/lit/ - Literature

light in august

>>8241674
Moby Cock

>>8241674
Anything Horatio Alger

naked lunch

What is the obsession with the great American novel by Americans? Why does America need a great novel to represent it? Is it like the remnants of a little-bro inferiority complex to Great Britain after the colonists got their independence?

>>8241718
We're a proud people. Why does that bother you?

>>8241718
Literature has an inherent ability to capture the essence of place and time like few other mediums of art, and because the landscape of the United States is so geographically, culturally, and politically diverse, a novel or multitude of novels can be a good document examination of such a landscape.

>>8241718
America is like and awkward self conscious teenager that lashes out and isn't sure of themselves. give them half a millennium they might actually have some culture

>>8241718
>my country is content with mediocrity

That's not for everyone, Anon

It's Moby Dick.

An old white man with a biblical sounding name leads a multi-cultural crew on an obsessive, violent quasi-religious quest that leads to death and oblivion for all.

What could be more American than that?

>>8241731
>an awkwardly self-conscious
or
>an awkward, self-conscious

>>8241674
Moby-Dick
The Sound and the Fury
The Recognitions
Omensetter's Luck
The Beetle Leg
The Public Burning

>>8242228
and gay sex

>>8242251
It's the handbook for the gay agenda.

The Scarlet Letter

>>8242262
fag

>>8242360
love you too, buddy

>>8241723

>a proud people

This would be great if there was a solid reason to be proud. You are barely educated in your own history, what are you so proud about?

In losing all your power as people of a nation to money and a bunch of faceless corporations?

In not following the example and teachings of your founding fathers at all except when you repeat SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED all the time like retards because your firearm toys are the only power your people have left since it gives them a false sense of freedom?

In becoming the most paranoid country on Earth and going out of your way to shit on the rightful sovereignty of smaller peaceful nations like Vietnam and Guatemala?

In acting like a huge victim when those smaller nations retaliate because they know the meaning of freedom better than any American will ever do?

>>8241718
Every single time this thread is made the same person makes this exact same post in response and gets the exact same answers to ti

>>8242390

>>8242390
It still wouldn't be great. Murder all nationalists.

>>8242390
Us @mericans are proud to be human because we are the has

>>8242399
Don't post pictures of yourself.

>>8242404

>>8242399

Not a fedora, just someone from one of those smaller countries that have tried their damn best at digging up all the buried/covered/burnt CIA shit that fucked us beyond repair and many others in this region. Fuck all of you, 9/11 wasn't a 10th of all the innocent blood spilled by your bullshit Cold War international politics.

American culture has paradoxically made the Great American Novel its literary goal, and a complete impossibility. Leaves of Grass is a possible candidate, but it is poetry.

>>8241674

Out of many, one recent candidate is Infinite Jest.
But really, Moby Dick.

It's obviously Moby Dick.

It's M.Di.

>>8241718

Despite your asshole posturing, you're not far off from the truth.

>1600s and 1700s
>American literature is mostly a Calvinist circlejerk with some frontier stories peppered here and there
>"YOU'RE GOING TO HELL, THIS COUNTRY IS REALLY BIG" is the pervasive theme
>British Literature is going through a golden age
>Shakespeare, Pope, Swift, Locke, Milton, Bacon, Defoe
>America becomes independent, eager to carve out a national identity separate from Britain
>Famous quote appears from a British journal: "Who reads an American book?"
>Thoreau and Emerson, the transcendentalists, break the ice ane encourage an anticonformist, risk-taking literature
>Writers like Hawthorne and Poe appear, American literature starts to tackle life in a human, secular way that is aesthetically pleasing
>Huge breakthrough: The Scarlet Letter is published. Captures the zeitgeist of a particular era. Best observation of American society up to that point.
>more ambitious, creative novels asserting an American identity ensue

and thus we have the Great American Novel

>>8241674

It's the grapes of Wrath, losers.

>>8242540
>"YOU'RE GOING TO HELL, THIS COUNTRY IS REALLY BIG"
Kek
This post is honestly pretty true though

>>8242390
Well we were the cause for a new lingua franca, we have eighteen of the top twenty universities internationally, we invented nearly all popular music since symphonic music, and we have been the dominant power in the most peaceful era in human history. Don't worry though the grapes are totally sour.

>>8241718
Because America is number one, you filthy commie

>>8242586
this. gets more and more relevant every year.

>>8242690
>we invented nearly all popular music since symphonic music
this is what americunts actually believe

>>8242586
this. it's communism

>>8241718
everyone in britain with balls left for america: the great american novel was inevitable in the wake of the Great British Testosterone Migration

>>8242228
>>8242251
'murrca

>>8242865
>everyone in Britain with balls left for America

or got shredded to pieces in WW1*

>>8242262
this

It's my upcoming novel, read about it in 2050 once they realize it's a masterpiece of mankind

>>8241674
Obviously!!! It's my diary tubbyonest!

>>8242540
this chart is fantastic until you get to fucking infinite jest.

>>8241674
Lolita.
>>8242901
That's the joke.

>>8241693
This book fucking sucks

>>8241693
this

>>8243074
just admit you don't get it

>>8242540
who ever made this chart fucked up

it is supposedly chronological but there is some random shit by paul auster in the 1930s section which I presume should be the Great Trilogy by Dos Passos and not some whiny titty boy from new york.

>>8241674
Critics have said 'Huckleberry Finn" one of the best american fictions, although I have't read it

Absalom, Absalom!

>>8243193

I just noticed that but the New York Trilogy, especially City of Glass, is excellent. I'd much sooner cut out Kate Chopin or some other affirmative action choice sitting in that chart.

I need to read Dos Passos...

the great gatsby.

>>8242456

>America isn't shit

>America dominated my country and turned it into a shithole. Now I'm a grumpy Gus.

Cry about is bitch

>>8242473
>great American novel
>Out of many, one
Look at that

>>8242390
We landed on the fucking moon, dipshit

Manhattan Transfer

>>8242861
What popular music did your nation invent?

>>8243748

For one, early rock and roll was a fusion of negro dance hall jives and Appalachian folk music.

Since Robert Moog is an American, I guess you could say electronic music as well.

>>8242456
ASJSKAJAJAJA EL SUDACA SENIORES

>>8243223
They're right, Huck Finn is great. But Doby Mick blows it out of the water like a stream of vapor (not water) from a sperm whale's spout.

East of Eden or Huck Finn

>>8241718
There is no "obsession" People simply like to have something of merit that represents or mirrors their landscape and ideals. most countires try to find a "Great ____novel" or writer. in America's case it just so happens to be My Diary by ME to be honest

>>8241674
Avalon Landing

>>8243809
I think we are arguing on the same side. I asked him what music his country invented because i know it couldn't have been jazz, blues, rock, hip-hop, metal or punk.

It's The Scarlet Letter right now, but as culture keeps changing eventually it'll become The Great Gatsby again.

>>8242456
Cuba? What part of Central/ South America.

>>8244176
Every single SA country suffered from Cold War politics. USA supported dictatorships in Chile, Argentina and Brazil and those cunts killed lots of people (at least we've had one pf our greatest cultural movements due to the repression).

>>8244150
God, I hope. Too bad the only reason The Great Gatsby gets to stay in the public eye in this current age is because of the theories of Nick's homosexuality.

Steinbeck

>>8244216
"USA" did not support them. Shady government agencies like the CIA and corrupt administrations definitely did, but not it's people. Granted they are blind to what is really going on outside of the states, but that doesnt mean this country has countributed by leaps and bounds to science, technology, politics, and human rights. (still flawed of course, there is still rampant racism, classicism, and crime)

>>8244232

>>8243732
Which part of the rocket did you invent? Or perhaps you're an astronaut?

>>8244268

>t. Over-defensive American

USA as referring to the US government.

When we say Whitehall we mean the government apparatus of Great Britain, not literally an area of Westminster.

>>8244289
well okay. But I'm an immigrant from south america that has seen the horrors of modern society from both ends. The Americas in general are shit, not because of their people, but because of really disgraceful governments. just saying.

>all these blanketing insults to a country of more than 300 million people

Good thing an anonymous opinion on an image board's literature forum does not matter in the slightest.

>>8244306
Why does the medium change the value of the opinion? If the same people posted somewhere else the same opinion, would they be valid?

>>8244330
You missed the point entirely

>>8243817
huck finn is literally the american odyssey
>so american mark twain didn't even bother shoehorning it into hexameter like a big ol' fag

>>8241687
>>8242228
nobody loves g.gordon pym

absolom, absolom!

dos passos' usa trilogy