Score

Oscar Wao: it's an immigrant story, it's sad, and it's referential (and reverant) toward science fiction and comic books, two of the most popular art forms of the last however goddam many years. It's also a sprawling miltigenerational family epic, and I think range is something you're supposed to shoot for in a Great American Novel, yeah? NOT TO MENTION all the spot-on dialect and vicious humor.

I know it's super recent, but I don't care. Fuck the canon.

I'll go for a recent one as well, also a sprawling, multigenerational family epic that won the Pulitzer. Both books are the stories of immigrant families, which is the American experience, for all intents and purposes.

Both books feel almost more like memoirs than novels; the characters of the narrators seem like masks for the authors, which makes Eugenides' task more impressive. I think the Great American Novel needs an unforgettable protagonist; Oscar seems like a stock character to me. Diaz gets points for dialect, but loses on dialogue. I hated Oscar's stilted speech, which seemed straight out of the mouth of the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons. I thought Eugenides did a better job of portraying characters of all genders. Diaz did all right with female characters, except when he tried to get in their heads; he was better off observing from the outside. The characters in Middlesex are more iconic and distinctive. Both books are wrapped in the history of their setting, but in Oscar Wao, Jersey seemed like a movie set, while the DR parts were filmed on location.

I appreciated both, but I give Middlesex the edge in tone, sprawl, character, and plot.

The Great Gatsby is overrated. Thank goodness it was short - I couldn't wait to finish.

Raintree County, now almost forgotten, IS the great American novel...after Huckleberry Finn. Something in this category isn't just popular, it's a picture of America that captures it all. And it's pure poetry.

Has anyone here had the thought I've had, that the country's too big for us to really point to one book and say "this is THE American novel"? Different books can claim parts of the country, a particular social class (where I'd put GATSBY), or a particular time--I'd put HUCK FINN up as THE great Mississippi book--but I find it impossible to name one book for the whole country.

It's Absalom, Absalom. In attempting to tell the epic, all-encompassing story of his homeland, Quentin instead creates a story reflecting his own obsessions and precarious mental state. Said story is wilfully misread by his audience anyway. It repudiates the concept of a Great American Novel, as it should be repudiated, but it also is the greatest proof we have that American novels are worthwhile.

Tamora wrote: "Has anyone here had the thought I've had, that the country's too big for us to really point to one book and say "this is THE American novel"? Different books can claim parts of the country, a part..."

I do wonder where this obsession with "the Great American Novel" comes from. Is there one Great British Novel? The Great French Novel? The Great Chinese Novel? (maybe there is, as far as some critics are concerned--I don't pay much attention to critics) Seems like the only countries you could plausibly claim to have one definitive Great Novel are places that have a small population, little literary output, or both.

That said, no reason not to debate which works are the best--that's what Goodreads is for....

I suspect that historically part of it comes from the American version of what Australians call "the cultural cringe."

There's no such thing as "The Great American Novel." America is too vast for a single novel to cover the expansiveness of it all. If you were to ask me what is the "best" American novel, that might be a more do-able question, but one I'd have to think about for a very long time.

An overwhelming majority of the great books I have read and loved most in my life so far, are American novels (disclosure: I'm Australian). And my all-time favourite authors (a Top 10 or Top 20)will be replete with American novelists, too. For an incredibly vast, genuinely varied and absolutely outstanding canon of great American novels, attempts to cite "The Great American Novel" strike me as both insincere and pretty pointless--not to speak of how devilishly daunting it is to actually vote on one. Since William Faulkner is arguably my favourite writer among all my other favourites, I'm inclined to choose something like 'As I Lay Dying' as my own pick for whatever this vote is worth.

I took the liberty of deleting The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Power of One from this list. The first is by a British author about a British lad and takes place entirely in Britain. The second is the same for South Africa. Neither constitutes an American novel.

This is a most difficult decision as I would put the following close to each other.
AS I LAY DYING
THE GRAPES OF WRATH
GO TELL IT ON A MOUNTAIN
OF MICE AND MEN
SISTER CARRIE

I chose TG of W in the final cut, however.

Nostromo wrote: "The Great Gatsby is overrated. Thank goodness it was short - I couldn't wait to finish."

I thought it was great. Haha.
It's my favorite book. The story, the characters, the setting......... I love it all, well... except for Daisy Fay.

No Moby Dick? No Knickerbocker History? No Killer Angels? No Cold Mountain? No The Known World?

You could add them. At the top of the list, at the tab next to "all votes."

ETA: Moby-Dick is #8.

Deleted a bunch of plays, non-novels, nonfiction, and things by non-Americans.

I find it pretty hilarious that Scarlet Letter sits at #20, when the guy who coined the term Great American Novel used it as an example of what the GAN shouldn't be, while his example of what it should be —Uncle Tom's Cabin— is nowhere to be found.

...No, wait a sec! It's there! #101. I guess that just proves my point.

Cats Cradle from Vonnegut totally awesome!

Koli wrote: "No Moby Dick? No Knickerbocker History? No Killer Angels? No Cold Mountain? No The Known World?" Moby Dick is #8

Once I hit Dune, I knew the list had lost any meaning it may have had for its top positions.

Please be mindful of the topic: GREAT AMERICAN NOVELS. It is not GREAT LITERATURE. I deleted 10 entries: 3 PLAYS by William Shakespeare, a book of poetry, two collections of short stories, a book of Greek fables, two novels by BRITISH authors set in Victorian London and a book of political philosophy by an Italian philosopher. If you're going to add books, please learn what a novel is before doing so.

Infinite Jest, Infinite Jest, Infinite Jest.

I like how Lolita is both on this list AND on the list of best Russian literature (#7):

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...