Greatest Work of American Literature (Novel)

[saxitoxin]

What is it?

[Symmetry]

I picked my faves from the choices, but poetry, short stories, and non-fiction are conspicuously absent from the poll.

[saxitoxin]

I picked my faves from the choices, but poetry, short stories, and non-fiction are conspicuously absent from the poll.

okay, poll title corrected

Symmetry - how did you not vote for The Secret History? A book about a bunch of condescending classics students ... did it hit too close to home?

[Symmetry]

I picked my faves from the choices, but poetry, short stories, and non-fiction are conspicuously absent from the poll.

okay, poll title corrected

Symmetry - how did you not vote for The Secret History? A book about a bunch of condescending classics students ... did it hit too close to home?

Simple answer- I haven't read it, so can't vote for it.

[saxitoxin]

I picked my faves from the choices, but poetry, short stories, and non-fiction are conspicuously absent from the poll.

okay, poll title corrected

Symmetry - how did you not vote for The Secret History? A book about a bunch of condescending classics students ... did it hit too close to home?

Simple answer- I haven't read it, so can't vote for it.

You'd like it. BIG TIME.

[Symmetry]

I picked my faves from the choices, but poetry, short stories, and non-fiction are conspicuously absent from the poll.

okay, poll title corrected

Symmetry - how did you not vote for The Secret History? A book about a bunch of condescending classics students ... did it hit too close to home?

Simple answer- I haven't read it, so can't vote for it.

You'd definitely like it.

Probably, the other books in your poll (that I've read- still haven't got round to Updike) are excellent. I'm not a classics student though.

[Symmetry]

My write in votes- American Pastoral by Philip Roth
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

[Bernie Sanders]

Slaughter House 5

Very unique book for it's time. Though I believe the author got his ideas from the TV series Twilight Zone.

[Dukasaur]

Please add The Fountainhead.

[muy_thaiguy]

Some good choices, but the poll limit also leaves out several other literature novels.

[saxitoxin]

Some good choices, but the poll limit also leaves out several other literature novels.

True, I only listed 16 American novels here and left out the other 7.

[riskllama]

the greatest american novel has yet to be written. and it will be written in china...

[Symmetry]

the greatest american novel has yet to be written. and it will be written in china...

There's always The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. She won the Nobel Prize, and it's probably her most famous novel.

She wrote it while she lived in China. Good book.

[PLAYER57832]

the greatest american novel has yet to be written. and it will be written in china...

There's always The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. She won the Nobel Prize, and it's probably her most famous novel.

She wrote it while she lived in China. Good book.

It is, but , I would put in something like Mercedes Lackey's the Last Herald Mage or perhaps Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels. They are excellent, but the literature "experts" tend to stay away from genres.

[Symmetry]

the greatest american novel has yet to be written. and it will be written in china...

There's always The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. She won the Nobel Prize, and it's probably her most famous novel.

She wrote it while she lived in China. Good book.

It is, but , I would put in something like Mercedes Lackey's the Last Herald Mage or perhaps Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels. They are excellent, but the literature "experts" tend to stay away from genres.

Genres are pretty key to most English Lit degrees. Epic poetry, Post-colonialism, Romanticism

Experts love their genres.

[Lord Arioch]

Yuck
So if i understand right Mark Twain one of the great writers ... has his second novell here ... not the fist ... like Tom Sawyer? ( might be a diff here in how u split em in sweden but here u have first Tom the Huck!

AND HOW THE HELL comes u missed out the one and only Edgar alan Poe? Or Hp guy Lovecroft ...

Read mor my undereducated friend!

[Dukasaur]

So if i understand right Mark Twain one of the great writers ... has his second novell here ... not the fist ... like Tom Sawyer? ( might be a diff here in how u split em in sweden but here u have first Tom the Huck!

There were eventually four Tom Sawyer novels. The second -- Huck Finn -- is generally regarded as the best of the four and probably the best representative of Twain overall.

My personal favourite Twain book (can't really call it a novel) is Letters from the Earth, but I doubt if it will ever reach the top of anyone's list besides mine.

[saxitoxin]

Yuck
So if i understand right Mark Twain one of the great writers ... has his second novell here ... not the fist ... like Tom Sawyer? ( might be a diff here in how u split em in sweden but here u have first Tom the Huck!

AND HOW THE HELL comes u missed out the one and only Edgar alan Poe? Or Hp guy Lovecroft ...

Read mor my undereducated friend!

Poe was better known for his stories and poems than novels. If we're just talking about American writers, we would include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, but I don't think either of them wrote novels, at least insofar as I'm aware.

And Lovecraft? Yes, I love Lovecraft but he doesn't live in the same category as a Hemingway or a Steinbeck or a Salinger or a London. It would be like talking about English literature and discussing P. G. Wodehouse in the same breath as William Shakespeare.

[saxitoxin]

AND BTW, THERE IS AN OPTION THAT SAYS "OTHER (WRITE-IN)"!!!!!!!!!

[PLAYER57832]

Genres are pretty key to most English Lit degrees. Epic poetry, Post-colonialism, Romanticism

Experts love their genres.

No, they just have their own categories. They avoid things like fantasy, etc as too "kitche" even if they stories are more involved., etc.

[Symmetry]

Genres are pretty key to most English Lit degrees. Epic poetry, Post-colonialism, Romanticism

Experts love their genres.

No, they just have their own categories. They avoid things like fantasy, etc as too "kitche" even if they stories are more involved., etc.

Tolkien and CS Lewis would seem to disprove your point. Both academics, neither can be thought of as avoiding fantasy. Rather their academic work fuelled it.

[PLAYER57832]

Genres are pretty key to most English Lit degrees. Epic poetry, Post-colonialism, Romanticism

Experts love their genres.

No, they just have their own categories. They avoid things like fantasy, etc as too "kitche" even if they stories are more involved., etc.

Tolkien and CS Lewis would seem to disprove your point. Both academics, neither can be thought of as avoiding fantasy. Rather their academic work fuelled it.

Case in point, actually. Studying Tolkien is a relatively new phenomena, and its one of the few ever given consideration. Marion Zimmer Bradley Mentored dozens of authors, yet is relatively little known except among fantasy aficionados.

A question, have you read any of the Herald Mage series by Mercedes Lackey?

[Symmetry]

Genres are pretty key to most English Lit degrees. Epic poetry, Post-colonialism, Romanticism

Experts love their genres.

No, they just have their own categories. They avoid things like fantasy, etc as too "kitche" even if they stories are more involved., etc.

Tolkien and CS Lewis would seem to disprove your point. Both academics, neither can be thought of as avoiding fantasy. Rather their academic work fuelled it.

Case in point, actually. Studying Tolkien is a relatively new phenomena, and its one of the few ever given consideration. Marion Zimmer Bradley Mentored dozens of authors, yet is relatively little known except among fantasy aficionados.

A question, have you read any of the Herald Mage series by Mercedes Lackey?

No, why?

[PLAYER57832]

Genres are pretty key to most English Lit degrees. Epic poetry, Post-colonialism, Romanticism

Experts love their genres.

No, they just have their own categories. They avoid things like fantasy, etc as too "kitche" even if they stories are more involved., etc.

Tolkien and CS Lewis would seem to disprove your point. Both academics, neither can be thought of as avoiding fantasy. Rather their academic work fuelled it.

Case in point, actually. Studying Tolkien is a relatively new phenomena, and its one of the few ever given consideration. Marion Zimmer Bradley Mentored dozens of authors, yet is relatively little known except among fantasy aficionados.

A question, have you read any of the Herald Mage series by Mercedes Lackey?

No, why?

I think you would enjoy it, just based on what I have seen you write in the forum. It begins with the Last Herald Mage, though she has written several based more or less in that same locale, the same theme.

[Symmetry]

Genres are pretty key to most English Lit degrees. Epic poetry, Post-colonialism, Romanticism

Experts love their genres.

No, they just have their own categories. They avoid things like fantasy, etc as too "kitche" even if they stories are more involved., etc.

Tolkien and CS Lewis would seem to disprove your point. Both academics, neither can be thought of as avoiding fantasy. Rather their academic work fuelled it.

Case in point, actually. Studying Tolkien is a relatively new phenomena, and its one of the few ever given consideration. Marion Zimmer Bradley Mentored dozens of authors, yet is relatively little known except among fantasy aficionados.

A question, have you read any of the Herald Mage series by Mercedes Lackey?

No, why?

I think you would enjoy it, just based on what I have seen you write in the forum. It begins with the Last Herald Mage, though she has written several based more or less in that same locale, the same theme.

I'll take a look. Beats waiting for Patrick Rothfuss or George Martin to write another book.