Best American /lit/

[Anonymous No.8061760]

Someone on the tinychat gave this to me. How well does this cover essential American literature? What's it missing?

[Anonymous No.8061763]

this is really honestly emberassing, disregard it completely op, i really don't mean to troll

[Anonymous No.8061819]

They did it as a joke, these are all meme authors (although some of them definitely are important in american literature).
Just look into famous or acclaimed or canonical american writers, find a book that interests you and read it - if you find it too difficult move onto something that is easier and then return the previous work later. You don't need all these flowcharts to tell you exactly what to read, just use them as a way to find similar works to the ones you enjoy.

[Anonymous No.8062151]

Isn't Infinite Jest post-pomo ?

[Anonymous No.8062155]

post-homo?

[Anonymous No.8062234]

>>8061760
Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, James Brahs, Crane, Twain, Dickinson, Whitman, Cather, Dreiser, West, O'Connor, Fitzgerald, Hem, Faulkner, Frost, Eliot, Welty, Mccullers, Penn Warren, Morrison, Salinger, Robinson, McCarthy, Updike, Bellow, Delillo, Pinecone

[Anonymous No.8062242]

Why is white noise even in there lol

[Anonymous No.8062243]

>>8061760
Those are good books but categorized bizzarely.

[Anonymous No.8062244]

>>8061760
haha

[Anonymous No.8062248]

>>8062234
Whittier, Longfellow, Poe, Bierce, Pound, Williams, Stevens, Aiken, Stein, Miller, Crane, Moore, Toomer, Ransom, Cheever, Mailer, Ellison, Barth, Styron, Mailer, Lowell, Berryman, Bishop, Malamud, Dickey, Yates

[Anonymous No.8062264]

>>8062248
>>8062234
I'd sub out Updike or Mailer for Roth

[Anonymous No.8064106]

>>8062234
>>8062248
Too exhaustive for a "tour" of American /lit/

[Anonymous No.8064111]

>>8061760
this made me laugh out loud.

good bait 8/10

[Anonymous No.8064112]

as if i needed more reason to avoid the tinychat

[Anonymous No.8064121]

>american
>literature

[Anonymous No.8064123]

>>8061760
>seven books
>tour of American literature
Is this a tour for illiterate ants?

[Anonymous No.8064141]

Meme me once shame on you, meme me twice, won't get memed again.

[Anonymous No.8065381]

>>8061763
Explain yourself.

>>8061819
Meme or not, is it a good guide?

[Anonymous No.8065976]

>>8062243
That's exactly what my problem with it is, there is absolutely no logical "flow" from one of those books to the next

[Anonymous No.8065985]

[Anonymous No.8067009]

what's the tc?

[Anonymous No.8067140]

>>8061760
Gassposter here. As much as I love that Gass is on here, it's missing the vast majority of great American writers, like Melville, Wolfe, Hawthorne, Twain, McElroy, Hawkes, Barth, Theroux, Coover
and, most importantly--really the only completely unforgivable absence--William Gaddis.

[Anonymous No.8067159]

>>8067140
As much as I like those writers, I wouldn't say that McElroy, Hawkes, or Theroux are anywhere near important enough for a brief survey of American lit. They're of secondary importance to a small subset of American lit.

[Anonymous No.8067160]

>>8065381

They are all good books that get spammed on /lit/. Kind of like how ITAOTS has achieved meme-status on /mu/ despite being a solid album. They're really good but calling them "the greatest" or presenting them as all you need to get a handle on modern american literature is the troll in the image. If you haven't read them yet, you should. Stoner is probably one of the best books of all time.

[Anonymous No.8067820]

>>8067159
I can see why you say that about
Theroux (though I still emphasize his importance), and, to a far lesser extent, I can see why you would say that about McElroy, but Hawkes is, in every way that Gaddis is, a great American writer, and is deserving of the same amount of adoration Gaddis gets as well.

[Anonymous No.8068878]

Is The Tunnel that good of a book? I've never looked closely at it but I thought it was famous for bring autistically detailed and stuff because it took many years to write. Lately I've been seeing it on charts.
Is it a hard read?

[Anonymous No.8068893]

>>8061760
>white noise
No.

[Anonymous No.8068908]

Sound and the fury is so so good

[Anonymous No.8069026]

>>8068878
Yes, it is good--very good, in fact, if it's your kind of thing. Chances are, though, you won't like it, because, yes, it is hard, and yes, it is very detailed; so, despite how much I love it--and I love it quite a lot--I wouldn't really recommend it unless you enjoy long, delightfully written, unhinged, plotless, difficult, vulgar, highly experimental novels.

[Anonymous No.8069647]

>>8065985
>Song of Solomon

pls no

[Anonymous No.8069695]

>>8061760
Here you go OP

[The Sound and the Fury !!KlYr/MIPjaz No.8069779]

I'm not very familiar with 19th century American literature. For the 20th century, however, I think you have to include Hemingway, Faulkner, Henry James, Cather, Wharton, Steinbeck, Lewis, Sinclair, Bellow, Roth, Pynchon, Gaddis, Heller, and Gass (I'm not very familiar with the second half of the 20th century).

[Anonymous No.8069853]

>>8061760
Good European lit

[Anonymous No.8070767]

>>8062234
Who the fuck is James Brahs

[Anonymous No.8070771]

>>8062234
Oh you mean William & Henry, nm

[Anonymous No.8070777]

>>8067140
>Wolfe
Hope you mean Thomas Wolfe

[Anonymous No.8070879]

White Noise should be somewhere much earlier, and in it's current place should be The Recognitions, considering how much Gaddis influenced Wallace and the like.