Hit List

With the exception of some crazy Camus - hater, most of us are all very nice, likeable and well-educated readers. That is why in another thread, we listed our top 10 books and just acknowledged the choice of the others, writing down some missing titles, remembering some unknown authors. Rarely were the choices of others challenged or heavily discussed.
Instead of a short-list of the 10 best books, we have now a list of 20 x 10 best books in World fiction. Not really a step forward in sorting out what to read and what not when overwhelmed by choices.
Let’s try something differently. I’ll post a hit – list of the 10 best books of American fiction (according to me) and you can start hitting it. That is: If you agree with me, don’t change anything, but if not, you erase the books you think that have not earned a place on the list and replace them with your well-thought over choice. And this again is open for discussion. Please take into account, the fact that it should be a good story, written with high narrative skill and offering us a message to help us cope with our Human condition.

The objective is to come to a list of 10 books, the whole salon agrees with. We will call that: “The Salon’s choice”

Here is the list: The ten best books of American fiction are: … tataratataaaaa….

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald
The Old man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Ambassadors by Henry James
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Extraordinary tales by Allan Poe
The Catcher in the rye by Salinger
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

so we gonna stick with the 10 best American fiction for now are we? just to be clear. Can we do other categories later?

For starters I would like to replace The Old Man and the Sea with Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. In any list of great American fiction Pynchon has to be there.
I would also like to replace Salinger with some Saul Bellow, perhaps Humbolt's Gift. I think Saul Bellow is a better writer and a wiser sage than Salinger in terms of helping us get the human condition.

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
The Ambassadors by Henry James
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Extraordinary tales by Allan Poe
Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I haven't read Dos Passos, but I'm willing to trust you on that, Mac. If you say it's good, it must be.

Other categories later, if everybody agrees...

The Old Man and the Sea seems indeed to have lost any gloss it ever acquired. Same thing with the Catcher. But these were both books read in my youth when my teacher taught very much about them.

Happy that only two were busted : )

I am not sure I agree by erasing Heminway altogether, maybe another of his books. Let's listen to the others.

To include Dos Passos and Fitzgerald, but not Hemingway is just not right! I'm not sure Dos Passos will survive this group and I'm tempted to change his contribution to the U.S.A. Trilogy), but will leave him and remove Poe for Hemingway. Mmmm, The Sun Also Rises or For Whom the Bell Tolls? I'll say "Sun" for it's place in American literary history. Then I'd like to think a bit and watch what happens to the list. But no Hawthorne?

So, for now:

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
The Ambassadors by Henry James
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Thanks for contributing Theaelizabet !

So Pynchon survives, Hemingway back in but with "the sun". But Poe out ?

I guess it is either Hawthorne or Melville. But then Melville has much better credentials to stay in the list

I second the nomination of The Sun Also Rises, it is the apotheosis of his style.

I would nominate Blood Meridian and jettison one of the books I havent read :P James, Dos Passos, Bellow

The Freeq would tell u to include Gaddis and DFW

What, no LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL? Any of Wolfe's beats the pants off Fitzgerald or Hem. No Baldwin? No Vidal? Surely BURR should rank up there with best of them. Still thinking out loud I guess.

First of all, I'd kick Hemingway off the list forever. I had to read him in every undergraduate English class I ever took including Chaucer (don't ask me why).

I'd replace Hemingway with The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Saul Bellow - He never rocked my boat. Moreover, I don't think he's brilliant.

I'd replace with The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

And although I love The Great Gatsby, I'm kicking F. Scott off in favor of Carson McCullers: The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

#8 "Any of Wolfe's beats the pants off Fitzgerald or Hem." Gasp! Only if you allow Maxwell Perkins to hover in the shadow of his inclusion! ;)

I'd lose The Catcher in the Rye -- I don't think it really stands the test of time. Replaced with the incomparable

Beloved by Toni Morrison.

And I second Urania's replacements. I like both Hemingway and Fitzgerald, but I think they'll go down as secondary 20th c. writers. Saul Bellow doesn't do it for me either.

#10 Well said, if Wolfe then also his editor/"cowriter" Perkins. And I say this even though Wolfe is from me home state, attended UNC=Chapel Hill with me sainted Grandpa, and wrote about me favorite town Asheville.

Don't get me started on "10 Best" lists....because they have changed...drastically...from year-to-year..as i have aged (ahem...)....i am more particular..the older i am...my "list" now..would be but ephemera...pity, that

Keep them coming !!
I'll make a resume in 12 hours

Yes I am tempted to include DFW but he's yet stood the test of time (he will) but I'll restrain myself. I'll also restrain myself from including Gaddis simply because he lacks the universal appreciation the other writers have. If this were a top 100 he'd be in there w/his first two novels.

However, Mark Twain? Twain has no business being on this list, especially on a list which doesn't include Malcolm Lowry's Under The Volcano. So I'd kick off Twain and insert Lowry. You want high narrative and more allusions than any other 20th century novel excepting Ulysses, Under The Volcano is it. Rarely has a writer distilled so much despair and self-destruction into their writing that, ironically, their creation becomes inspirational in its artistry rather than merely another tell-all, thinly disguised autobiography a la the low art of a Less Than Zero say.

I'm seconding Invisible Man.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Steinbeck. Yes, I'm aware many consider him middlebrow at best (not truly part of the U.S.A. canon) but East of Eden is at least worthy of consideration, though my personal fave is Of Mice and Men, simply brutal and beautiful.

I'd also axe Salinger. Top 100, yes; Top 10?, no way. I'm tempted to axe Hemingway (I hear you, Urania) but he's too iconic to leave out.

Oh jeeze, this is getting long, but what about An American Tragedy too?

And I agree w/Thealizabet that it's The U.S.A. Trilogy that should be represented by Dos Passos.

Oh gawwwd, and The Age of Innocence belongs too! Mac, can this be a top 20 list?

Cutting so many of these books and writers is painful!

I second EF's nomination of East of Eden - for consideration at the very least.

I also agree that Salinger should be out.

But Hemingway?! You can't axe Hemingway!

3 > oh yes, Mac! other categories definitely once the U.S.A. top 10 concrete dries....the possibilities are limitless...

With the greatest respect for the greatest Urania, the top ten list CANNOT have much credibility without Hemingway and Fitzgerald both.

I will bet you a million bucks that when we reexamine in a hundred years, Fitzgerald and Hemingway will be read and studied still, and considered key.

I am confused now about what is in and what out.

Great Gatsby and Sun Also Rises back in, I say, and Lowry and McCullers off.

>18 polutropos: Andrushka,

I say McCullers stays in. You're a Canadian, so you don't get to vote ;-)

>15 absurdeist: and 16,

I love East of Eden, and I think Steinbeck will stand the test of time. It would take me a 40-page essay to explain why, so I'll spare everyone . . . this one time. He only became "middlebrow" when the post-toasties came of age. Okay, okay. I was one of the post-toasties, but I still maintain an staunch loyalty to Steinbeck. As for Hemingway, off with his head!!!!!! I feel an Anglo-Saxon attitude coming on.

Hmmm,

selective voting process??? Do we have ballot box stuffers from Sweden ready to ensure the right result? Folks in Florida ready, too?

I also love East of Eden and it has meant a lot to me. I am not convinced it will stand the test of time, but am willing to include it. But Great Gatsby I am 100% sure about, and in spite of the gender-dictated strong dislike of Hemingway out there, I think he is more durable than half of that list.

I am even willing to submit myself to the stoning which will result in my suggestion that Lolita will not endure. Who will throw the first stone?

There comes the first stone Polu

Henry, dont bother about Lowry, he'll be back in another list.
This one is just American

Did I confuse Lowry as being American? What was he, if not American?

Lowry was Russian Ethiopian with a bit of Chinese on his left leg.

Hemingway out! Good good good that will teach him, the silly old macho fart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWGn6_EH2gM

Vidal? omg how could I forget the old boy: Myra Breckinridge has got to be on that list by hook or by crook. I'm willing to lose Saul Bellow to include that.

Lowry was Russian Ethiopian with a bit of Chinese on his left leg.

Am howling like Ginsberg!

Andrushka,

Hemingway was a pretentious old fart before he was a pretentious old fart. He learned everything he knew about minimalism from Gertrude Stein. He failed to learn kindness from anyone. And I am quite disturbed that H and I share so many books in common.

VOTE NO TO HEMINGWAY

I think I have seen this particular process before, Urania. We are NOT voting in the Salon, remember????

Even though Saint Mac began the thread, you will get our Beloved Leader and Dictator seriously riled up if you suggest we are voting.

Dictatorship GOOD,
Democracy BAD,

Our Beloved Leader can overturn ANY decision we make.

Soooo, o Most Beloved One, Hemingway??? Great author, even if Great Fart??

And BTW, what did kindness ever have to do with literary merit? You think Nabokov was kind? Ha!

Andrushka,

You idiot. Go read Crime and Punishment. The "lack of kindness" was just shit on the cake. Hemingway is empty. Nada, nada, nada.

somewhat more than kin and less than kind. Bee-where of pity.

>30 Porius:,

Have you been reading The Witch Family again. You were supposed to give that up with your baby blanket. VOTE NO TO HEMINGWAY

Call me fish-meal but I loved Hem's collection of shirt stories. Esp. THE CHORT AND HAPPY LIFE OF FRANCIS MC COMBER, Nora joyce was reported to say that: Jeem needed some of that lionhunting stuff. It seems that he payed too much attention periphrasis and all of that sort of thing that didn't keep the woolf away from the door. Thomas Wolfe according to those who have no appreciation for putter-inners!?

Why is it that no one addresses Morrison -- she and Faulkner are the true masters of " a good story, written with high narrative skill and offering us a message to help us cope with our Human condition." Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Salinger, even Wolfe barely got out of adolescence. Although Steinbeck doesn't reach the heights of writing achieved by Faulkner, at least he was an adult.

Sp jane is that a "No to Hemingway"????

Gawd Vira naow were both naked!

Porius,

GET NAKED AND VOTE NO TO HEMINGWAY!!!

P.S. NUDITY YES. hemingway no.

35> urania -- do not lure me into another one of your political rallies -- I saw your propaganda on the Virago thread -- naughty, naughty.

>Jane,

Sweetness, I have no idea to what you refer. urania is a model of propriety. She would never stoop so low. I think you had better go confess to Mother U in the Naughty Room.

I thought that I was n-n-naked, already.

A nudist salon, anyone? Porius, this is in Wisconsin, not far from you I believe.

http://www.vvrc.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1226712952/0

Should Le Salon Litteraire go nudist?

Opinions?

Where is that world-renown Dictator whip?

Voting? Voting, I say?

We'd all have to be blessed with Coleridgian, or maybe better Blakean imagination to get anything out of it.

>40 Porius:,
Not naked enough
>41 absurdeist: Yes
>42 polutropos: Oh go read Anne of Green Gables.

I'll restrain myself and propose only one change: dropping The old man and the sea for Gertrude Stein's The making of Americans.

The voters will be fiercely disciplined in due course!

In the meantime, here's the whipping of one nut you requested, Comrade polutropos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdsAD-sSM4Y

Brilliant Lola . . . as always.

I liked TMoA (it was like reading a never ending Phillip Glass piece - in a good way) tho' I'll admit making it only half of the way. Old Gert was cool and has a lasting influence but none of her work is top ten material. Of course your top ten is whatever you want...

I think top tens are fool's errands unless you restrict the subject matter enough to make it a fair enough task to be representative without missing anything big or just going for the broadly representative. Top ten American fiction writers of the 19th Century might be possible. The time periods would have to get narrower and narrower after that.

Pre-WWII men. Pre sexual revolution women. Post-WWII men. Post-WWII women. Men and women often write and read such different fiction. I don't want to compartmentalize buyt I don't want to slight anyone that should be recognized.

Cothburn Oneal's DARK LADY
Russell Greenan IT HAPPENED IN BOSTON, anything of G's
Joseph Heller SOMETHING HAPPENED
Kurt Vonnegut anything
Ishmael Reed MUMBO JUMBO
Chester Himes, Iceberg Slim, Eldridge Cleaver, Hortense Callisher, James Branch Cabell, Algernon Blackwood, Henry Miller, JP Donleavy.

Have we missed anybody?

I totally wrote Chester Himes in my last post but then changed the focus of the post to no top tens! So good and so American.

Vonnegut, I back too, with reservations.

Miller I will go with too.

Flannery O'Connor.

What are the criteria other than "American" and "fiction"?

Is the best American fiction the "best fiction that happens to be written by an American", or the "best fiction that deals with the country and its people"?

You can't leave out Mark Twain. He was uniquely American--much more so than the Lost Generation types, who were influenced by Europe and Europeans. And he's one of my favorite authors.

Lowry was a Brit, according to Wikipedia. Not American, anyway.

I'm not sure what list we're now working on, but I'm seconding Lola on Gertie, though I suspect we're in the minority, and looking to make room for James Agee - probably Death in the Family in the more traditional novel form, though who doesn't think Let Us Know Praise Famous Men is the first and greatest novel written in hypertext?

I'm not ready to make room for Flannery O'Connor, unless we're looking for short stories, in which case she gets at least two spots on the list, and, anyways, if we're going for non-novel forms I'm putting William Carlos Williams and Paterson at the top of the list, and then going for the other Williams, Tennessee.

I steadfastly oppose Vonnegut, endorse The Invisible Man, and suggest that David Foster Wallace is worth a mention - though I don't think there is room after Pynchon for him. He's my 11th player. If we don't count Djuna Barnes.

So what's our list look like at this point?

We are listing?

badly. we'll be swamped afore long.

Looks like another baleout. Haaaaaaarrrrrrr. She was yar!?

See what you've done Mac? Dissension...chaos...good job! Love it!

Somebody please, update the list...

Top ten American Fiction ( Possible Salon’s choice )

1) Lowry was a Brit and should not be included in this list

2) Following books are definitely winners because they were questioned by nobody:

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Moby Dick by Herman Melville

3) Some books were questioned but not passionately: They stay

Extraordinary tales by Allan Poe
the adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

4) Did not stand the test of time and was saved by nobody. Goes out of the list

The Catcher in the rye by Salinger

5) Were seriously questioned

- Dos Passos, but maybe with another title : USA Trilogy he could stay
- Scott Fitzgerald was barred twice, saved twice
- Henry James was questioned only once

I suggest the following to remain :

Henry James : The Ambassadors

6) Great writers were missing in the list. Three of them could step in instead of Salinger, Fitzgerald or Dos Passos

Pynchon, with “Gravity rainbow” once proposed, was never questioned or defended again
Saul Bellow was barred three times and will not make it
Ellison : the invisible man proposed 4 times
Gore Vidal with Myra was applauded
Dreiser : An American Tragedy
Gertrude Stein : The Making of Americans
Steinbeck : Either with Mice & Men or east of Eden ?
Wharton : The Age of Innocence proposed twice
Carson Mc Culler proposed once barred once

Imho we should go for :

Ralph Ellison : The Invisible Man
Gore Vidal : Myra Beckenridge
Pynchon : Gravity

7) Burroughs, Tom Wolfe, Baldwin although great writers were proposed but not withheld.

8) But what with Hemingway ?

The title was badly chosen. Better “The sun also rises” than the “old man and the sea”
But what passion was unleashed between haters and lovers! Many questioned him but quiet a few defended him strongly.

Let’s keep him in but with his boat rocking ?

Ernest Hemingway : The Sun also rises

But if you drop him, then you should replace him by Steinbeck

What an excellent--and fair--assessment. Thanks!

Thank you for participating !

I'll wait to hear the comments of the others before I post my top - ten hitlist of English writers

Oh, ew, Henry James. Reading The Ambassadors was such a depressive experience.

My support for the teetering certainly goes to Gravity's Rainbow,which puts me in great good humour every time I think on't. On Heller, I'll do the obvious but in my opinion still defensible thing and move we replace Something Happened with the amazing Catch-22. Finally, I will swallow my disappointment at Bellow's early demise, and propose as an essential player (especially because of it's American-on-Americaness) John Barth's stunning The Sot-Weed Factor. But y'all should really consider giving Poe and Hawthorne another look too.

If people want to emphasize American-ness then I think the hit list needs an author such as Toni Morrison or Call It Sleep by Henry Roth. Morrison as an African-American voice and Roth as an immigrant voice. (I haven't read Call It Sleep (yet), but I'm guessing that it's one of the best of its genre.)

This thread is absolutely hilarious.

Poor, hold fast to the gunwhale!

Urania, the Proctologist will never agree to the naked idea.

I think we should do a separate list for short story writers Amerucan, and I agree with slick that we should have narrower categories.

(Here's one: top 10 sea stories written by naked American women in Paris between 4.17 and 5.21 (approximately) in the afternoon of August 14th 1935. Any takers?)

Can I question The Ambassadors? I think Portrait of a Lady is much better. Is it barred coz it doesn't fall into the American phase of HJ's career?

Booksfallapart, we will have a Bellow thread in this group yet. I think he's fabulous. And Janejones, I put Gertrude's Steinway above Morrison, I'm afraid. I enjoyed Song of Solomon, but for me it's a one time read.

So what's our current list?

Vote Gore Vidal for Myra!!! Free Herring!!!!

Gore is in Tomcat. Be quiet

All Americans are immigrants except the Injuns and where is their voice ?

A Hemingway digression: I used to quite like him, as a young 'un, loved the Nick Adams stories and The old man and the sea, spent some time aping his dialogue etc. Plus, he's a comrade, heart in right place, and even his machismo is tortured enough to hint at a more complex, humane person underneath. Then the other day, I pick up The sun also rises for the first time in... hm, 25 years?... and I COULDN'T BELIEVE how DUMB it is. Could this be the dumbest famous novel in the universe? Yes, I think it could. The style is dumb. The characters are dumb, the plot is dumb, the goings-on are dumb, the language is dumb, the pagination and the cover picture is dumb!

I don't have a copy with me and can't quote, but there it is, right off the bat, staring you in the face. Someone shake me? Maybe something got misaligned in the noggin the last time I ran for the streetcar?

If it weren't so embarrassing I'd look for a group read, see whether this revelation gets supported or refuted.

Now, THERE is a response with meat on it.

I also have not looked at Sun Also Rises in 25 years or more. Is it quite possible I may have the same response? Of course it is. Old Man and the Sea I looked at more recently than that and I suspect is not dumb. Nick Adams has some first rate stories in it, for style if nothing else. (What is the one called with the doctor father and the boy, going to the childbirth? A gem of a story.)

But this relates to your musing, Lola, somewhere else, about rereading. Of course we read differently at 18, 28, 48, whatever, bringing different life experience and sensibility to the text, and our reactions inevitably change.

But surely whatever my response to Sophocles or Aeschylus might have been at 18, and no matter how different it might be now, they are universally acknowledged to have produced works of genius which were worth reading then, are now, and will be in 2000 years.

So then, the exercise in the Hit List thread, I think asks, what will still be of value 100 years or more from now? And our results, after some discussion, seem to suggest we are reasonably sure of Sound and the Fury and Moby Dick and nothing else. And perhaps that is all we can stand by with some certainty, and is a valid finding.

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, and I don't like counting up greats by percentages . . . but right now, the final list has no women and no African Americans for the top ten American writers. Am I the only person who finds this odd? Are the unspoken criteria for "great" writing loaded in such a way that women and persons of color will never make the list? Speak up. What are your specific criteria? Then we can have an intelligent discussion about the criteria and about whom we should include.

*sneaking in to say* --- there's great - Sound and the Fury, Moby-Dick, and then there's really good.
Keep James - *Portrait* is my personal favorite, but I could go with *Ambassadors* easily. (Actually, I could argue him into the great pantheon and make a trinity.)
I say NO to Hemingway for all the reasons above.
Lose Poe.
Include Morrison.
I'm confused as to why Bellow would be suggested but not Malamud. I propose The Fixer but The Assistant packs a lot into a little space.
If somebody can seriously suggest Gore Vidal and Carson McCullers, then I don't feel bad about inserting Richard Powers (The Gold-Bug Variations or The Time of Our Singing and Barbara Kingsolver with The Poisonwood Bible.
-----or were you finished?

Lose Hemingway, include Morrison.

Lose Poe, include Wharton.

>69 LizzieD: If somebody can seriously suggest Gore Vidal and Carson McCullers

Miaow

P.S. To all - my question still remains unanswered.

Thank you Lola in 66: Hemingway = Dumb dumb dumb.

Vote Gore for Myra!!!! Free Herring, vodka and nudity!!!!!

Another reason to have more categories, aside from avoiding slighting worthy authors and works, is to avoid, beside the point, to me, political battles. On the other hand, that seems to be what many of you most enjoy! Me, I want to avoid any injustice, positive or negative. Enough commas?

I'm going to put in another push for James Agee here, because I do think he belongs. A Death in the Family.

Do Americans really get to claim Nabokov? If so, how about IB Singer?

What does it say about me that when young I read Hemingway and found him dumb, dumb, dumb, DUMB but when rereading at a later age I found him merely insipid and not out and out idiotic. Still, he doesn't belong on the list, though if someone were to put him on, The Garden of Eden is what belongs.

No one has advocated Death Comes to the Archbishop? Shirley Willa has some fans?

More importantly, if we're looking at the top 10 books, rather than the top book by each of 10 authors, don't we need to kick a few people off to make room for more Faulkner?

I'd advocate a couple of secondary Melville's over some of the other entries, but acknowledge that there is such a gab between The Whale and his other works that it probably doesn't make sense.

Any fans of All the King's Men?

Hawthorne needs to be on the list. Covers similar territory as Poe with some of his short fiction. Is a great writer of fiction and essays. The Scarlet Letter is a great novel and very American.

The more I think about this, to be really representative of American writing, you'd need to include some products of genre fiction, like Chester Himes.

P.S. Ten is impossible for anything but provoking arguments. Mac is a provocateur worthy of the Salon and EF. I love making lists. More lists is the solution!

But I still want an answer to my question (post 68), which is a valid one: What are our criteria for judging a truly great work of literature. This question may very well be a political one (or not), but I think it is worthy of investigation. A_musing, I have to agree that Agee was brilliant although I think his great masterpiece--a masterpiece that can stand alongside the great works of world literature is Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. P. S. I used to live in Knoxville, helped organize a conference on James Agee, and have published a short bibliographical piece on him. Unfortunately, the house where A Death in the Family takes place is no longer there although one can still take part in the annual James Agee's Knoxville tour.

As for All the King's Men, I do not think it will stand the test of time except for extremely specialized academic audiences.

Agreeing with slick above that a single list is impossible and a trap by a provocateur, I will further agree that the list, impossible as it is, has to have on it Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

Why not recognize competing values by proliferating lists?

*urania stamps her foot*

And I still want answers to my question. You are all dodging an important issue.

Urania:

I refuse to kick of the list great writers just to include the symbolic women or minority. They too have to earn their place. Virginia Woolf, Jean Austen and others have proven their case. The British list which I'll post soon will bemore to your liking : )

A hit list opens more possibilities for arguments, than everybody just submitting his own list. It is definitly more fun.

I'll close the list in an hour. But you are free to keep arguing "ad eternam"

I thought Invisible Man was on the list? I seconded it. Did someone delete Ralph Ellison? He's not British too is he, like Lowry?

And what about Beloved? Has that also been nixed?

What's going on around here?

>81 Macumbeira: If you read my post carefully, I said I don't like counting up greats by percentages. I am not talking about political correctness here. I am talking about questions of aesthetics, content, et al. Listing whom one likes is easy. Coming up with criteria by which any work of literature could be evaluated is an entirely different question . . . and a much harder question. Hence, I would argue people wish to dodge it.

I'm not dodging, I am inviting you and anyone else to identify your criteria in a positive manner by proliferating lists! But, if you have criteria you want to suggest - suggest away. It will kick start an interesting discussion.

I also think a proliferation of lists addresses the issues identified in #83: the universe of worthy works is too varied to be (easily? or is it impossible?). What set of criteria would encompass great experimental fiction, great genre fiction and great literary fiction?

This may be one thing that confirms Melville and Moby Dick as a top ten. His whaling adventure gives us all three.

>84 slickdpdx:,

I have posted a thread to begin hashing out this question. I have reposted your answer there.

Aristotle

--the theory that art imitates nature
-- a method for evaluation and classification of art.

-- Aristotle concluded that it is natural for humans to "delight in works of imitation."

-- three methods for classifying art based on the idea of art as imitation

-- first method involves a difference in the means of imitation. In the first chapter of Poetics, Aristotle wrote, "Just as color and form are used as means by some . . .and the voice is used by others; . . .the means with them as a whole are rhythm, language, and harmony." These three elements, whether they are combined or employed separately, constitute the means of imitation. This definition provides a way to distinguish among music, poetry, dance, and drama.

-- examination of the object being represented is another way to classify art

a distinction about the motive of the action being imitated.

-- "It follows, therefore, that the agents represented must be either above our own level of goodness, or beneath it, or just such as we are;"

the idea of virtue as a factor in the object of imitation .


-- the manner in which the object is presented is the final way to evaluate the arts

-- three ways an object may be presented: "one may either speak at one moment in narrative and at another in assumed character . . . or one may remain the same throughout . . . or the imitators may represent the whole story dramatically."

The quality of the object produced determines the merit of the art. The art is found within the product not within the mind of the artist

This theory promotes critical evaluation because the evaluator doesn't need to consider the message or intent of the artist when evaluating the object. The message of the artist may be absent or unclear, but if the object itself is a nearly perfect imitation, it could be considered a wonderful piece of art.

Without touching the thorny question of genre fiction proper, I'd like to tentatively suggest Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker, which, while unquestionably great, is perhaps only contingently American.

That's true ! Johnny Walker is missing !

>86 polutropos: Andrushka,

Please repost your comments on the appropriate thread.

I think Invisible Man is clearly on the list by acclamation - I've heard no doubters.

BUT, no one is taking my multiple Faulkner's seriously. Don't we need Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom, Light in August and probably even the Reivers on here, no matter who we need to kick off?

So, limiting myself to 3, and taking Urania's substitution of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, and looking at Mac's summary, here's what I think the definitive list should be:

1 The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
2 Moby Dick by Herman Melville
3 Absalom, Absalom, by Faulkner
4 Light in August, by Faulkner
5 Extraordinary tales by Allan Poe
6 the adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
7 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
8 Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
9 Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
10. Ellison : the invisible man

Honorable mentions to Gertrude, Hawthorne, James, Cather (yes, she belongs in the runners up), Wharton, and several others, but decidedly not Hemmingway. I'm ready to replace James, Nabokov and Poe with Stein, Hawthorne and Cather - who is with me?

Assuming Vladimir is counted as an American - and I think he would count himself so, and we should too, it is an immigrant country after all - he is irreplaceable.

Something bothers me about Twain. His style is so straightforward where the others are more writerly. He really sticks out. Also, his work is not as challenging. I like Twain but think maybe he doesn't belong on the list.

I'm not ready to pronounce Hemingway altogether dumb, I was just marvelling at The sun... for now. Gosh, do I need to reread EVERYTHING?! Horrid thought.

I prefer modern to classic Americans--would lose Poe, Hawthorne and Twain without a blink of an eye. Barthelme (Donald) instead of Pynchon. But then, it's nothing if not personal...

7 more posts and then basta ?

Amusing : great summing up thanks

Good one, Sam. (#90)

I would leave it as you have it with the substitution of Hawthorne for Nabokov.

Twain is classic old American down to earth wit; compare him to the other great American simpletons (Hemingway, e.g.), and he stands out. It's not tough stuff, but there's more there than meets the eye and there is a very unique voice; I think he belongs.

I think that is part of the problem with Hemmingway too - his American-ness may be more than his greatness.

I am astonished at how much we agree.

Uncanny isn't it! I notice now that you said it first! I swear I was cogitating it independently.

Nabakov off the list? At least let's stipulate that is because of his dual nationality. Otherwise I don't think I can swallow it!

I am a compulsive book finisher. I like tomes. I like experimental fiction. I even liked Making of Americans. But, I didn't finish it. Am I the only one? How can a book like that make the list?

Fine then! If Twain gets to be on so does David Foster Wallace and William Gaddis!

The list in all of it's originality:

Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald
The Old man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Ambassadors by Henry James
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Extraordinary tales by Allan Poe
The Catcher in the rye by Salinger
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

So----------There I was; surrounded by the original list and thinking--hmmmmmmmm; something is very rotten in Denmark!~!

First off drop kick John Dos Passos; boot Henry James off every boat (even row boats; toss all things Hermann Melville; Lolita---ptui!~!; and Salinger, while great, is tiring and very dated after all these years and I think we tend to place him there because he has always been there. So, after great thought, we end up with something like this:

Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
The Old man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Extraordinary Tales by Edgar Allan Poe
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and
Giant by Edna Ferber

And truly, honestly, who can read Moby Dick without at least rolling their eyes once? just askin'
belva

Shite and onions Hem dumb I'd like to put in he's deaf too. Though he did enjoy prowling around No. Michigan and I loved that Michael Palin Hem documentary and the Big-Two-Hearted River. And Judge John Voelker. Tho Hem gives me heartburnonmyarse and he got his arse handed to him by the smaller Max Eastman, Keats could rumble when it came time to rumble bantam weight though he was. Now that that's over, the sophisticated reader will skip it, I would like to put in one last v-v-vote for Louis Auchincloss, I think the 'Rector of Justin' can takes its place beside any drivel from the pen of FSF or any of his tribe. And the not-before-mentioned Joyce Carol Oates is a literary giant compared with Hem & co. who thought rich people were different from the average voter because they possessed more pelf. Good-bye. Good-bye

and what about Uncle Tom's Cabin? If you're going to put Huckleberry Finn - the 19th century version of Hee Haw! in, then how about showing Harriet Beecher Stowe some love too!

Argggggggggggggggggggggg!~!

I VOTE FOR GEORGE HERRIMAN

Walking trough the attic I noticed Wallace Stegner, Thomas Berger, Hilda Doolittle (HD), Ellen Glasgow, Sherwood Anderson, Wm. Carlos Williams (The White Mule), Robert Anton Wilson (I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in), Katherine Ann Porter, Burton Rascoe, Edmund Wilson, Carson McCullers,Caroline Gordon, Mary Gordon, Paul Bowles, John Horne Burns, Djuna Barnes - just a few more before Mac closes the curtain, Oh and George Garrett and . . .

I love Paul Bowles, but did not consider him because his eye is turned on things not American, even if it is often Americans seeing them.

Well, finally at 104 someone makes sense.

Robert

LOL ***chortles***, ***snortz*** and walks away smiling.

74, 75, 90: I'm taking you very seriously, but I just got here. Hemingway OUT. Steinbeck IN. Multiple Faulkners--IN, IN, IN. The trouble with Agee is ---what version of A Death in the Family, now that we know how severely edited the first publication was? Same issue with Thomas Wolfe, which somebody else mentioned. And Henry James doesn't even count as an American, in my head. Much as I love it, I'm not sure we can call Cry, the Beloved Country an American novel, either, even if it was partly written in San Francisco and good ol' Max Perkins (God, HE's the Great American Novelist, isn't he?) did edit it. Just to be a complete pain, I submit an entirely new list. I see no virtue whatsoever in the number 10, and I'm not sure how many titles will end up on it.

Absalom, Absalom
All the King's Men
To Kill a Mockingbird
Sometimes a Great Notion
Beloved
An American Tragedy
Moby Dick
East of Eden
The Sound and the Fury
Intruder in the Dust
The Reivers
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (which is terribly flawed, but nevertheless has some of the most powerful passages of any novel ever written.)

Hear, hear. Insisting on the old-fashioned dozen seems awfully American. How about it?

Agreed!~!

Theodore Dreiser? oh puhlease...

Say yes to one . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK87ejPDZOk&feature=related

Love it and how very appropriate!~!
Aren't we something? I don't know exactly what but we surely are something!~!
belva

#112 Thssssbbbttttttt! {That's a raspberry, in case you didnt' get it. ;>) }

#113 YOU, I like.

Take care with that cat of shamanstvo. But I am with you on Dreiser, he was a great friend of one of my favorites John Cowper Powys (that's Cooper Powis) and the ineffable Charles Fort. Of course old D. probably overcooked his books now and again but could be a good friend, and that's more important than any old American Tragedy, isn't it. Hope you like me still though I am a bore through and through.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4p7prURvIk&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube...

WE'VE DONE THE WHOLE DAMN LIST WITHOUT ANY DR. SEUSS!!!!!

Scratch the whole thing and start again.

I stand behind An American Tragedy, er, "A Place in the Sun"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fm6sa_L5_4&feature=related

>117 A_musing: A_musing, have you read this? Always makes me want to break out my Dr. Seuss...

http://www.themodernword.com/bio.html

“I haven’t seen Gertrude Stein since last fall. Her Making of Americans is one of the very greatest books I’ve ever read.”

Ernest Hemmingway letter to Sherwood Anderson, 1926
Selected Letters (of Anderson), pg. 206

I bet they didn't finish it either.

> I have not read the Zebra book. Ah! What an awful pretender I am to mastery of the Seussist mysteries? A Seuss, a seuss, for the list, to be read!

But, I can't abide by some of what he says?! Not treat books as sketch pads?! May I never "grow up". More importantly, may I stop growing "out", but that's not a here or a there.

LolaWalser wrote: Then the other day, I pick up The Sun Also Rises for the first time in... hm, 25 years?... and I COULDN'T BELIEVE how DUMB it is. Could this be the dumbest famous novel in the universe? Yes, I think it could. The style is dumb. The characters are dumb, the plot is dumb, the goings-on are dumb, the language is dumb, the pagination and the cover picture is dumb!

That's quite an argument. Time to defend Hemingway.

Hemingway's use of parataxis isnt dumb.

It is not dumb how he crafts his sentences to imitate rhythmically what is happening like
They had hitched the mules to the dead bull and then the whips cracked, the men ran, and the mules straining forward, their legs pushing, broke into a gallop, and the bull, one horn up, his head on its side, swept a swath smoothly across the sand and out the red gate.

He has incredible powers of description---say for example the unloading of the bulls. Not dumb.

And he's funny, in a clever way not a dumb way, throughout the novel

"How did you go bankrupt?' Bill asked. 'Two ways,' Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly"

And he's subtle: the gays in the bar, the gap in the calendar, the girl waiting for her man to come out of the glacier (who turns out to have another girls picture in the locket around his neck).

He is an artist. And very American.

>109 laytonwoman3rd:

One Faulkner is enough..

#123

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on a whole lot of things, but since I consider writers artists as a given, that much isn't a problem.

And yes, description, especially of nature and action, is Hemingway's forte; that's the greatest allure of the Nick Adams stories.

Hemingway's use of parataxis isnt dumb.

I think it is. It reads dumb, illiterate and cutesy--like a first-grade composition.

{In?} the morning it was bright, and they were sprinkling the streets
of the town, and we all had breakfast in a cafe. Bayonne is a nice
town. It is like a very clean Spanish town and it is on a big river.
Already, so early in the morning, it was very hot on the bridge
across the river. We walked out to the bridge and then took a
walk through the town.

I was not at all sure Mike's rods would come from Scotland in
time, so we hunted a tackle store and finally bought a rod for Bill
up-stairs over a drygoods store. The man who sold the tackle was
out, and we had to wait for him to come back. Finally he came in,
and we bought a pretty good rod cheap, and two landing-nets.

I'll give you that the book isn't entirely humourless (I said above H. was more complex than the usual view of him--don't think I could like anything of his otherwise), but the wrong-headed determination to "masculinise" language at any cost, making it a lean and wiry boxing machine, ruins what subtlety there might have been in his conception of the story. (The American title is a great pun, yes.) Style is the biggest turnoff for me, but then we get to the characters... I can't help it, I think what they are thinking is dumb, and what H. thought about men, women and "men and women", as shown in this book, was dumb. But at least I can buy the men and the bulls; Brett is some kind of hallucination.

Don't know what it means that H. was "very American". Strikes me more as Canadian, what with the frantic efforts to stay away from home. :)

By the way, this is a bad, baaaad way to read a book, but if anyone MUST have a look at The sun also rises, and no hard copy is around, here's a free online version--I just glanced at it, and I'm afraid it's typo-ridden, but you take what the interwebs give...

http://www.archive.org/stream/sunalsorises030276mbp/sunalsorises030276mbp_djvu.t...

It reads dumb, illiterate and cutesy--like a first-grade composition.

Like a 1st grade composition? Really?
It's easy to be dismissive, but I think it takes a lot of hard work to write like that, to have that artisitic sensibility.

Dont you think that part of his subtlety is that he gives everything equal weight? He is not telegraphing what is more important.

Brett is some kind of hallucination.

Well, they did drink a lot of absinthe. :) But seriously, I think he has a psychological justification for her actions...

Dont you think that part of his subtlety is that he gives everything equal weight?

No, I don't. It creates a certain effect, but to me at least it's a tiresome effect. And, as far as I remember (not very far, as it happens, H. was one of my youthful reads), he didn't insist on that style in that measure later on, although he remained famously "clipped". At least I think of For whom the bell tolls, say, as sounding rather different.

As a huge fan of such strange, convoluted sensibilities like Walser and Platonov, I would never complain about people not telegraphing their intentions or "what's important", but really, I don't think H. was in any way complicated as a thinker or observer, quite the contrary.

Speaking of tiresome effects...It happens very often that a man has it in him, that a man does something, that he does it very often that he does many things, when he is a young man when he is an old man, when he is an older man. One of such of these kind of them had a little boy and this one, the little son wanted to make a collection of butterflies and beetles and it was all exciting to him and it was all arranged then and then the father said to the son you are certain this is not a cruel thing that you are wanting to be doing, killing things to make collections of them, and the son was very disturbed then and they talked about it together the two of them and more and more they talked about it then and then at last the boy was convinced it was a cruel thing and he said he would not do it and his father said the little boy was a noble boy to give up pleasure when it was a cruel one. The boy went to bed then and then the father when he got up in the early morning saw a wonderfully beautiful moth in the room and he caught him and he killed him and he pinned him and he woke up his son then and showed it to him and he said to him see what a good father I am to have caught and killed this one, the boy was all mixed up inside him and then he said he would go on with his collecting and that was all there was then of discussing and this is a little description of something that happened once and it is very interesting.

And so on for 1000 pages, give or take = G. Stein - The Making of Americans

Just to play devil's advocate: at least the Hemmingway doesn't last too long.

Another point: could it be that contrived simplicity is a trait of American writing?

#128

THAT, is music and a dance!

You, sir, have no ears.

The only ears I lack are doctrinaires!

P.S. I didn't say I didn't like it. I only presented a snippet and represented, accurately, that so it proceeds for a long long time.

How come Frank Norris' The Octopus isn't on the list?

From #126, "One of such of these kind of them" does that mean one of them? Them being, "It happens very often that a man has it in him, that a man does something, that he does it very often that he does many things, when he is a young man when he is an old man, when he is an older man." One of those.

Boy from Hemingway's childish sounding prose to gibberish all in on swell foop.

= older man and father that has it in him. Its like reading a long long logic poem.

Did I mention that it's really long?

#124 "One Faulkner is enough." I'm only suggesting one. William.

Wow Linda, that is a huge concession on your part!~! Tis proud I am of ye.

#134

A great belly laugh. Thanks, Linda.

I am also particularly fond of just one Faulkner, that being William. About ten of his works could be on this list. :-)

Let's hear it for Count NoAccount. Heigh-ho.

Responding to 68
Miss Stevens still hears the mermaids singing (the one great among May Sarton's books)
James Baldwin - not sure what is my favorite, may even be an essay, Fire Next Time or Go Tell it on the Mountain
The Known World - Jones
Flanner O'Connor - short stories
Member of the Wedding, The Ballad of the Sad CafeThe Heart is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers
Tell me a Riddle Tillie Olson
Gilead,Home Marilynne Robinson
A Lesson Before Dying Ernest Gaines

>131 absurdeist: :(

Also Daughter of the Earth Agnes Smedley, and some novel of Sherman Alexis

I double triple your Marilynne Robinson, solla! Duh! What were we thinking not including her. But don't you think Housekeeping has so far stood the test of time best? I could be wrong...usually am.

I feel your pain, Martin ;-)

Nathanael West didn't even get a mention! The Day of the Locust is superb. And don't oh puhleese me, tomekate! ever again! You do it again and I'll SPIT on your list!!! and your suggestions!!!!

(tomcat, there's lots of newcomers who've yet witnessed our reciprocal insultings. Are you game?)

Let us insult one another in the name of Holy Literachuh! Let the smackdowns commence....

I haven't yet read Housekeeping but plan to.

125 -130

Interesting discussion of Hemingway. Lola nailed on the head pretty much my main objections to H: his prose is execrable.

Sem, you said:
Don't you think that part of his subtlety is that he gives everything equal weight?

He does give everything equal weight, and therein lies his great error. Words do not have equal weight: lowly functional words such as prepositions, particles, articles, conjunctions do not have the same weight as verbs and nouns and adjectives. 'Love' has much more weight than 'in'; 'world' has more weight than 'and'. Good writers know which words are richer, weightier and which are more banal and use them together to create a rhythmic effect in which the key words are projected out of a background, a foil, of lesser purely functional words.

I agree with Lola, that Hemingway reads like first grade writing, like someone who has not realised the relative weight/worth of some words over others.

Bayonne is a nice town. right there, first grade stuff. Nice. I mean, it's hard not to snigger, really, don't you think?

His syntax is unbearably simplistic and repetitive, like listening to Philip Glass on a scratched record.

Also, I do not see what is so inherently funny about gays in a bar. What's the context?

The best that can be said of Hemingway as a writer was that he was a good typist.

He does give everything equal weight, and therein lies his great error.

Not if his point is ambiguity or the lack of values. It is an artistic choice that he perfectly executes.

I can only sadly shake my head at the dogging of Hemingway's prose, particularly in The Sun Also Rises. The dude was a poet. His precise selection of words to convey emotion and image is outstanding. (That word "nice" has a deeper meaning to Jake than you want to give it.) The rhythm of his sentences is extraordinary. The meaning is in the rhythm, and therefore much deeper.

I guess you and Lola find it very surprising that writing like a 1st grader became such a stylistic success.

I do not see what is so inherently funny about gays in a bar.

Who said that was funny? I said that part was subtle...the reason being only a careful reader will understand the source of Jake's anger at them.

well, we will have to agree to disagree on Hemingway.

But at least we agree on Proust. Great review.

#143 "The best that can be said of Hemingway as a writer was that he was a good typist." Isn't that what Capote said about Kerouac? At least no one's suggested Jack, or Philip Roth, for that matter.

If you guys are going to start an insult fest, here's a kick-off for you.

Faulkner: "(Hemingway) has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
Hemingway: "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"

>143 QuentinTom: Yeah, but they were both drunks.

The relevance being..???

Just playin'. (I may have had a few myself).

I've linked this before but this is a classic insult fest: Gore Vidal v. Norman Mailer. Dick Cavett wins!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8m9vDRe8fw

this link is Norman Mailer whining about several who allegedly slighted him over the years. Get over yourself Norman! Huh? What? Oh, that's right, he's dead! Ha! Gore Vidal outlived you. Bummer: http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/26285/

I haven't liked Norman Mailer since I read an article he wrote about the death penalty. In the article he stated that the death penalty is wrong (agreed), but then went on to suggest that there was some nobility involved when despite our moral beliefs we are outraged enough to impose it still. That's what I call immoral.

#149 OK, then. That's a relief. 'Cause if we start eliminating all the overdrinkers from our literary lives, we'll find ourselves bereft, indeed.

According to the Wikipedia list of prominent teetotallers, only Kafka, Lovecraft, Will Self, and Stephen King.

So THAT is what made Kafka into a Comic Genius!

Now I get it. No drink. That would do it, indeed.

153 Two of them have slipped in a world of horror for not drinking ?

serves them well