I think the scholars mostly get it right when they talk about great books. If I had to list the five greatest American novels, they’d all be pretty recognizable.
1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
2. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
3. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace
5. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
It’s just hard for me to find an American novel that is better (more perfect) than those five. I really love Catcher in the Rye and have it read it more than any other book. But I can’t justify placing it on my list. What do you think?
My favorite novel isn’t on most lists, but I will put the writing up against all of the ones listed.
The book is NOT a fairy tale, nor is it really for children. It’s called The Last Unicorn, and is about finding the hero within and making appropriate sacrifices to follow our destiny. I love it.
I read that a long time ago and remember it being a truly great book. Now I must re-read it.
And, predicably, all written by white men.
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Bread Givers, by Anzia Yezierska
My Antonia, by Willa Cather
Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, by Joyce Carol Oates
Just to name a few books that I personally find superior to, and more personally relevant than, the “American classics”.
Thanks for that!!
Oops, My apoligies to Harper Lee. I haven’t had my morning cup of tea yet.
And just to be clear, I like all of the above books, I just think the American Canon continues to be a white male club, when the breathed and scope of American writing and writers is so, so much more diverse and interesting.
First I heard of it.
Huck Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Grapes of Wrath are “personally relevant” to just about every sentient human being I’ve ever met.
I guess there are always exceptions.
Yep, I goofed on Harper, as I posted above.
And I didn’t say those stories were not relevant to me. I said that books that I’ve read with writers or lead characters that were not white men were more relevant to me.
Rain of Gold by Victor E. Villasenor
I was going to mention The Color Purple also but another novel of epic proportions that encompasses the American experience is ‘Roots’.
I would include Richard Wright and Nora Zeal Huston as well. Native Son should be in the top 5 imo .
And I Love My Antonia.
And the one dead white guy that wasn’t on the list that should be is Nathaniel Hawthorne.
And in the theme of great American novels – I’d also have to say Dune is one of the most prescient, fantastic, important novels ever written about our planet.
I list these two because they were written by American novelists, not because they are about America. Although a great novel is always about everything, if it’s well written.
If sci is your bailiwick, and it’s certainly one of mine, I’d suggest Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed as one of the most subtle critiques of human cultures’ conflict between individualism and conformity.
Also, I’m currently re-reading collections by my favorite Sci-fi short story author – James Tiptree, jr. (pen name of Alice Sheldon). If you like classic sci-fi, she’s your man. 😉
Not to mention The Left Hand of Darkness, which is as good, if not better than The Dispossessed.
I was going to add Animal Farm and 1984 by Orwell, until I realized he was British. Doh.
I liked The Left Hand of Darkness, it’s a great concept, but it’s not my favorite. I’d place it amongst the best of her early work, and she’s definitely one of those writers who clearly matures in her writing.
We’re eagerly waiting for her latest book to come out in paperback.
I have very faint memories of Gatsby, but haven’t read any of the others. Of my 1600+ volume collection, two of my top 5 are by Stephen King (The Stand & The Gunslinger Vol, IV: Wizards & Glass) and 1 is by Tom Clancy (Without Remorse), so I guess that means I’m totally warped.
Or something.
Add me to your Totally Warped Club. I’ve read The Stand and The Gunslinger more than once. And they never get old. Not sure why. But I’m spellbound every time I read them. And I already know what’s going to happen. Go figure.
Grapes of Wrath and To Kill A Mockingbird are near the top, too. Both are in my library.
Agree re both Grapes and Mockingbird!
Pretty solid list for mostly 20th-Century writers.
My all-time top 5 would probably be:
I’d want to throw in Kerouac, Sandburg, Thurber, and more, but some of favourites are short-story writers and non-fiction writers. For the above list I stuck to striaght Fiction/Literature
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
(Though I read both in Norwegian translation as a kid.)
Slaughterhouse 5, Vonnegut
I’d third that.
adding:
Beloved, Toni Morrison;
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora neale Hurston
Those are great books, shockingly good.
Hurston! Yes. I love her work.
i did a few papers on that book during college.
the best part is that the entire novel has the same structure as a blues song.
I had to look up Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, because I’d never heard of it. I see it’s science fiction of some sort, so I wouldn’t have been interested when it was published or now, and it’s new enough that nobody made me read it.
Twain’s grocery lists are wonderful, and Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is also worthy of Top Five lists. Gatsby never affected me; To Kill a Mockingbird is to me like Catcher in the Rye, in that they were new books that I actually bought for good reads so how could they be “great books”?
Not science fiction at all, IMO.
It’s set in the future, and because Wallace was some sort of freakish genius, has some science-ish aspects, but that’s only because the science is sort of necessary to explore if you’ve set a 1200 page novel in the future about a movie that is so good people die when they see it.
Also, tennis and rehab.
He’s not for everyone, but don’t avoid him out of sci-fi aversion.
I would never consider Infinite Jest to be science fiction. I’d consider it the best book I’ve encountered in the modern style. The best book I’ve ever read is The Idiot by Dostoyevsky. The next three best books I’ve read are also by Dostoyevsky: The Brothers Karamazov, The Possessed, Crime and Punishment.
After those, Infinite Jest is the most towering achievement in literature I have seen. The other books on my list are different in kind. They are books a mere mortal might produce. David Foster Wallace was not human, he was beyond human.
One can agree with some of the novels on your list (Huckleberry Finn), and have fun arguing over others (Mockingbird). But Gatsby is far and away the most overrated novel in history. It has one good passage on the last page; the rest is tripe.
I think Gatsby is near perfect. I can’t think of a book that is more perfect except Grapes of Wrath. But Gatsby is more concise, and I like that.
I’ve never read Gatsby. Loved the film though.
the film is okay. I found it a little disappointing.
The book can be read in an afternoon. It’s well worth your time.
Sorry, For Whom The Bell Tolls simply beats them all.
I don’t know about “best” but my favorite is “Catch-22”
My favorite book is most definitely Blood Meridian by Cormack Mcarthy. It pretty much covers everything.
My favorites of the last fifty years or so:
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Underworld by Don DeLillo
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (Okay, so she’s a Canadian — sue me)
The Man in The High Castle and Valis by Philip K. Dick
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (a must read with a new edition out in the last year)
Older Books:
As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
But I also like Gatsby.
Here are some books some people may not have thought of.
The Chosen Place, The Timeless People, by Paule Marshall.
The short story collections, Finding a Girl in America, and Adultery and Other Choices, of Andre Dubus. (This man gets into the minds of women..!)
The Women of Brewster Place, by Gloria Naylor. (The Oprah miniseries sucked, imho)
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. (Oprah ruined this one, too.)
Passing, by Nella Larsen.
…and yes, I agree about Dune by Frank Herbert. At least, the first three or four books of the series. The Fremen as Arabs; the Spice that gives longevity and prescience to a special few; the Bene Gesserit as keepers of bloodlines as well as sensuality; the Bene Tleilaxu as resurrectors of body parts and people; religion made the weapon of politics…I am so sorry Frank Herbert is not here to check out everything now.
Some of the names of the Dune characters are taken from San Francisco city streets. He was a reporter, remember?
And don’t forget the litany against fear, something we may all need in the months and years ahead, from time to time:
I recently read Cat’s Cradle and loved it.
Emphasizing ‘American’ –
Catch-22 – Heller
Invisible Man – Elliston
Rabbit, Run – Updike
Moby Dick – Melville
The Sound and The Fury – F Dawg
and don’t forget acid for 8 year olds:
A Swiftly Tilting Planet – Madeleine L’Engle
The Scarlet Letter,
Red Badge of Courage
Good list.
I saw scrolling down a “Moby Dick” or two. I suppose many feel the same way about Wallace, but I hated Moby Dick.
I think, given the fact that it is still passionately discussed to this day in the context of actual political policy that it is tough to leave “Atlas Shrugged” off the list.
duck/cover
Boo, your list is pretty good. But here are a few other good ones, that I particularly like:
Look Homeward Angel (Thomas Wolfe)
All The King’s Men (Robert Penn Warren)
On the Road (Kerouac)
Also, your list does not include Hemingway, Faulkner, or Moby Dick. I’ve read the first two, and understand why other folks really admire them, but they didn’t do anything amazing for me. As for Moby Dick, to quote Laurie Anderson: “Never read it!”
More historically, I think that many American Lit scholars might include Edith Wharton, Herman Melville, and (of course!) Henry James. More modernly (is that a word?) John Updike and Philip Roth will surely make the canon…along with many others.
Easy to stir up a storm on this. Great for you, Booman, to stimulate a discussion on this topic.There are many–many–great American authors. Henry James. Claude Brown. Dreiser. Hemingway, Steinbeck, Oates, Millay. I don’t have the time to list them all.
Paul Bowles is laughably underrated. He isn’t that much inferior to Hemingway. Let it Come Down is perhaps the best.
some l found exemplary … in no particular order of ranking:
the last of the mohicans hawthorne
on the road kerouac
slaughterhouse five vonnegut
blood meridian mccarthy
uncle tom’s cabin stowe
honorable mention:
naked lunch burroughs
invisible man ellison
gravity’s rainbow pynchon
We could say that Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the most important American novel in what it accomplished.
when it comes to Vonnegut, I was always partial to Cat’s Cradle.
l really like cat’s cradle as well, and it’s difficult to choose from his oeuvre. but l think slaughterhose 5 had the biggest impact, hence it’s inclusion.
I think Cat’s Cradle is my favorite Vonnegut. But it’s Player Piano that resonates most strongly for me with our intentionally (at least intentional from the top) stratified society.
I read “The Sot Weed Factor” when I was 22 and it made me think that nobody would ever have to write another novel, since it would be impossible to write a better one. I haven’t read anything since then to change my mind.
a good roundup in the post and comments, I would add these to my list:
Alamanac of the Dead – Leslie Marmon Silko
The Devils Highway – Luis Alberto Urrea
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee – Dee Brown
Thanks for reminding me of Leslie Marmon Silko. I’ve only read Ceremony, but I’ll see about ordering Alamanac of the Dead.
I need to read Ceremony. Almanac was something that was the perfect read for my mood at the time, plus alot of it is staged in Tucson so it was amusing to read about places I see regularly.
My favorite author is Tony Hillerman and his series of books on those two Navaho policemen, Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn. Talking God and The Dark Wind are my two favorites. Hillerman blends a knowledge of anthropology and archeology along with a fine hand at the detective novel genre for powerful reads. Plus, he has great fidelity to local color.
Hmmm…the contemporary stuff that I love reading is all by spoiled white guys like me, including Gatsby and Sound & Fury. I’ve soured on Hemmingway but that’s more on me than him. I haven’t read Infinite Jest yet but I have read Wallace’s nonfiction stuff, plus someone got Jest for me for Xmas so DFW is on deck.
I always preferred East of Eden to Grapes or Wrath, but that’s just me. My favorite Twain is Roughing It. And I could read guys like Hunter Thompson and Bret Easton Ellis and Neal Stephenson til the cows come home, but I don’t think those guys are in serious competition with Twain or Fitz or Baldwin or anyone like that (much as HST may have wanted to be the first two of those guys).
And I will always have time for Sandra Cisneros and her brown sisterhood of radness.
I think I like “favorites” lists better than “bests” lists anyway.
I met Sandra Cisneros many years ago. I think it was the same year The House on Mango Street was published. She was small, shy and charming (and probably still is).
Can’t complain about the list, although I kind of like Steinbeck’s “In Dubious Battle” even though it’s not on the grand scale of grapes, and maybe fifty years from now someone will make a list that contains The Road and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And maybe not.
I’m not a big fan of American novels and most of the classic American novels I read when I was very young.
I had a hard time with the concept of “greatest”. A list of American novels I think are of greatest importance would be different from a list of American novels that I think are the greatest because they are the best written. So I’ll go with some combination of the two and add that, to make my list, I’d have to be willing to read it more than once (eliminating novels like The Scarlet Letter or Invisible Man).
“Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott
“Elmer Gantry” by Sinclair Lewis
“Sister Carrie” by Theodore Dreiser
“The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck
“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee
Yes: we need some criteria here. Unless we’re happy with ‘American novels (or novels about America) that I like’, which is fine, too. But as to rating . . . are we talking about importance in literary history? in American history? Excellence of the plot? The imagery? The setting? The use of language? The vision of the world it captures? The characters? The emotional power of the story? The profound ideas it explores? The justice it pays to previously neglected or abused groups? Etc. etc. etc.
Also: such lists are risky because when we name a book we label ourselves. ‘Oh, he likes Henry James’ (knowing nods of the head). ‘Ah, the women’s lib / multicultural type’. And so on.
So some closer definition of ‘great’ would be helpful.
Or not. ;^ )
Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin
anything by Ellen Glasgow
The mention of Ursula L reminds me of other quality sci fi writers such as Jack Vance, Jack McDevitt, John Scalzi, and Tobias Bucknell. In Britain there is Iain Banks and Alastair Reynolds. Two of the most memorable
novels I’ve read are McDevitt’s ‘A Talent For War’ and Banks’ ‘Consider Phlebas’. The quality of writing is way, way better than Isaac Asimov or Arthur C. Clarke.
Most SF is escapist trash but some, like the pioneers of the genre Poe, Stevenson and Verne, is as good as any fiction anywhere.
Nice list.
I think the intention here was to talk about Great American Novels in the almost mythical sense – not just novels written by Americans, but novels that actually reveal something important about the nature of America.
In that vein, I give a hearty nomination to Philip Roth’s “The Human Stain,” which not only beautifully captures a period in the history of this country, and explores dilemmas of race and class that are quintessentially American, but does so through characters so indelible that you have trouble believing they do not exist when you close the book.
Runner up to Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which explores American optimism, exceptionalism, ingenuity, and the American immigrant experience as well as any book I’ve ever read (not to mention wartime experiences, gay experiences, and the WWII period in our history, along with a singular American contribution to culture: the comic book).
All great pics – here are a few more:
Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
West With the Night – Beryl Markham
House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
A Death in the Family – James Agee
and a fascinating history read –
The Island in the Center of the World – Russell Shorto
[Bangs head] How could I have forgotten The Posionwood Bible? It was one of those novels that when you finish it you wonder how someone could have ever gotten it all so right all in one book.
I’m less sure about The Awakening. It has a particularly interesting perspective from an historical culture of totally repressed female sexuality. But it’s so very opaque – which suits it well – that it was hard to understand without a great deal of historical context.
Wow, love all five and my favorite book of all time is IJ. Awesome!
I’ll throw in my two cents for Gravity’s Rainbow as well. Sheer genius.
I’ll also throw out Absalom, Absalom! as another book of sheer genius but that one’s a tough row to hoe, so to speak.
I love books!
Pax
Great topic, BooMan. I’ve taken notes on which books I’m now going to look for at the local library.
Any list of great American novels that doesn’t include The Scarlet Letter and Invisible Man is inherently flawed.
Ignored because their protagonist is (usually) a woman?
Forget the wretched Ethan Frome, Wharton’s The House of Mirth is the real heart breaker, and Custom of the Country a wonderful satire of American materialism and social climbing.
Henry James, Portrait of a Lady, Washington Square, The American, What Maisie Knew, Daisy Miller
James may have transplanted himself to England, but he successfully portrayed his original compatriots from abroad.