Great American Novels

[Anonymous No.23165449]

What are the true great American novels?

[Anonymous No.23165464]

>>23165449
Henry Fielding was an Englishman. Odd choice. In any case, Moby-Dick is the greatest American novel.

[Anonymous No.23165467]

>>23165449
Imagine being such a pseud you put O Lost in there kek

[Anonymous No.23165475]

>>23165449
None aside two of those there.

[Anonymous No.23165479]

>>23165467
Huh?

[Anonymous No.23165483]

>>23165479
Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?

[Anonymous No.23165486]

>>23165475
Moby-Dick and Absalom, Absalom, obviously,

[Anonymous No.23165490]

>>23165449
Some solid contenders would be Underworld, The U.S.A Trilogy, and The Recognitions.

[Anonymous No.23165492]

>>23165449
A Canticle for Leibowitz never gets any love on these charts but I think it’s extraordinary

[Anonymous No.23165493]

>>23165490
why do like boring books?

[Anonymous No.23165494]

>>23165449
>Henry Fielding

[Anonymous No.23165495]

>>23165493
TrueLit told him that those books are good

[Anonymous No.23165498]

>>23165493
do you*
damn laptop

[Anonymous No.23165502]

>>23165493
Why do you find those books boring?

[Anonymous No.23165515]

>>23165502
He hasn’t read them

[Anonymous No.23165540]

>>23165502
They are not fun to read. They are artificially intellectual. Books for phonies. Blood Meridian, Huckleberry Finn, Lonesome Dove = soul.

[Anonymous No.23165552]

>>23165540
What does ‘artificially intelligent’ even mean

[Anonymous No.23165564]

>>23165552
I never said that, so I don't know.

[Anonymous No.23165569]

>>23165464
>>23165494
My mistake, I do love that book a lot. I'll add something else nex time, I'd like to expand the chart.

[Anonymous No.23165572]

>>23165564
Ah, my mistake. What does ‘artificially intellectual’ mean?

[Anonymous No.23165573]

>>23165569
I hope that book is better than the movie.

[Anonymous No.23165576]

>>23165449
ATD is far more American than M&D which mostly says (in this context) we grew up when our conspiracies grew larger than mom and dad. At its core ATD is a celebration of America and everything that has come to define it, for better or for worse.

[Anonymous No.23165694]

>>23165449
>>23165569
I made a few changes, added Jack London and Michael Shaara and changed the cover for East of Eden because I like the first edition more.

[Anonymous No.23165706]

>>23165449
Given how vast America is culturally, geographically, and pretty much every way, there will be no one true great American novel. There are some good contenders that fit a lot of cultures and eras thematically. Leaves of Grass is one but it almost feels like a universal book and borderline scripture. Moby Dick and The Great Gatsby are two novels that have themes or interpretations that are very tied into America as an idea.

[Anonymous No.23165719]

[Anonymous No.23165724]

[Anonymous No.23165737]

>>23165449
what is pynchon doing there lmao

[Anonymous No.23165759]

You need to include at least a few Westerns, the most American genre.

>The Virginian
>Warlock
>True Grit
>The Ox-Bow Incident
>The Big Sky
>Butcher's Crossing
>Shane
>The Shootist
>Lonesome Dove
>The Searchers
>Little Big Man
>The Time It Never Rained
>Epitaph

[Anonymous No.23165769]

[Anonymous No.23165777]

>>23165759
Lonesome Dove and In The Distance are the only westerns that really could be called Great American novels in that they speak directly to what it is to be American. Both fail for me, Lonesome Dove does never really develops this aspect and what it does is mostly accidental, In The Distance tries more for the generic, what is human more than what is American.

Against the Day is the great American western and the western is its p primary mode. Yeah, I have been shilling this one hard tonight.

[Anonymous No.23165783]

>>23165777
Against the Day is a western? I had no clue. I thought it was some bullshit postmodern doggerel for New York queers. I'll look into it.

[Anonymous No.23165798]

>>23165783
The primary narrative is very much in the revisionist western style and it travels the world but never strays far from its roots. Along with that it exploits all of the genres which were big during the time of its setting and where foundational for American literature to come. It is Pynchon at his most American and most human.

[Anonymous No.23165806]

>>23165798
Noted. It seems pretty fun. As long as it's not Gass, Gaddis, Gladys or any of those queers.

[Anonymous No.23165815]

>>23165806
Most people who shit on Gass primarily do it because of The Tunnel which is very different than the bulk of writing. Give Omensetter's Luck a read, I bet you will like it.

Against The Day is quite fun, especially if you are well read in those early genre forms, the Lovecraft pastiche is one of the greatest bits in literature.

[Anonymous No.23165847]

[Anonymous No.23165868]

Just from American novels I have read:
Moby Dick
Huck Finn
Something from Edith Wharton—maybe House of Mirth, maybe Age of Innocence
My Antonia
Gatsby is an alright pick but ehh
The Sound and the Fury
Grapes of Wrath
Native Son
Catcher in the Rye
Invisible Man
Canticle for Leibowitz
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
House on Mango Street
Carpenter’s Gothic
Beloved
Underworld
Almanac of the Dead

No, Blood Meridian doesn’t make it on here because it’s not that good. Also haven’t done Pynchon past The Crying of Lot 49 and that was only alright.

Honorary goes to Slaughterhouse 5 which while amazing doesn’t speak “American” to me.

[Anonymous No.23165883]

Leaves of Grass
Infinite Jest
Lolita

[Anonymous No.23165890]

>>23165883
>Lolita
>American

>Lolita
>more than a 6/10

[Anonymous No.23165908]

[Anonymous No.23165913]

>>23165769
Thank you for putting this in my radar. Kino title, and I can totally see this being an American classic by its premise

[Anonymous No.23165924]

>>23165913
Nta but it’s a great book. It belongs with Joyce and Faulkner IMO. An absolute gem that Kesey knocked out of the park

[Anonymous No.23165988]

>>23165847
deeply based

[Anonymous No.23166014]

>>23165449
Can't believe you psueds can go an entire thread without bringing up picrel

in 200 years they will be analyzing our time period through the lens of this book

[Anonymous No.23166033]

>>23166014
Forgot pic

[Anonymous No.23166057]

>>23166033
The Stuart Little video game for PC was based. I think it came in a cereal box.

[Anonymous No.23166155]

>>23165540
>likes mccarthy
>doesn't like gaddis
you're missing out bud, gaddis is the end-all, be-all of "post-modernists" (and even then Gaddis was more of a modernist). It makes DFW look like he shat in a bag for all his book ideas.

[Anonymous No.23166168]

The Adventures of Augie March

[Anonymous No.23166402]

[Anonymous No.23166424]

Why does no one ever talk about McTeague

[Anonymous No.23166445]

>>23166424
It’s really not that interesting a story and is more well known for having influenced a now half lost Von Stroheim book than for the actual writing itself.

[Anonymous No.23166511]

>>23166033
Is this a joke?

[Anonymous No.23166742]

>>23165769
Truelit meme

[Anonymous No.23166748]

>>23165724
Lmaooooooooo

[Anonymous No.23167404]

>>23165573
>I hope that book is better than the movie.
It is, it's also superior to From Here to Eternity.

[Anonymous No.23167425]

The Partisan: A Romance of the Revolution (Simms)

[Anonymous No.23167443]

Surprised no one's mentioned it yet. I guess it lies too close to "I had to read it in school so it's automatically bad" territory for this board.

[Anonymous No.23167865]

>>23165759
>More Westerns
You're dern tootin

[Anonymous No.23167896]

>>23165449
Is East of Eden good?

[Anonymous No.23167897]

>>23167896
Yea, pretty good.

[Anonymous No.23167909]

>>23165868
>Canticle for Leibowitz
Good choice, might need to add some sci-fi.

[Anonymous No.23168026]

>>23165449
The problem with ranking American literatire is that America's great contribution to world literature aren't individual masterpieces but , but the entire horizons opened up by genre. Poe, for instance gave us the detective story and, arguably, science fiction and horror. Or consider the Western. These never get set against classic European literature because they're not quite the same thing, the same way that poetry is not a short story. But the masterpieces of American genre, IMHO, far outweigh the supposed American classics and even many European ones. The novels of Philip Dick, for instance, knock Gatsby flat. Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land just plain dwarfs The Sun Also Rises.

A suggested list:

Farewell, My Lovely
The Maltese Falcon
Stranger In A Strange Land
The End of Eternity (Asimov)
The Far Side of the Dollar (Macdonald)
The Shadow Out Of Time
Way Station (Simak)
My Gun Is Quick
Ubik
The Stand
Atlas Shrugged

Many such cases.

[Anonymous No.23168042]

>>23168026
>Atlas Shrugged
>The Stand
Those are not classics, they were bestsellers.

[Anonymous No.23168074]

>>23168026
The idea of the great American novel has nothing to do with the effects of the American novel on literature as a whole or about rating and saying these are best, they are novels which get to some basic truths of American existence. The Great Gatsby has more to say about the country and its people than your entire list combined.

[Anonymous No.23168168]

Some science fiction:

>More Than Human
>The Centauri Device
>Alas, Babylon
>The Demolished Man
>Dying Inside
>The Lathe of Heaven
>Earth Abides
>Dune
>Viriconium
>The Demon Princes

[Anonymous No.23168171]

>>23168168
>no Le Guin
>no Kindred
embarassing

[Anonymous No.23168174]

>>23168171
>The Lathe of Heaven
>no Le Guin
>

[Anonymous No.23168185]

>>23168168
Viriconium and The Centauri Device are by a Brit.
>>23168171
>no Le Guin
The Lathe of Heaven is by LeGuin.
>no Kindred
Reddit BS.

[Anonymous No.23168192]

>>23168174
>>23168185
Alright guilty as charged but I was scanning for Left Hand of Darkness. Also fuck you Kindred is great, complex, AND an essential American read that looks at fhe power dynamics that shaped this country

[Anonymous No.23168193]

>>23168192
lol ok

[Anonymous No.23168285]

>>23165868
>House on Mango Street
Kill yourself, you coprophagous retard.

[Anonymous No.23168303]

>>23168285
You’re too stupid to appreciate how iceberg like Mango Street is in structure, communicating character, etc. Go read GRRM or some shit.

[Anonymous No.23168304]

>>23165449

[Anonymous No.23168315]

>>23168168
Here is my first draft for a SF one.

[Anonymous No.23168320]

>>23167896
It's arguably Steinbeck's best, along with Cannery Row.

[Anonymous No.23168329]

>>23168304
Walter Abish
John Ashbery
James Baldwin
Donald Barthelme
Ambrose Bierce
Elizabeth Bishop
Robert Bly
Richard Brautigan
Charles Brockden Brown
William Cullen Bryant
Charles Bukowski
Gabrielle Burton
Truman Capote
James Fenimore Cooper
Hart Crane
Robert Creeley
H.D.
Don DeLillo
Emily Dickinson
Alan Dugan
Robert Duncan
Durant
Jonathan Edwards
TS Eliot
Emerson
Frederick Exley
W. Faulkner
Fitzgerald
Robert Frost
William Gaddis
William Gass
William Lindsay Gresham
Alfred Starr Hamilton
Marianne Hauser
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hemingway
Langston Hughes
Washington Irving
Henry James
Robinson Jeffers
John Knowles
J. London
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
James Russell Lowell
Robert Lowell
Malamud
David Markson
Cormac McCarthy
Carson McCullers
Herman Melville
James Merrill
Arthur Miller
Henry Miller
Marianne Moore
Toni Morrison
Flannery O'Connor
Frank O’Hara
Charles Olson
George Oppen
PKD
Sylvia Plath
Edgar Allan Poe
Ezra Pound
James Purdy
Pynchon
Adrienne Rich
Philip Roth
James Schuyler
Anne Sexton
William Gilmore Simms
Lewis Sinclair
Upton Sinclair
Frank Stanford
Gertrude Stein
Steinbeck
Wallace Stevens
H. Thompson
Thoreau
John Kennedy Toole
Mark Twain
Updike
Vollman
Vonnegut
David Foster Wallace
Walt Whitman
Tennessee Williams
William Carlos Williams
Thomas Wolfe
Louis Zukofsky

[Anonymous No.23168377]

>>23168329
bloated

[Anonymous No.23168422]

Don't see it mentioned yet, so I will throw in Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It; the rhythm of the language is top-tier.

>>23165847
Love Penn Warren, but more as a poet than as a novelist. Brother to Dragons might fit as a compromise between the two.

>>23165924
Yes. NTA either but it's the only book that's come out since Absalom that I would put on the same level. I've read Notion several times now and I still don't understand how well Kesey was able to present different perspectives and characters so clearly even though there's often no obvious shift from one character to another. Incredible book.

>>23165868
>My Antonia
>Gatsby is an alright pick but ehh
Funny thing is that Fitzgerald thought Gatsby was a failure compared to My Antonia. RE Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop is I think her best, but it's less quintessentially American.

>>23168026
You are either immature or have bad taste or both. Putting Dick and Heinlein above Fitzgerald and Hemingway is comical; putting Rand anywhere near the top tier of American writers is laughable, just on a purely stylistic level. You need to move beyond holding genre books up as great, especially when you are picking mid-tier genre at that.

[Anonymous No.23168459]

>>23165449
I need to read more classics, but East of Eden was by far my favorite assigned book in school. Possibly one of the greatest Christian books of all time.

[Anonymous No.23168481]

>>23165724
OK, I will bite, most of these are minor works with niche followings, what makes them great American novels?

[Anonymous No.23168492]

>>23168377
Just because the list includes authors that aren't talked about much on /lit/, doesn't make it bloated.

[Anonymous No.23168762]

>>23168303
And you're too stupid to realize shitskins will never be and can never be American.

[Anonymous No.23168769]

>>23168492
If there are many mediocre authors, it means it's bloated.

[Anonymous No.23168788]

>>23168769
Then your post is irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.23168792]

>>23168788
Non sequitur

[Anonymous No.23168859]

>>23168762
this level of rage will be your own undoing if it hasn't already proven so

[Anonymous No.23168961]

>>23168481
They each deal with what it is to be American and do it well. Admittedly there is a bias towards the midwest but the midwest best represents certain ideals which the country strove towards for a good long while—the American suburb is ultimately a failed attempt at manufacturing the midwestern neighborhood—and some things are best explored through that context.

[Anonymous No.23168978]

>>23165449
All of Hawthorne's stuff, honestly.

[Anonymous No.23169045]

>>23168074
>>The idea of the great American novel... are novels which get to some basic truths of American existence.
American existence, or human existence? I would argue that genuinely great literature has universal rather than solely local significance If you disagree then go read Tocqueville, not fiction.
>>The Great Gatsby has more to say about the country and its people than your entire list combined.
In your opinion. Not a few people, some philosophers included, would say that PKD alone has more to say about The Way We Live Now than Fitzgerald's social-climbing tale of a pleb who becomes a gunrunner trying (and failing) to nail an upper-class thot. But then not everyone has your fine sensibility.
>> Those are not classics, they were bestsellers
The number one best seller of all time is the King James Bible. I know: it's popular, so it's trash.
>> You are either immature or have bad taste or both.
Both. But thanks for saying so in an insulting manner. It lifts the entire discussion to a higher level.
>> Putting Dick and Heinlein above Fitzgerald and Hemingway is comical;
Your ex cathedra insistence that this is so naturally makes it true, but it does not make it reasoned, much less compelling.
>> putting Rand anywhere near the top tier of American writers is laughable, just on a purely stylistic level.
Ayn Rand is no stylist, granted. Neither was Dreiser. But that alone doesn't make a writer negligible. I'm not a Randian, but in terms of everything from plot construction to philosophical originality, Atlas is an impressive achievement. Also, you would be hard-pressed to get a better or more explanatory picture of US society than Rand's. She deserves a place in the pantheon, though not, I agree the top place. But then a lot of American lit is like that. Is Ross Macdonald's body of work, or less revealing of the American situation, than than, say, Donna Tartt? If you think so, you haven't read him.
>> You need to move beyond holding genre books up as great, especially when you are picking mid-tier genre at that.
It's the pretentious pseudo-literature blessed by the Papal hand of the NYT Book Review and your college classroom prospectus that's mid-tier. There's genre fiction that says more about America, and more than America, than /lit/ ever will.

[Anonymous No.23169055]

>>23169045
How about you try reading, you absolute donkey retard.

[Anonymous No.23169065]

>>23168859
What you mistake as rage is contempt and disgust at the odious idea of nonwhites being the same nationality as me (which is impossible by the by).

[Anonymous No.23169073]

Great American Novels involving America:

Moby-Dick, for sure.
Gone With The Wind
Alas, Atlas Shrugged
The Rabbit novels of John Updike
The Frank Bascombe novels of Richard Ford
USA - Dos Passos
Of Time and the River - Wolfe

Great American _Literature_:

Wallace Stevens
Edward Dahlberg
Donald Barthelme

[Anonymous No.23169082]

>>23169055
>you absolute donkey retard
You are rude, sir, and rudeness is a corruption of thinking. It is not an argument, merely ad hominem in place of argument. It renders your comments suspect at best, and invalid at worst. Naturally it says nothing about you as a personal character, which, vitriol aside, I'm sure is quite noble.

[Anonymous No.23169083]

>>23169065
Imagine being this much of a resentful retard lol

[Anonymous No.23169097]

>>23169082
No, you're not going to be able to distract from the fact that you didn't know what the fuck you were talking about.
>American existence, or human existence?
LOL.

[Anonymous No.23169101]

Moby Dick, Great Gatsby, and Blood Meridian imo. The Scarlet Letter deserves an honorable mention. The rest of these books are a bit overrated.

[Anonymous No.23169110]

>>23165868
> no Blood Meridian isn’t that good because it’s not that good
Brilliant analysis

[Anonymous No.23169112]

>>23169101
Why do you think The Scarlet Letter only deserves an honorable mention? It's certainly a better GAN than Blood Meridian.

[Anonymous No.23169113]

>>23165449
First I’d like to see everyone’s thoughts on what is the core idea or belief about America. Some anons will probably be unable to divorce their dislike of the country from the country as an idea

[Anonymous No.23169114]

>>23169082
>>You are rude. sir.
>> you didn't know what the fuck you were talking about. LOL
Let //lit/ be the judge.

[Anonymous No.23169115]

>>23165883
> Great American NOVEL
> Leaves of Grass

[Anonymous No.23169126]

>>23169112
This is just my opinion but when I think of the Great American novel I think of a novel that is somehow relevant to the whole of America, a cross section across vast space and time in America. But The Scarlet Letter is very much a New England Puritan novel. It’s a great novel but I just don’t think it speaks to anything quintessentially American everywhere at all times. I think Hawthorne is a very unappreciated writer though. I know people read him in school and stuff, but nobody really cares or talks about him seriously.

[Anonymous No.23169137]

>>23169113
Succeeding against all odds is the core idea about America. The American dream is immigrating and succeeding for a reason. Also the trope of rooting for the underdog is derived from this.

[Anonymous No.23169138]

>>23169112
>>23169126
It’s sort of like calling Beowulf the great European epic. Well, no. Actually it’s more like the great epic for a very particular European place and time.

[Anonymous No.23169142]

>>23169101
>Great Gatsby
>not overrated

[Anonymous No.23169150]

>>23169138
Europe is a continent full of different nationalities.
The US is a country and only one nationality.
It's not the same at all.

[Anonymous No.23169158]

>>23169113
You don't really need to go searching around for an answer. It's right in the DOI and the constitution, more specifically the Bill of Rights. Core American values are as follows: Individualism, liberty, self-government, pragmatism, democracy, the WASP work-ethic, the pursuit of happiness, achievement, equality, and struggle. Read the founding fathers if you really want to know, and of course Thomas Paine as well.

[Anonymous No.23169164]

>>23169150
It is the same but you could replace Europe with Britain or England if you like. The point is the same regardless.

[Anonymous No.23169167]

>>23169113
I think Pynchon is the only author that truly understands what America was and could still be. He's great at walking the line of admiring the idea of America but critiquing it.

[Anonymous No.23169168]

>>23169158
Then I’d say the collected writings of Emerson and Thoreau. I suppose they aren’t a novel though and neither is Leaves of Grass. IMO Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman are the 3 greatest American writers but they are almost universal; everyone should read and heed them

[Anonymous No.23169170]

>>23169142
I don’t see how it is overrated it’s the pre-eminent American. Basically nobody pretends that it’s not in the top bucket. It’s very unique among American novels and is somehow profound yet easy to read and enjoyable. There are really few novels like it. It’s almost perfect in regard to doing what a novel is supposed to do.

[Anonymous No.23169182]

>>23169168
Whitman is very overrated. He was a good poet and there can be no doubt about that, but so much of the exaltation of Whitman is owed to his particular character attributes and the themes and opinions he articulates in his poetry. Leaves of Grass at times reads like it could be a manifesto for the contemporary Democratic Party so we all just sort of pretend it’s the greatest thing ever on that basis. But a poem is not greatest merely because it exalts Democracy and was written by a gay man.

[Anonymous No.23169183]

>>23169168
>I’d say the collected writings of Emerson and Thoreau
Me too, and I agree completely with your view of them being the greatest American writers. But like you said, they weren't novelists, so unfortunately their work doesn't fit into the definition of a GAN. That's where I'd disagree with DeForest: The Great American Poem was already written in his lifetime. It was Whitman's Song of Myself.

[Anonymous No.23169200]

>>23169113
>thoughts on what is the core idea or belief about America
A good question, for once.
I would say that the core 'idea' of America is a critical love-hate relationship with Europe. Americans came here to flee Europe and/or to create a new nation purged of its defects (like Kings, etc.) We began as bearers of European civilization to a savage and undeveloped land, and tried to be better than our forebears. Hence America's Utopianism and also its barbarism. We tried to replicate Christian Rome but also improve on it, but in throwing off the Ancien Regime we also threw off much of the civilization that went with it. Like Gatsby, we ended up being Caliban even while aspiring to be Prospero.

The sub-theme in the American story--the one that will eventually kill us--is the Damoclean axiom of equality. "All men are created equal," so blacks are the same as whites, women are the same as men, youth is the same as age, and if you have a penis but say you're a woman, you are. Except you're not, so we need to coerce everyone into pretending that these very American lies are the truth. The struggle between delusional egalitarianism and real indestructible difference is the second great theme of America. Let's assume equality and ignore black slaves. Let's free blacks and ignore their track record of destruction and barbarism. Let's abort children and pretend they're clumps of cells, like a fingernail. Let's pretend we all have equal opportunity and forget the gap between the Musks and the homeless.

Essentially the American story is one of flight from Christian Europe toward zero. No wonder we landed on the moon. It's our perfect metaphor.

[Anonymous No.23169216]

>>23169164
>It is the same
It's not the same at all.
>you could
Not "could", you would *have* to change it. Otherwise the comparison doesn't work because Europe is not a country and everyone has different epics.

[Anonymous No.23169224]

>>23169200
/pol/chud coming out of the woodwork to write his propaganda.

[Anonymous No.23169227]

>>23169216
Ok then change it.

[Anonymous No.23169253]

>>23165464
Loath as I am to bring this up--for we all labor under the shadow of /pol/ at this point--but we should remember too that in an age of multiculturalism, there is no 'American novel,' only novels of hyphenated Americanism. These can be pretty damned great: the Jewish-American novel of the Fifites is as close as we've ever come to genuine, ie French, high literature. Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Salinger, Sontag. Impressive, but is it all of America or only the slice that is Jewish America. Blacks have come up with some good writers too--Baldwin, Ellison, Butler--but are they writing about America, or about being black? Almost always the latter. I don't think an American novel, the kind that tries to grasp the country as a whole, is even possible anymore.

[Anonymous No.23169264]

>>23169224
>/pol/chud coming out of the woodwork to write his propaganda.
Neither cast ye your pearls before redditors, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

[Anonymous No.23169279]

>>23169183
I’ve never read DeForest but can the GAN be critical of America as idea? It would be hard to argue against something like The Great Gatsby-the American dream, the failure of the American dream, and the staunch socio or class lines that will forever be present even with the American dream. Moby Dick is more on a metaphysical level. My memory isn’t too sharp on Huckleberry Finn and I need to reread it but I remember many core “American” ideas in it. Some interesting outside the box picks could be various Henry James books- the forever present divide between the old world and new world. Faulkner and McCarthy are probably too regional but both play with core “American” ideas or epochs. Dos Passos is too tied into one era IMO but lots of snapshots various characters and classes and how they make up America. Grapes of Wrath is probably too tied to depression era America but it’s still a very relevant book. James Fenimore Cooper deals with a very specific shaping of America and clash of cultures/values and the ever present frontier that is so symbolically tied into America.

Are there any good choices for GAN that aren’t American?

[Anonymous No.23169291]

>>23169167
Every patriotic writer, no matter their country, is critical of it

[Anonymous No.23169299]

>>23169113
Hypocrisy is a very American theme. They hate immigrants (legal or otherwise) yet they descent from immigrants. They hate blacks yet they brought them into their country. They pose as Christians yet they're the leaders of pornography and LGBT degeneracy. And so on.

[Anonymous No.23169309]

>>23169279
>>23169253
You're overcomplicating things.

[Anonymous No.23169390]

>>23165449

[Anonymous No.23169438]

>>23169299
>They hate immigrants (legal or otherwise) yet they descent from immigrants.
That isn't true. Sure, there are plenty of immigrant families here in America now, but the Pilgrim Fathers were not immigrants and neither were any of the families that came over up until around the early 19th century: they were settlers, colonizers, conquerors. That is, unless you want to call ancient Romans in Britain immigrants as well, or the Portuguese in Brazil, or even Mongolians in China, India, the Levant and Eastern Europe. You should start by reading the early Americans, and especially about Myles Standish, William Bradford, William Penn, Michael Wigglesworth, and so on.

>This region was in darkness plac’t
>Far off from heavens light,
>Amidst the shaddows of grim death
>And of eternal night.
>For there the Sun of righteousness
>Had never made to shine
>The light of his sweet countenance,
>And grace which is divine:

>Until the time drew nigh wherein
>The glorious Lord of hostes
>Was pleasd to lead his armies forth
>Into those forrein coastes.
>At whose approach the darkness sad
>Soon vanished away,
>And all the shaddows of the night
>Were turned to lightsome day.

>The dark and dismal western woods
>(The Devils den whilere)
>Beheld such glorious Gospel-shine,
>As none beheld more cleare.
>Were sathan had his scepter sway’d
>For many generations,
>The King of Kings set up his throne
>To rule amongst the nations.

>The stubborn he in pieces brake,
>Like vessels made of clay:
>And those that sought his peoples hurt
>He turned to decay.
>Those curst Amalekites, that fi rst
>Lift up their hand on high
>To fight against Gods Israel,
>Were ruin’d fearfully.

>Thy terrours on the Heathen folk,
>O Great Jehovah, fell:
>The fame of thy great acts, O Lord,
>Did all the nations quell.
>Some hid themselves for fear of thee
>In forrests wide & great:
>Some to thy people crouching came,
>For favour to entreat.

>Some were desirous to be taught
>The knowledge of thy wayes,
>And being taught, did soon accord
>Therein to spend their dayes.
>Thus were the fi erce and barbarous
>Brought to civility,
>And those that liv’d like beasts (or worse)
>To live religiously.

>O happiest of dayes wherein
>The blind received sight,
>And those that had no eyes before
>Were made to see the light!
>The wilderness hereat rejoyc’t,
>The woods for joy did sing,
>The vallys & the little hills
>Thy praises ecchoing.

>Here was the hiding, which thou,
>Jehovah, didst provide
>For thy redeemed ones, and where
>Thou didst thy jewels hide
>In per’lous times, and saddest dayes
>Of sack-cloth and of blood,
>When th’ overflowing scourge did pass
>Through Europe, like a flood.

[Anonymous No.23170393]

The Sot-Weed Factor

[Anonymous No.23170494]

>>23165449
Ignoring McCarthy and Blood meridian in particular is peak contrarianism. Especially when pynchon and fucking Mitchell are on there.
>>23169112
It isn't. Don't try to meme it.

[Anonymous No.23170503]

>>23165777
Why are you trying so hard to ignore the elephant in the room?

[Anonymous No.23170510]

>>23170494
ESL?

[Anonymous No.23170512]

>>23170510
Why do think so?

[Anonymous No.23170513]

>>23168329
Glad to see someone is still posting my list

[Anonymous No.23170515]

>>23170512
*why do you think so?

[Anonymous No.23170517]

>>23170512
I have only seen ESLs on this mongolian throat singing forum use “in particular,” particularly Germans. Are you German?

[Anonymous No.23170523]

>>23170517
When did Germans claim "in particular"? That's a very commonly used phrase. Are you an ESL?

[Anonymous No.23170524]

>>23170523
>claim
Are you retarded? They just happen to use “in particular” with more frequency than other people. It’s not about “claiming.” You must be brown.
>commonly used phrase
No, it isn’t. Name one instant that you heard someone IRL use “in particular”

[Anonymous No.23170531]

>>23170494
Learn to use commas, Rajeesh.

[Anonymous No.23170535]

>>23170524
What are you mad about? So you're an ESL ig.
>>23170531
Not your boogeyman, "paco".
>Learn to use commas
You're mexican lol.

[Anonymous No.23171798]

>>23170494
Pynchon is better than McCarthy you simpleton.

[Anonymous No.23171942]

>>23171798
Kek. No he isn't, hipster.

[Anonymous No.23171963]

>>23171798
You wish.

[Anonymous No.23171989]

>>23171798
They hated him because he told the truth.

[Anonymous No.23172012]

>>23171989
>truth
Lol.