certainly not a replacement for content. William's parody simply is lost in the muck.

[Nadia · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up.

[William Still-Lodge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strange without being interesting

WCW should have stayed with poetry. As a poet he is great, like Michael Jordan. This is MJ playing baseball

[Douglas Beagley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Random read in college that astonished me then... need to reread

[Ben Loory · Rating 3 out of 5]

If there is progress then there is a novel. Without progress there is nothing. Everything exists from the beginning. I existed in the beginning. I was a slobbering infant. Today I saw nameless grasses-- I tapped the earth with my knuckle. It sounded hollow. It was dry as rubber. Eons of drought. No rain for fifteen days. No rain. It has never rained. It will never rain. Heat and no wind all day long better say hot September. The year has progressed. Up one street down another. It is still September. Down one street, up another. Still September. Yesterday was the twenty-second. Today is the twenty-first. Impossible. Not if it was last year. But then it wouldn’t be yesterday. A year is not as yesterday in his eyes. Besides last year it rained in the early part of the month. That makes a difference. It rained on the white goldenrod. Today being misplaced as against last year makes it seem better to have white-- Such is progress. Yet if there is to be a novel one must begin somewhere.

[elderfoil...the whatever champion · Rating 5 out of 5]

When and where, you never know.

And tomorrow night is Grim Reaper, for the back to back.