/lit/ - Literature

Cause they are very idealisistic.

Because American's only have one great novel

>>4289230
>American's
Took a screenshot for your personal embarrassment years later.

America is a young country, and the novel, in the grand scheme of history, has only recently begun to become the main form of literature; countries with longer histories usually admire their poetry and philosophy and mythology, not novels.

>>4289240
But he's right

Most great writers are American so the title is worth mentioning and deserving of praise. Same reason people care about the best cyclist in France but not the best surfer in Luxemborug.

I think of the concept less as "the greatest book that has come from from America" and more "the book that's most relevant to what it's like to be American today".

In that sense, I would pick Infinite Jest

>>4289296

gr7 b7 m7

>>4289298
> most relevant to what it's like to be American today
>IJ
surely you jest

>>4289303
it;s an infinite jest.

Most bad ideas come from Europe -
world war
fascism
communism
psychiatry
philosophy
soccer

nothing worth worrying about

>>4289239

Yeah, this is horseshit. As a "young" country the USA is older than most countries in Europe. Older than most countries in South America. American history and philosophy goes way back before it's revolutionary war. Novels originated around the time of Shakespear. The "great American novel" is one of those "American" things. Like naming movies "American [something]" and somehow it's supposed to be profound or some kind of statement about the inner nature of the average American. It's the mystique Americans have built up about America and nobody buys that shit except Americans. America has a bunch of myths about itself and for some screwed up reason it keeps on believing them. America is a middle-aged man who still truly believes in Santa Claus.

>>4289312
Most ideas come from Europe*

>>4289298

>>4289306


Is it really that great? I am in need of a new book and have been thinking ab it. havent read any DFW before.

thoughts?

>>4289321
country =/= state =/= nation

>>4289328
it's the Pedantic Avenger, here to save the day

>>4289327
If you have read a lot of the well known "literary" stuff, you probably won't like it. If you haven't, you probably will.

>>4289327

bump for interest

>>4289321

In terms of established government? Maybe. In terms of an ongoing cultural frame of reference? Absolutely not, and if you think otherwise then you're legitimately very ignorant or very stupid. The cultures of most European countries are far, far older than America or its internalized/Americanized Anglo culture.

The notion of the "great American novel" is an extension of the American desire to excel on an individual level and to aspire to greatness by way of contributing to some field of study or art. Literature, painting, science, engineering. The concept of the great American novel is just a permutation of the American dream, which is the desire to leave a footprint in history as an individual.

You're probably not an American and ergo don't really understand the underlying forces that drive these kinds of ideas in American culture, so it's understandable to be ignorant. But don't do yourself a disservice by attempting to broach a topic that you know nothing about and pretending like you have any grasp on it. Ignorance is perfectly acceptable, ignoring one's ignorance to spout bullshit based on misrepresented, oversimplified preconceived notions handed down to you by the media, your family, or your educators is not.

>>4289327
Don't bother Dave, you won't like it

>>4289330
In this case it's warranted, because that argument was just retarded and rooted in technicalities.

>>4289341

by "well known literary stuff" do you mean like the shit they teach in like honors english to high school jumiors

Because Americans see themselves and their 'American Dream' as something completely different from anything else. Their great american novels, according to themselves, all contain this struggle for succes, and gives them hope of eventually making it.

In the old world this urge to academically set oneself apart from the rest was much less significant.

Ironically, The Great Gatsby, the 'great american novel', illustrates that the american dream is just an illusion.

>>4289327
long winded, funny at times, boring at times, confusing at times, tries to provide insight about some cool things.
can't give an accurate rating/10
The book is a mess, in a good kinda way.
Start reading it, put it down if you dont like it.

>>4289348
>The cultures of most European countries are far, far older than America or its internalized/Americanized Anglo culture.

"American" culture just didn't spring into being at some point in time. "American" culture is the continuation of the cultures of it's immigrants, and as such, its roots are just as old and deep as any other. George Washington was a British subject before he was American citizen.

Americans just like lying to themselves about their country's supposed greatness and destiny. The "American [something]" name is a prominent example of this.

>>4289366

lol thats the thing if i start a book- i have to finish it. so its a bit like marriage.

>>4289385
That comic is so stupid. I know I'm going to die, I just don't care.

>>4289385
why would you ever do something like that?
are you autism?

>>4289393

lol i actually meant to attach this one, but i cant see content in the preview-view

>>4289399
Sorry...


I didn't mean it.

There is for me, however, a great american novel: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

Being European I didn't have to read Vonnegut in secundary school, so I read it when I was a bit older. I found it's message to be really universal and hopeful, in contrast to many American novels which I thought quite US-centristic in both story and theme.

>>4289398


in this regard, yes, i guess. it is a weird compulsion.i get it. i honestly dk how to explain

>>4289399

glad you appreciate

>>4289379
OK genius, where did Americans come up with their country's supposed greatness and destiny?

Not the mention that after the Revolutionary War, everything was just trying to get rid of British influence.

>>4289420
>>OK genius, where did Americans come up with their country's supposed greatness and destiny?

Obviously an early incarnation is manifest destiny. The successful expansion of the United States by settlers and war throughout the 19th and 20th centuries have certainly done nothing to dissuade Americans of the notion.

>>Not the mention that after the Revolutionary War, everything was just trying to get rid of British influence.

So fucking much that the normalized relations with the United Kingdom relatively quickly.

I think it is because we are a young nation and we are searching for identity in arts or at least we had been before it spiraled downward after mass public education took off. It kind of makes me sad to know that with education we have become dull and drown in a sea of uninteresting equals.


>Transitional periods suck.

>>4289379

>I am incapable of reading.

No shit. Why don't you try rereading the very line you quoted before responding, because your reading comprehension is pretty obviously shit.

The American culture didn't spring into being - it has its basis in Anglo culture, but was distanced and differentiated from that basis by the establishment of founding documents and manifestos, i.e. the Declaration and later the Constitution.

AKA "America or its internalized/Americanized Anglo culture." i.e. their culture that was derived-yet-distanced from their mother culture, i.e. their distinct approach to governance and views on society that are differentiated from the modus operandi of contemporary British society.

It's obvious that you are wholly and completely ignorant of the topic if you don't even understand the connection between America's separation from Britain and the subsequent development of what is quintessentially the "American worldview."

So no, American culture is not merely a continuation of its immigrants' cultures, or even a parallel continuation of the Anglo culture present in the original Thirteen Colonies. It's distinct, because it is a response - and thus, reactionary/in opposition - to many elements of their mother culture.

Again, being ignorant isn't bad. But you should really, REALLY stop being so insistent on arguing over a point on which you clearly know nothing about. Being willfully ignorant isn't going to do you any favors simply because you can't handle the fact that your supposed knowledge of Americans or their worldview is suspect, incomplete, or incorrect.

I am Swedish and we did used to argue about the great Swedish novel. But now we all agree the great Swedish novel is the Millennium Trilogy.

>>4289486
Are the cultures of Europe not the same?
>A collective of many cultures.

Sure some of them are more constant in certain nations, but are they still not borrowed. Is industrial culture a borrowed product from England exported to the rest of the world?

>>4289222
Because only Americans have great novels.

>>4289495

>>4289500
There is no borrowing, just insight.
An idea has to come from somewhere, but once it exists people will apply the new philosphy if it answers the questions relevant for that time.

Sure Romanticism originated in Germany. But by assuming it's a German thing, you make the other Romantic movements irrelevant. Keats is not less important than von Kleist because of his ethnicity.

The IR started in the UK, but it's consequences regarding the change of general perspective also in the rest of the world are too extensive for it to be labeled as borrowed from the British.

>>4289541
Well of course, but the ideas are borrowed. Borrowed is a word in its own way that is not so shallow. You borrow a book and you don't read it the same way the owner had right. You think differently about the content than the owner as well correct?

Perhaps I phrased what I said wrong, but essentially they are not original creations, but rather unique concepts that collaborate with already existing ideas.

>>4289550
I think what you're saying now is much more correct.
Everything is connected and nothing's created in a void.

New ways of thinking are merely techniques to cope with newly discovered truths. These truths are more or less the same regionally (let's take north-western Europe for example) A new philosophy is presented and applied in slightly different ways everywhere.
This is in accordence with de Saussure's: sign=signifier+signiefied or Derrida's sign=signifier+signiefied+signified+...

We create our own version by applying our own context and background. Nationally, socially, personally, etc.

>>4289312
>world war
I tought americans loved war.

>philosophy
How? Just... how?

>soccer
Why is a sport bad?

>>4289600
he rused u m8

>>4289495
Are those 3 books really considered that way?
Sure, they were entertaining and the second and third books have an interesting political message within, but I wouldn't go that far. There must be something better coming from Sweden.

>>4289621
Probably something from Pär Lagerkvist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A4r_Lagerkvist

>>4289403
Yeah, thus the Great American Novel. It's not an American novel that you like. It's a novel that embodies and explores the collective American ethos.

Great French Novel is probably In Search of Lost Time or some effete shit I've never heard of.

British could be Great Expectations or Middlemarch or something.

But the reason America has such a penchant for this is because it's insular and young. Stewing in its own juices and really at its inception starkly different from Europe.

Read Tocqueville

>>4289688
To me it's a novel that tries to find answers to questions that after WW2 the whole world was searching for, and in some way accomplishes to.

Not the American ethos per se, but the collective realisation that death is imminent, and mostly random.

Both acknowledging the apperant worthlessness of life, but also that untill death one can do anything.
Mankind was able to commit such horrors out of free will. Meaning that out of free will we can also do something good.

>>4289621
They're really good at giving themselves Nobel Prizes (they picked two of their own judges over Nabokov, Greene, and Bellow in '74)

>>4289222
Probably because Americans are better at writing novels, as a general rule, than the Brits or the French.

The virtuosity of American writing in the modern era tends to eclipse all but the most profound contributions from the rest of the world.

I'm saying this even though many of my favorite writers aren't American.

>>4289722
I've never read an american novel but this was so egocentric and nacionalistic you got me unmotivated to do it.

"Great American novel" is a catchphrase. Nothing more, nothing less. It's like "quality of life" or "I know it when I see it".

Overused to the extent that it means nothing.

>>4289838
Erm, and as for why other countries don't have these idiotic things, well, a lot of them are too smart for a catchphrase like "great ______ novel."

>>4289222
I am pretty sure they do... but there is a history to that term. You should look it up.

>>4289823
Ignore them. It was more or less a marketing term used in the early 20th century, namely for Hemingway and Fitzgerald's works.

>>4289823
>some guy on the internet is a stupid asshole so I'm going to ignore all literature from a nation of 400 million people

>>4289823
Your loss. I don't really care if you read American literature. I do, however, wonder why you're browsing a literature board if you have never read a novel from one of the most powerful and influential nations in the history of the world.