The Great American Novel Survey

FS have a survey out for what you consider the Great American Novel to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in a couple of years.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9DKGNWG?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3kMm_eO0q_yWEW...

I imagine the highest voted work will be Moby Dick. It may sound a bit cliche (I mean, that's what everyone is told in high school, "Moby Dick is the great American novel...yadda...yadda") but it is! It's not the only great American novel, but it immediately comes to mind. FS did produce a very nice reproduction of the Lakeside Press edition years ago.

I went for Lonesome Dove, not because I've read it but because I want to, and Folio have been edging us for years with it.

>2 astropi: Right? I can't think of another American novel that holds a candle to Moby Dick. It is one of the best books ever written and absolutely brilliant. Sure the popular choices are Grapes of Wrath, Huck Finn, Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc. Faulkner is the only other author who I think was as influential, brilliant and talented as Melville but he would never win a popular vote nor do I think any of his books surpass Moby Dick.

I'm more confused why Folio needs to do a poll on this other than pure marketing hype. It's like them doing a poll on what is the great French or Spanish novel. Of course it's In Search of Lost time and Don Quixote. It's not like Russia where there are two literary giants with Pushkin lurking close behind.

I guess you could interpret the question as a book pertaining in or around the Declaration of Independence but American literature at that time was close to non-existent. Or is the term "Great American Novel" different than best book? The term was coined in 1868 and defined as “the task of painting the American soul." But what does that even mean in such a massive country with so many cultures. I guess with Folio who the heck knows what they will publish. It might even be Da Vinci Code for all we know.

Moby Dick without a doubt
About time FS launches a second edition of their leather - bound LE Moby

Oh God, not Moby-Dick! The great American dissertation on whale physiology, perhaps. Hard to understand why anyone thinks this book is an encapsulation of America, even if they were somehow persuaded that it is much good. Also, the 2017 edition was superb so I don't see the need for Folio to revisit it so soon.

My vote from among the books I have read would be for The Great Gatsby. But I could also imagine Grapes of Wrath or Uncle Tom's Cabin or similar deserving the title.

Blood Meridian - time for an LE!

My vote would go for either Moby Dick or Huck Finn, but it's interesting that no one has mentioned Nathaniel Hawthorne or James Fenimore Cooper.

>4 Joshbooks1: Of those I would say Moby Dick is head and shoulders above the others (Gatsby and Catcher are barely novels, more short stories), but agree with ubiquitousuk that it is not the Great "American" Novel. It's the Great Novel By An American. Whaling is not a peculiarly American thing. It's a common (at the time anyway) coastal experience.

The cop-out is that the Great American Novel has not yet been written. Maybe it cannot? Perhaps the best encapsulation of the United States is via history rather than fiction.

Or...maybe it should be something like It Can't Happen Here. Modernity and spin and demagoguery and looking askance at it all.

Ok I'll settle with the greatest "World" novel instead of American novel...

>8 Betelgeuse: If I had to pick a classic, I'd go with Last of the Mohicans, not because it's better written than the others, but it's arguably the first GAN and the best to represent the ideals of early America.

>10 InVitrio: Actually, The Great American Novel was written, by Philip Roth :) Kidding aside, I cast a vote for Invisible Man because it's not only a great book but also to see if we could finally get a nice edition of this work.

>12 HonorWulf: I agree with Last of the Mohicans as a strong candidate. It probably is the first GAN.

What are the attributes that make a candidate for the Great American Novel? Is it the most awarded? The most widely read? Is it the subject that makes it distinctly American?

I'm not American but I think I might choose Gone With the Wind

I expect Moby Dick will rank highest in the poll, followed perhaps by Huck Finn. My personal vote, however, went to the USA Trilogy by John Dos Passos. Three novels, admittedly, though Modern Library's edition "USA" is a single volume.

>6 ubiquitousuk: >10 InVitrio: Moby Dick is so much more than whales and maritime adventure and if either of you haven't read or finished it I am envious and highly recommend you do. It's a slog at times but an absolute masterpiece.

I'm more in line with >11 Macumbeira: and believe Melville's literary prowess should be compared more with the world greats than just America.

>13 A.Nobody: I love Invisible Man and it certainly should be considered one of the top American novels of all time, however, Moby Dick heavily inspired Ellison and the prologue of Invisible Man takes a scene directly from Moby Dick.

Late in his career Ernest Hemingway wrote that Melville was still one of the few writers he was still trying to beat. William Faulkner hung a framed printing of Captain Ahab in his living room and once wrote:

"I think that the book which I put down with the unqualified thought “I wish I had written that” is Moby Dick. The Greek-like simplicity of it: a man of forceful character driven by his sombre nature and his bleak heritage, bent on his own destruction and dragging his immediate world down with him with a despotic and utter disregard of them as individuals; the fine point to which the various natures caught (and passive as though with a foreknowledge of unalterable doom) in the fatality of his blind course are swept—a sort of Golgotha of the heart become immutable as bronze in the sonority of its plunging ruin; all against the grave and tragic rhythm of the earth in its most timeless phase: the sea. And the symbol of their doom: a White Whale. There’s a death for a man, now; none of your patient pasturage for little grazing beasts you can’t even see with the naked eye. There’s magic in the very word. A White Whale. White is a grand word, like a crash of massed trumpets; and leviathan himself has a kind of placid blundering majesty in his name. And then put them together!!! A death for Achilles, and the divine maidens of Patmos to mourn him, to harp white-handed sorrow on their golden hair."

I honestly can't see any other American novel having such an impact on American literature ever again. And for those that haven't read Moby Dick yet, it takes time and certain passages are unpleasant to read but it is one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written.

>18 Joshbooks1: I have finished it and envy the people who quit before wading through the novel-length discussion of sperm-whales.

In any event, it is pointless having an argument about matters of taste. It is obvious that the book is about more than whales. But I don't see how it is really about anything uniquely American, or how it connects with any particular theme of American identity or zeitgeist. To the extent that any book can be considered the best in world literature, I am willing to entertain the idea that Moby-Dick might be in the running, but I fail to see how it can be considered the Great American Novel, except by the tenuous happenstance that it was written by an American.

Perhaps we just have different ideas about what the GAN should be.

>19 ubiquitousuk: For an interesting take on why Moby-Dick is uniquely American, you may want to read Nathaniel Philbrick's Why Read Moby-Dick?. I don't agree with Mr. Philbrick's interpretations, which strike me as over-the-top, but if I recall correctly he believed that MB was an allegory for the sectionalism caused by American slavery, and at another point he thought it was a cleverly-disguised ode to the vanishing American bison. The word "slavery" appears once in MB's text, and "slave" appears fifteen times. "Bison" appears four times and is used as a metaphor for the hunt. Of course, there are 212,000 words in the novel, so "slave" appearing fifteen times is only 0.007% of the text. "Slave" may have been mentioned fifteen times just because it existed as an institution when the novel was written, and is perhaps no more thematic than the appearance of the word "car" in a 21st Century novel. But the argument can be made that MB is a uniquely American novel, and Nathaniel Philbrick (among others) has made it. He goes on to say that MB is a living, breathing document that continuously reflects the latest American conflicts.

As far as wading through extensive passages on whaling, I suppose those could be skimmed or skipped. One faces a similar choice when reading the novel-length digressions of Victor Hugo (e.g., Parisian sewer systems in Les Miserables and oceanographic/meteorological/geologic passages in The Toilers of the Sea).

>18 Joshbooks1: My only gripe if Moby Dick were to ultimately win out is that there have been a number of high-quality editions made over the years, including of course the much-lauded FS LE. I would prefer to see a more overlooked title get the FS treatment. At any rate, it will be interesting to see which books make the shortlist.

I never understood why Moby Dick is regularly considered among GAN candidates, let alone being a top contender. A whaling expedition of an international crew with main protagonists called Ahab and Ishmael hardly qualifies as a slice of Americana. The point isn't to name the greatest novel by an American author.

Other perennial candidates such as Huck Finn fit the bill much better, presenting typical American experiences and spirit of the times. However, in the case of Folio survey, I don't see a point of naming them. As FS sent out the survey two years before the commemorative date, they are clearly planning a new edition. So why would you want more of the same? I'll be voting for a work that is both very American and isn't available in nice editions, perhaps Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt. But I do realize I'll be doing it in vain and people will vote for a 25th edition of Moby Dick, Huck Finn or Great Gatsby. Yawn.

>19 ubiquitousuk: I don't mean to belabor the subject, but what is that criteria that makes the Great American Novel? Everyone's opinion is obviously subjective but a response that Moby Dick has a long passage about sperm whales and isn't uniquely American, whatever that means, somehow negates it's celebrated stature? How does The Great Gatsby, claim the prize with a simple message that the American Dream is fake?

I just don't see how Moby Dick isn't uniquely American. It is based on the great whaling industry in New Bedford and Nantucket Massachusetts where Melville went out to sea for several years and is a tale littered with race and racial identity written ten years before the Civil War. It also has much grander themes like revenge, morality, religion, identity, the purpose of life, etc. To say it isn't uniquely American with no American identity is completely untrue.

Perhaps another contender should be Stephen Crane's "The Red Badge of Courage." It wouldn't be my pick, but I imagine it should be on the list of possibles.

>22 elladan0891: I agree, I don't think we need another edition of The Great Gatsby!

The one that always comes to my mind when I think of a great American novel is My Antonia. I don't think it reaches Moby Dick levels of 'greatness', but wow what a beautifully written and moving book about frontier life.

Perhaps the days when FS would attempt this - or indeed the whole trilogy - are behind us, though.

>21 A.Nobody: With this I totally agree and the old Folio Moby Dick LE is enough for me. If Thornwillow or another publisher were to publish Moby Dick I would be interested but not Folio. It would be interesting to see how well Moby Dick would sell these days since the LE and SE are both incredibly expensive on the secondary market.

I would buy Invisible Man in a second and surprised it hasn't been published by Folio or given the fine press treatment to my knowledge.

>26 Joshbooks1: The Invisible Man has been published by FS.... isn't H.G. Wells British?

This is a really interesting discussion. I'm an English teacher and American lit (especially early 20th c.) is among my favorite areas. I won't claim to have read every work, but I think I've read almost every author of note and plenty who aren't of note.

Moby Dick is one of my very favorite books, but to the points elsewhere, I don't think Melville was especially influential (which isn't to say other writers didn't try or didn't love him, I just don't think whatever he was able to pull off was something anyone could replicate). He's more of an anomaly. I would definitely but it, but I don't think it fits the assignment especially well.

I think Cooper is trash. There weren't a lot of early American novelists, so he gets way more credit than he's due. His characters are absolutely wooden.

Twain has a strong case. As do Cather, Wharton, Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Morrison. That group have claim to both being widely regarded and having genuine impact on American writing. Hemingway probably gets his novels don't generally have an American focus. You can also make a case for Hawthorne. I don't personally enjoy Hawthorne, but unlike Cooper, I do think he deserves the credit he gets. He's just not my taste.

I do appreciate the Dos Passos suggestion. I would LOVE if folio published the USA trilogy, but that seems unlikely.

I think it comes down to whether or not Folio wants to publish something they haven't done or if they are willing to put out a retread. Most of the authors listed above have had their major works given the treatment already.

If they want something they haven't done, I would put forth All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. It's a widely recognized masterpiece, and it feels very much of America, even today. Warren is more influential as a poet than novelist (and his other novels are not great, imo), but this one is fantastic.

EDIT: Added context to my Melville bit to avoid being torn to shreds here.

>23 Joshbooks1: My problem is that, in my reading, Moby-Dick could have been set aboard an English whaling vessel departing from England and have been written by an Englishman and nothing of significance would be particularly amiss in the substance of the novel. All the stuff about race could equally have been viewed through a colonial lens, while the rest of the book already takes place on the open ocean aboard a vessel with a largely international crew.

I couldn't say the same thing for Gatsby or Grapes of Wrath or Gone With the Wind because they are set entirely in America with a largely American cast and, more importantly, have significant moments in American cultural and social history as a principal rather than secondary themes.

That, at least, is my interpretation of what the Great American Novel ought to be. As you say, this is largely a matter of opinion, though, which is what makes these exercises fun, if utterly frivolous.

Moby-Dick is only nominally a novel, which is one of its great strengths. So despite my love for all things Melville I voted for something else.

>27 TonjaE: "The Invisible Man" is indeed by H.G. Wells, and as such, is British. "Invisible Man" is by Ralph Ellison, and is American.

>27 TonjaE: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison from the early 1950's. (Betelgeuse beat me to it!)

Not quite sure what the purpose of this survey is. Haven't most of the obvious choices already been published by Folio? The incentive seems to be to restrict your choice to something they haven't published.

I guess Gravity's Rainbow even though I can't even get past the first three pages of the book. Just to see it in a Folio Edition.

>3 red_guy: A Folio edition of Lonesome Dove would be fantastic. What do you mean by "Folio have been edging us for years with it"?

I think all of the books mentioned here are great novels by Americans. Personally, I subscribe to the definition of the "Great American Novel" ("GAN") as a novel that captures the "spirit", "soul" of America in the way in which War and Peace is regarded as the "Great Russian Novel".

Dos Passos wrote the USA Trilogy with the hope it would be regarded as the "GAN". It certainly has its flaws (e.g., see Ted Gioia's review in the LA Review of Books) but is viewed less critically by others (see Matt Hanson's New Yorker article, Douglas Brinkley in the NY Times). With regard to the question of the GAN, the latter article quotes Norman Mailer saying "Dos Passos came nearer than any of us to writing the Great American Novel, and it's entirely possible he succeeded" and Brinkley reports that "American Heritage magazine asked Daniel Aaron, a professor of English at Harvard, to assess the trilogy's importance. He called it the plum candidate for Great American Novel status."

I agree with Jason461 that it is unlikely that Folio will publish an edition of USA, it is just not well known enough. Readers on this forum who are not familiar with it might be interested to check out the articles I refer to above, Wikipedia, etc. Perhaps if enough of us are intrigued, Folio might consider it . . .

I've also always associated the phrase with Moby Dick so I went on a scouting expedition to see what the options are. I learned the original phrase comes from a 1868 essay that names Uncle Tom’s Cabin as a contender. Other recurring list titles:

To Kill A Mockingbird
Great Gatsby
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Grapes of Wrath
Infinite Jest
Gravity's Rainbow

>16 TonjaE: While it never seems to be on this type of list, Gone with the Wind was the best selling book for several years in America breaking Ben-Hur's record, and that book in turn broke Uncle Tom's Cabin's bestseller streak. Bringing us full circle. Gone with the Wind has a few different versions from Franklin Library worth checking out.

This is a bit tongue in cheek (and there already is an FS edition), but if it's more about subject matter and less about the author, then American Gods certainly is a great American novel, though the author is English, then wrote the book to better understand the country he'd moved to. I just re-read it and was fascinated with both the aspect of the immigrant stories and the road trip through America.

>34 rld1012: It has come up in surveys before, and after True Grit, it felt as if Lonesome Dove could be the next cowboy-adjacent novel. I think I'm right in saying that it would be a popular choice people are always saying how amazing it is. 'Like the gift of reading itself' Geoff Dyer said in the Guardian which which did rather sell it to me.

Apart from often being hailed as 'The Great American Novel' that de Forest was talking about, i.e. 'a tableau of American society, that would "paint the American soul" and capture "the ordinary emotions and manners of American existence", Lonesome Dove is a not book that Folio have previously published. Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, Grapes of Wrath, Gatsby - we do not need new editions of most of them, and in most cases it would be hard to beat the ones already produced.

American Tabloid - James Ellroy

So FS are going to create a shortlist of five from the survey responses and put it to a public vote later this year. It’s the same as the 75th anniversary set up that produced The Neverending Story edition as the winner.

>38 red_guy: Lonesome Dove was on the 75th anniversary shortlist so I would not be surprised to see it make this shortlist.

I voted for Moby Dick, partly because one of the popular humanities lecturers when I was in college 25 years ago, Michael Sugrue (who gained some renown online during the pandemic and passed away earlier this year), told his students that Melville's novel and John Coltrane's A Love Supreme were the two greatest works of American art. Far be it from me to disagree!

>26 Joshbooks1: If Thornwillow or another publisher were to publish Moby Dick I would be interested but not Folio.

Agreed, unless the FS would produce a special letterpress edition with beautiful illustrations! but I suspect they would not.

A book (really "pamphlet" as originally issued) that in my mind truly deserves the royal treatment WITH regards to the Declaration of Independence is Common Sense by Thomas Paine. That and also The American Crisis. No denying that they greatly influenced the Revolution.

>31 Betelgeuse: Thankyou, I had no idea. I've never seen Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison :)

>32 HonorWulf: Thank you, that happens to me a lot. I shall go try to find Ellison's Invisible Man now. :)

This topic is really interesting. Forgetting about what novel FS will and won't choose for the moment, I'm intrigued by what makes something Great.

I think part of the difficulty of deciding what is the "Great American Novel" lies with the word Great itself. www.https://en.bab.la/dictionary/english/great
Great can be used in a number of different ways; great can mean above average, impressive, grand or large. It can mean the most important, or excellent. Great is also used informally in a number of different ways but in this context we can possibly assume that we are dealing with either the above average, impressive definition OR most important.... Large maybe only applies to Moby Dick.

I'm not American, and a lot of people who will participate in this survey wouldn't be either. I'm not sure that anyone who isn't American themselves has the ability or even the right to decide what the most important American novel is.

Impressive it is then? Moby Dick is certainly impressive and written by a Great American author, yet I agree with other opinions here that the novel subject doesn't strike as particularly American as seen from the outside.

When I think about what the spirit of America is I think of opportunity, of struggle, success and failure combined with their grand history that the whole world is familiar with. For if something is to be Great it surely must be well known. Many people must be impressed for something to be impressive. I think it may not be a popular opinion here but an ingredient of the "Great American Novel" has got to be popularity.

I have read many of the novels mentioned here and loved them all. Many of them would not be considered popular in the sense of how many people have read them not only heard of them.

I feel like Gone With the Wind would be a great choice and make a beautiful FS edition which will appeal to a large audience. It screams of opportunity, struggle, success and failure all wrapped up in the tumultuous and most well known Civil War in history. I believe it is truly Great.

I'm very much enjoying listening in on the FSD discussions, thank you for having me here and hearing my humble opinion. I don't consider myself a scholar or expert on anything, I just love books.

>36 A.Godhelm: Thank you. I would very much like to own a beautiful edition of Gone With the Wind. I will have a look at the Franklin. :)

>46 TonjaE: Very nice post!
When I think about what the spirit of America is I think of opportunity, of struggle, success and failure combined with their grand history that the whole world is familiar with.
Fully agree! and I can say that Moby Dick deals with success, failure, opportunity, and absolutely struggle. A struggle that is simultaneously physical, mental, and spiritual. It's hard to underestimate it's influence in America, despite the fact that most high school students probably hate reading it :)
In his Nobel Lecture, Bob Dylan cited three books that have greatly influenced him. The Odyssey, All Quiet on the Western Front, and the only American novel is of course Moby Dick --
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/dylan/lecture/

Here's a wonderful article --
Moby-Dick isn’t simply the greatest American novel, writes a best-selling historian in an adaptation from his latest book: after 160 years, Melville’s masterpiece remains supremely relevant—a survival manual in times of crisis, a challenge to the Ahabs of every century, and an expression of democracy’s “divine equality.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2011/11/moby-dick-201111

When I think of America and recent (20th century) history, I think of it being the superpower that idealised capitalism as opposed to the Soviet Union (and to a lesser extent China) as the super power that promoted communism.

If this is accepted the most famous American novelist that depicts this would be Ayn Rand. The Folio Society has done a nice version of Atlas Shrugged, but not (to my knowledge) The Fountainhead.

>4 Joshbooks1: If the Folio Society ran into a burning building to save a baby you’d find something wrong with it lol.

While the Grapes of Wrath is a great American novel to my mind, there are so many highly reviewed American novels that I haven't read (including Demon Copperhead recently recommended to me by several friends and now perched high on my TBR list) I couldn't possibly comment as to what is the Great American Novel that encapsulates the essence of American history and culture in the most quintessentially American style, though I imagine it would surely have to lend adequate expression to American Indian culture, to the history of slavery and the Civil War as well as to the impressive diversity of immigration and vast economic growth of the last century and a half.

>51 cronshaw: It is the same with me. Of the few American novels I have read (this includes Moby Dick) I found The Grapes of Wrath the best but I haven’t read enough American literature in general to make a decision on what is The Great American Novel. I’m currently reading East of Eden.

>51 cronshaw: ...the Great American Novel... I imagine it would surely have to lend adequate expression to..

In addition to all you wrote subsequently, the Wild West, frontier expansion, pioneers and explorers. Maybe they all fall under 'American Indian culture'?

Has anyone tried using LT Tagmash to see what comes up? I tried several combinations but came up with nothing!

It could be recency bias, but I think Mariynne Robinson's Gilead series have an argument for GAN(s)

>48 astropi: hey ! Thanks for both articles.

"Let's assume that the Great American Novel is timeless.

In 1988 a panel of critical "outsiders" (French academics) agreed on the following list of arguably the 10 greatest novels written by an American.

- John Dos Passos : Manhattan transfer
- William Faulkner : The Sound and Fury
- Scott Fitzgerald : The great Gatsby
- Hemingway : The old Man and the Sea
- Henry James ( before becoming an English citizen ) : The ambassadors
- Herman Melville : Moby Dick
- Vladimir Nabokov ( nationalized ) Lolita
- EA. Poe : Tales of the extraordinary
- Salinger : The catcher in the rye
- Marc Twain : Huckleberry Finn

Runner's up who did not make it to the final list were : John Barth, Saul Bellow, Truman Capote, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser ( An American Tragedy ), Ralph Ellison , William Goyen, John Hawkes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jack London, Henry Miller, Frederic Prokosh, John Steinbeck, Robert Penn Warren and Thomas Wolfe.

With the exception of Salinger and Hemingway ,the eight remaining still stand the test of time after 36 years. I would suggest replacing them with John Steinbeck with his Grapes of Wrath and Robert Penn Warren with "All the Kings' men". Nabokov's story (while certainly a great written novel) does not fit either in the candidate list for the Great American Novel. So let us replace him with Theodore Dreiser.

And now it depends on what makes up the DNA of America: is it its Materialisme and Plutocratic politics ? Then it's Dos Passos, Penn Warren, Dreiser, Steinbeck or Fitzgerald you need to choose.
Is it the attitude and guilt complex towards the indigenous people and descendants of the slaves ? Then choose Faulkner and Twain.

If it is American politics that makes you cringe ? Then yes, then it is all the King's men.
And if it is the violence of the country that you dread, well then I suggest two novels which are not on the list : Rick Harsch : The manifold destinies of Eddy Vegas or Peter Matthiesen's Shadow Country.

And if you can't make up your mind, and say "Yes it is all that combined with the angst of the cosmic void and the fear for the Almighty, `

then it is indeed "Moby Dick".

Unfortunately this panel was convened 7 years too soon and they missed out on the truly Great American Novel: American Tabloid.

Great thread - this is why I come here. Just ordered the Library of America edition of the USA trilogy and considering the Everyman Border trilogy - seems a bit unwieldy, though, so may go for three volumes.

As to the question at hand, many great suggestions above, I’m missing Bellow’s ”The Adventures of Augie March” and DeLillo’s ”Underworld” and maybe Updike’s Rabbit novels but there’s a puckish part of me that wants to vote for Don Rosa’s ”The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck”, even though it’s not a novel. And not just as a swipe at the Folio Society’s recent output, either…

>57 PartTimeBookAddict: I read My dark places. Strange enough.

>58 GusLogan: John Updike’s Rabbit Tetralogy is a great suggestion

>50 What_What: I've gone over the reasons many times. I really do not like the direction Folio has taken over the past several years and I rarely buy from them anymore. All the money I used to spend on Folio, along with selling Folio books, has gone to Schiff era LEC and I couldn't be happier with that direction - they are some of the finest books ever published in my opinion. That doesn't mean it is verboten to criticize Folio.

>56 Macumbeira: Well stated, although it is hard to just use French critics as your criteria. Some glaring omissions off the top of my head would be Absalom, Absalom!, Invisible Man, Beloved, Augie March, Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden. An epic Civil War Novel that is not usually discussed and could possibly be considered is Raintree County by Ross Lockridge Jr. It's long but fantastic and a hidden gem.

It will be interesting to see what Folio decides. I still can't see how Moby Dick doesn't win since it is considered to be not just one of the best novels written by an American but one of the best novels written of all time.

>59 Macumbeira: If you haven't yet, try the Underworld USA trilogy. The first two are amazing, third... so-so.

>58 GusLogan:

The Everyman Border trilogy is not too unwieldy, fwiw.

Just a pity it's confined to the novel.

I think John Muir's Mountains of California is superlative. Perhaps it needed a Scot, an outsider, to be fully appreciative of the landscape.
And I would have to give acknowledgement to Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find if I was a novel rather than a short story.

So, I'd have to say of the American novels, the one I'd be comfortable throwing my hat upon is East of Eden by Steinbeck.

William Gaddis wrote the so-called 'great american novel' in 1955 and called it The Recognitions. It was neither recognized then as such nor is it now, though it should be, which is just so typical whenever this ludicrous, tired & reductionistic topic has the misfortune of being resurrected yet again.

Haha ! speaking of the Devil coming in different disguises !

Yes I concede : The Recognitions indeed.

Checked out The Recognitions, which I haven't read and it seems interesting. Thanks for the recommendation.

I All the King's Men is a great novel and it has the fact that it is situated in America to recommended as a great American novel. However, I know I read the version of the novel that was "restored". In modern day we have the luck that nowadays when a novel is published, one can reasonably expect that there aren't hidden manuscripts of alternatives, etc. All the King's Men was published when Robert Penn Warren was alive and the version that was published was apparently approved by him. I wonder what people think of the necessity of a "restored" version. When you go to Amazon they default give you the "restored" version if you purchase the paperback, which is what I read. But, if you get the Kindle version you get the "original" as approved by Penn Warren as sufficient to be published.

I hate it when they tinker with the text.

As Martian chronicles is more and more recognized as a cult classic, I wonder if it would not be a good candidate too for the GAN

>67 billburden: While you're at it, check Fire the Bastards by Green

I asked for Huckleberry Finn, as it is a masterpiece

>56 Macumbeira: "With the exception of Salinger and Hemingway ,the eight remaining still stand the test of time"

Hemingway does, surely? He's even been parodied in the Simpsons. Salinger is more teenage angst, I would think, for those who want to be seen to be alternative.

The one who doesn't is Henry James. Like watching paint dry. But not any old paint. Paint that is already dry. Watching dry paint dry.

>72 InVitrio: A stand-alone Old Man and the Sea produced in parallel to an LE would be quite nice. Don't believe Folio's done it outside of the box set from 25 years ago.

>72 InVitrio: Haha! so... fair to say you're not a Henry James fan :)
Also, I always rather considered him more English than American.

I think Hemingway is amazing. I can see why some people might consider his writing a bit gruff, but to say he was influential and still remains so is certainly an understatement.

Did not receive the survey invite, but find this discussion interesting. Perhaps there should not be one novel chosen. Instead there might be one chosen by US citizens as what that survey participants consider The Great American Novel, and another chosen by the rest of the world on what novel is best considered to represent USA.
Being a Nordic, the three Norns Urður, Verðandi and Skuld come to mind, that is the past, present and future. In that sense 3 books (not necessarily by the same author) representing the past (hopes, expections etc) preferably from the 18th-19th century, the present (a novel from the 20th or 21st century) and the future that might be for all I care a visionary novel or dystopian an where USA is heading.
Alternatively, does this publication need to be a Novel. Could it be books on what the US has given to it self and the world in culture, sciences etc.
To me, for some reason, the term The Great American Novel, has been dismissive, suggesting that USA has not produced a great novel. That is of course false, but to me also strange. Perhaps there exist discussion boards on the Great Norwegian, Danish, British etc Novel, but if so I have blessedly been unaware of them. Perhaps before suggesting the Great Novel, it should be decided what is meant by that term and why American. The only reason I personally consider is that the USA was (in a way) a new country not restricted by its past. What does a new country built on new ideals produce and present to itself and the rest of the world.

A Distant Trumpet by Robert Horgan. This is a frontier cavalry novel and has major characters from all parts of the country, including native americans.

Huckleberry Finn would probably be my second pick except the ending is so awful: hey, let's bring in Tom Sawyer because I don't know how to wrap this up (Twain later basically admitted that he didn't know how to end the book).

Last of the Mohicans, The Deerslayer or The Sea-Wolf by Jack London Those books really put the hook in me. It is very hard to name one. There are dozens.

>72 InVitrio: Not appreciating Henry James is like not appreciating Cathedrals because we don't build that way anymore. But I get it, not the most exciting read, but then neither is Marcel Proust' remembrance, that candidate for the Great French novel : )

Still his "Turn of the screw" is still a hell of a book.

as for Papa Hemingway...will he survive the next generation of woke critics ? I doubt it.

>78 Macumbeira:
I wouldn't worry. To quote Auden, of Yeats:

Time, that with this strange excuse,
Pardoned Kipling and his views
And will pardon Paul Claudel
Pardons him, for writing well.

>79 Jayked: Nice ! Thanks for sharing

>73 HonorWulf: Yes, a beautiful story. One of my favourites.

Many fine but I think it is fair to say expected suggestions so far - there is a reasonable consensus on the GAN contenders (the top tier, anyway). My only issue with these books (Melville, Faulkner, Twain et al) is that they have been well-served by Folio over (in some cases) a number of editions. It would be nice if this exercise threw up something new in terms of author or title for FS. In that regard I lean more towards the suggestions of Pynchon or even (as unlikely as it would be despite PartTimeBookAddict's laudable championing) Ellroy. Dos Passos a good suggestion as well. My own candidate for FS to break new ground would be DeLillo - Libra is my favourite of his, but most people seem to agree that Underworld is his magnum opus and the most substantial attempt at a GAN of the last 30 years. I think FS could do something really interesting with a landmark edition of the book. As with Pynchon though, rights may well be the critical stumbling block.

Agreed. Folio really goes for the popular choice so I would be surprised about Pynchon, Dos Passos or even Faulkner whose novels are quite difficult and certainly not easy to read. Something along the lines of Grapes of Wrath LE would be the safest choice and would sell extremely well. It's an amazing book, easy to read, talks about the Great Depression and the struggles of the everyday American worker. Ellroy would be... interesting. Even he would probably agree that his books shouldn't make the GAN list.

>78 Macumbeira: I'm not quite sure Henry James has stood the test of time and quite different than Proust who wrote arguably one of the best books ever and influenced an entire generation. In Search of Lost Time is a slog at times with some of the most beautifully written passages ever. It is worth it and more if you're willing to put up with some boring parts.

As for Hemingway, I think the woke critics have far too many authors to attack before they reach Ernest!

Rather than focusing on one title this could be a great opportunity for Folio to start a new multi-year "Great American Novels" series. Publishing three or four titles a year, previously published and new ones. I believe that could be something that many people follow and look forward to.

Some beautiful editions of Faulkner were published by LT and The Sound and the Fury even as a LE

what makes a book endure ?

https://countercraft.substack.com/p/what-lasts-and-mostly-doesnt-last

This topic raises (at least) three related issues: (1) what qualifies as "great" and (2) what qualifies as "American" and (3) what qualifies as a book one would like to see FS publish. I think Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn satisfy 1 and 2 but I agree with those who want a book that hasn't been already been done in a fine or quality press edition. As some have argued, MD is not American enough (whaling on a ship with a multinational crew) and HF is not great enough (that discordant coda at the end where Tom Sawyer shows up and Jim is inexplicably abused).

I would suggest Melville's The Confidence Man as a novel that meets all three criteria. In terms of Melville's oeuvre, it tends to get swallowed up by MD, but I think it's been justly called the first modern novel. It is certainly more American in its characters and themes. Like HF, it is structured around a trip on the Mississippi, the great American river that bisects the country, and was written decades before Twain's raft voyage. Its lens is wider than HF, its messages are harder to pin down, and is more modern in that sense. For those who would vote for Gravity's Rainbow (as I would), CM is a harbinger of the works of Pynchon and other modernists.

As to the third criteria, I don't think it has been done before and would seem ideal for an illustrated edition, with drawings of the various confidence men. (If it has been done before, I would like to know about it, because I think the chances of FS doing it are slim and I would explore the secondary market to see if I could obtain one.)

N.B. I also consider Melville's Pierre, and even the much lamented Clarel, as brilliant, so perhaps my taste for literature is suspect.

While it's difficult to deny Moby Dick, I have to go with Huckleberry Finn. Both are tremendous, but Finn is more "American" (spoken as an American myself).

I've read some of the others people have suggested. Gone With the Wind is quite a story, but the racial stereotypes and idealization of the "Southern Way", while countered on some occasions, was too much for me. While I liked The Great Gatsby, it just isn't up to the two giants. It has been too long since I read The Grapes of Wrath - it might well be a contender. Uncle Tom's Cabin is propaganda, but exceptionally effective propaganda. And Ben-Hur got mentioned somewhere, maybe just as a best seller - I found it to be ludicrously bad. I do need to read Dos Passos, and my FS edition of The Sound and the Fury. Lonesome Dove and The Red Badge of Courage are both superb, but again not at the level of Melville and Twain.

FS has already published editions of some of the top contenders for a good reason - they're masterpieces of literature, American or within the entire literary canon.

>88 coynedj: I agree! Except I would put Moby Dick above Huck Finn, but as you said, both are American masterpieces. I would argue they are both also "world literature" in the sense that you absolutely do not need to be American to understand the universal struggles within the works. For that reason again, I place Moby Dick above Huck Finn. As others have said, maybe the real question becomes what exactly is the FS looking for in terms of "the great American novel"? Something that screams Americana? They do say

In just two years, on July 4th, 2026, the USA will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. To mark the occasion, Folio will publish a special edition of the Great American Novel.

So maybe publish Paine since he's directly associated with the Revolution, even if he did not sign the Declaration of Independence. Of course there are also the The Federalist Papers, but that doesn't exactly make for exciting reading. Hmm... I think perhaps a better question should be: What special edition would people like to see in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence?

Again, I love Moby Dick, but it's not exactly a novel that screams Declaration of Independence. If I had my druthers, I would say, a beautiful (letterpress please) edition that includes excerpts from Paine, The Federalist Papers, etc. along with commentary, some illustrations, and of course the Declaration itself.

>87 amp123: It's a very interesting thread and I would be ecstatic if they did The Confidence Man - it is not nearly as popular as it should be. The book is pure genius and such an enjoyable read. The most ironic thing of the novel is that it was Melville's last since it sold so poorly and his confidence was shot after it's publication.

>88 coynedj: I totally agree. I don't love Huck Finn but if it was selected it's hard to argue why it was picked based on it's merits and notoriety. Twain is still extremely popular to this day and is one of the faces of American literature. If they Folio made a nice limited edition I would probably pull the trigger.

This thread spurred me into buying a copy of FS's Grapes of Wrath. It's long past time for me to do a re-read of it anyway.

I don't think this should be the choice for whatever FS is cooking up as their GAN. Their edition from 1998 is already perfect. The Bonnie Christensen illustrations and the binding capture the bleakness of the novel so well.

>91 PartTimeBookAddict: I have the LOA and ML editions. Great story.

>28 Jason461: "Moby Dick is one of my very favorite books, but to the points elsewhere, I don't think Melville was especially influential" ...

Cormac McCarthy?

(I'm surprised there's not more discussion of his works here also, to be honest, though I admit I haven't gotten to the end of the comments yet.)

On the broader topic, I think there is a pretty clear criterion beyond taste, which is influence. This would exclude anything too recent (including probably everything by my beloved McCarthy).

Though not my personal favorite, Hemingway is up there with Melville by that metric.

>93 abysswalker: Agreed. McCarthy is too recent, although I wouldn't be surprised if decades down the road he will be considered one of the "great American writers", at least of his generation.

>91 PartTimeBookAddict: Is there a Folio edition of Grapes of wrath to be preferred ? 2007 ( 2006 ) ? 1998 ?

>95 Macumbeira: I bought the blue one. I don't know there's a difference except for colour. Both are really nice.

wcarter did a review:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/310410

>28 Jason461:

Melville was extremely influential. His literary tradition passes directly to Faulkner, and later to Cormac McCarthy.

>97 User2024: In terms of writing style? McCarthy owes much, much more to Hemingway than Melville. Faulkner, maybe.

>98 Jason461:

Not even close. Have you only read The Road?

>89 astropi:

Now there's an interesting idea...The Federalist Papers. Yes, it's a slog, but not enough people are even aware of its existence, let alone of its importance. Sure, well-read people know of its existence and may have even dabbled in it, but the average American will look at you cross-eyed and dumbfounded (more than we already do) if you asked them about it. I haven't looked but I doubt there are many fine editions of it out there. Illustrated with portraits of the authors, the actual papers, the places they wrote them, etc. - that could be interesting.

>100 treereader: The LEC Federalist in 2 volumes or the cheaper Heritage Press edition.
HP reviewed here: https://georgemacyimagery.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/heritage-press-the-federalist...

>100 treereader: Franklin Library published a nice edition of the Federalist Papers back in 1977. Available for comparatively little on ebay (I have no connection):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/145985434811?_nkw=franklin+library+federalist+papers&am...

>99 User2024: Yes. More than once. Mcarthy's syntax is very Hemingway.

I wonder if Moby Dick gets the most votes that they will produce another LE. I hope so.

I rather like James Agee's 'A Death in the Family'. Whilst I'd probably decide on one of the books mentioned above as the best I certainly think this is amongst the best. (I will say though that you have to 'get it' from page one or it's hard work. I've read it four times and on one reading the greatness escaped me.)

>101 mr.philistine: , >102 Betelgeuse:

Thanks! I didn't know about these...

>103 Jason461:

I’ll just quote William Giraldi…

“No one questions whether or not Faulkner had decisive effects on McCarthy’s storytelling sensibility or on the particular pitch of his syntax…”

I asked if you have only read The Road, because I can’t understand how you can have read any number of his other novels and got more Hemingway than Faulkner.

>29 ubiquitousuk: >23 Joshbooks1: Joshbooks1: My problem is that, in my reading, Moby-Dick could have been set aboard an English whaling vessel departing from England and have been written by an Englishman and nothing of significance would be particularly amiss in the substance of the novel. All the stuff about race could equally have been viewed through a colonial lens, while the rest of the book already takes place on the open ocean aboard a vessel with a largely international crew.

Inserting into a convo, so apologies for the interruption, if you are interested in M-D at all (can't tell from the thread if you are) consider reading Charles Olson's essay on M-D - he makes the argument that M-D and other canonical 19th century American lit focuses on SPACE (given the rapid expansion over the continent) versus time (England/Europe-focused books). He makes the argument that M-D is very much of its time and place. Not inserting to argue either way on this point, but you may find it interesting. At least I did.

>108 LBShoreBook: My problem is that, in my reading, Moby-Dick could have been set aboard an English whaling

And I can certainly see why that may appear to be the case, but when you do delve a bit below the water (see what I did there!) it turns out Moby Dick really is distinctively American.

Here are some scholarly article you might enjoy Moby-Dick and American Political Symbolism
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2710971.pdf

MOBY-DICK, AN AMERICAN LYRICAL NOVEL
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25745908

Moby-Dick and the American Empire
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1477570011Z.0000000003
This article is not free. Here is the abstract:
This article explores the parallels between the narrative tropes of Moby-Dick and the conduct of the Mexican War of 1846–48. Drawing on the theories of Austin and Butler, the article develops an account of the performative speech acts deployed by President James K. Polk in order to secure Congressional support for the war, and the rhetorical power exercised by Ahab on the Pequod. It also examines in detail Melville’s use of the Biblical figures of King Ahab and Belshazzar, showing how the novel turns the Biblical-republican typology used in the American Revolution against the British to indict America’s own practice of imperialism. The article concludes by reflecting on both the vision of perpetual war which Melville presents as the consequence of Polk’s assumption of imperial power, and the parallels between Polk’s prosecution of the war with Mexico and the US invasion of Iraq.

Of course Moby Dick is universal, which is why many consider it THE American novel. But at the end of the day, it certainly has many layers that make it distinctly American, much in the same way as Charles Dickens is distinctly British, although his themes are of course universal as well.

>109 astropi: er, you seem to be responding to my post, responding to a separate post, in which I allude to the point you are making.

>110 LBShoreBook: Oops! Sorry about that, I clearly misunderstood :)
Well, for anyone who says Moby Dick is not distinctly American hopefully my links will help!

>107 User2024: Ohhhhh! The back and forth of commenting got something garbled. I was saying that McCarthy owed more to Hemingway than Melville. And that Faulkner, I did think was genuinely influenced by Melville.

I think there are different ways of looking at how influence works. But I don't see how anyone can look at the short, declarative narration of McCarthy along the frequent indifference to identifying the speaker and not see Hemingway.

McCarthy certainly has a view of the world that is grimmer than Hemingway and more in line with Faulkner or Melville, and that comes out in his writing. But I don't know if that makes them more influential than Hemingway for him.

Now, Toni Morrison is someone where I can see a straight line from Faulkner.

>78 Macumbeira: If Papa Hemingway survives the anti-woke Floridian book banners, no probs.

Oops, no, sex references. Damn.

>113 Cat_of_Ulthar: I am quite sure he will never die...

'Is dying hard, Daddy?'
'No, I think it's pretty easy, Nick. It all depends.'
They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water. Nick trailed his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning.
In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.

( Indian Camp )

I considered for a moment Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles as the great American
novel and then I found this article...

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/i-am-herman-melville/

>115 Macumbeira: I think the Martian Chronicles is a great work of science fiction, and you're right it definitely has Americana. However, Moby Dick I think truly fits all the criteria for great American novel.

Here, for your amusement, an AI image I had recently generated of "Ray Bradbury and Moby Dick" :)

>116 astropi: Looks like there's some Dracula in there as well haha.

>116 astropi:

Please remove this. This will send Omnishambles into ecstasy. Think of the profit margins possible!

Folio Society: producers of beautifully e-illustrated books.

wow

>117 BooksFriendsNotFood: Yeah, I figured it was apropos since Halloween is approaching :)
Also, no one apart from the AI truly knows what those are.

>118 LesMiserables: It's bound to happen, isn't it?

>119 Macumbeira: You should have seen what the whales looked like before I specifically told the AI to make the whales look more like... well, whales.

>120 astropi: yes the lower 'whale' has a sense of otter and swallow about it.

>120 astropi: Given that we already have artists embroiled in tracing controversies (the Fey Dalton MTG thing, FS Bond illustrator) I have zero doubt this is already happening, and it's virtually impossible to prove. They can even imitate their own art style to get the template. How are you going to spot it or prove it other than some feeling it was rushed or imitated some other piece? Cut their work process in half and it's massive savings/being able to ramp production.

>122 A.Godhelm: Such is modern life, Mordor in our midst.
JRRT.

>122 A.Godhelm: then why pay any illustrator then? The publisher can just use AI to create their own book illustrations.

>124 nau2002: Some fly by night publishers do it already, but aside from the ethical reasons not to it's a tricky legal situation using generated art trained on copyrighted material, and it'll take time for that to be resolved. Practically the results still don't look publishable, but can be with editing, for which you need an artist. At which point we're back in the grey zone of how to treat that both from a rights perspective and from an ethical perspective.
The genie isn't going back in the bottle. It'll be a tough future, especially for artists who haven't established themselves yet

>125 A.Godhelm: Indeed. When you go to some AI now and have it generate "decent" art for you instantaneously, you really have to wonder where this is going in the future? Some years ago digital artists started releasing NFTs, and if you don't know what those are, here is a description --
https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain/nfts-explained/
Also, their description is not entirely accurate. Baseball cards are not all unique -- apart from some truly "rare" ones which only a handful may exist. Original art, one-of-a-kind jewelry, one-of-a-kind most anything is considered "non-fungible" but NFTs really refer to something having a "unique digital number", and I would argue that's about it. I think it's asinine, but that's just my opinion.
That said, I think art is a bit like sports. When you're in the top of your game, you're basking in glory and making big bucks. When you're at the bottom, it's a struggle. And with AI, I think overcoming the "bottom hurdles" is going to be even more challenging.

A great overview of the FS Grapes of Wrath (look past the Atlantic Canadian pronunciation of Studs Terkel):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwXs8KrBbBI

Apparently, surveys are starting to go out with the following five finalists:

Moby-Dick by Melville
The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Twain
Lonesome Dove by McMurty
Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon

>128 HonorWulf: All fabulous works of course, and the first three I can understand as shortlisted for "the great American novel" but not the last two. I know some critics have called Gravity's Rainbow one of the greatest works, but there are also critics that would disagree. It's a dense work, and not anywhere nearly as influential (nor as well known) as the first three works, and frankly I would argue there are numerous other works that are more deserving -- for instance, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, all are far more influential writers, but for some reason off the list? Meh.

Lonesome Dove for me.

Survey link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2VGJBKY

>129 astropi: Agreed. Out of the finalists, Moby Dick is probably the pick, but Folio's done it three times before (although the recent editions are commanding a pretty penny, so perhaps a new edition is indeed warranted).

>130 adriano77: I'd love to see Lonesome Dove, but not as the "Greatest American Novel". Hopefully, they find a way to do both.

Gravity’s Rainbow is drivel. Won’t complain about the others.

>133 HonorWulf:

I'm just voting for what I want to see released. It's not as if the results will be determinative to which is actually the greatest, ha.

While a Lonesome Dove release would be wonderful (just think of the illustration opportunities), I don't think it's the greatest. I've already said that my vote goes to Huckleberry Finn, though I would not begrudge anyone who voted for Moby Dick or The Grapes of Wrath. I have not read Gravity's Rainbow.

>130 adriano77: Lonesome Dove for me too.

Lonesome Dove for me as well. The Great American Novel and The Greatest Novel Written by an American are two very different things.

>135 adriano77: I hear you. Just trying to save Folio some (more) grief.

Whatever is "the" great American novel, I'm going to vote for the novel I would most like to see get the Folio treatment. As I suspect will most others. For me this is probably Lonesome Dove, since I think the Folio approach might be interesting and there are few other options.

I like some of Pynchon's work, though I haven't read Gravity's Rainbow and I don't have confidence in Folio art direction for a more edgy work. Just look at the bland illustrations they've been greenlighting for Cormac McCarthy.

The Steinbeck and Twain still feel too much like high school English assignments to me (maybe unfortunately), so they are out.

Moby-Dick is probably the winner on merits both literary and popular, but there are already so many good options for collectors, especially if LE money is on the table. There's no way Folio is likely to top the California Deluxe with Moser illustrations or their own previous LE.

>133 HonorWulf: on the survey they actually state something like ‘choose which book you would most like us to publish to celebrate the anniversary’, or words to that effect, so phew, Lonesome Dove it is. It’s the only one I haven’t read (or attempted in the case of Gravity’s Rainbow).

A likely pointless vote for Gravity's Rainbow from me. Am not Pynchon's greatest fan, but this is a major novel and probably the main GAN contender (alongside De Lillo and maybe Roth) of the last 70 years. Twain, Melville, Steinbeck have all been well-served by FS so novelty (!) a part of my reckoning as well. Anyway, I look forward to getting into the spirit of things and complaining long and loud about the eventual anniversary edition of Huck Finn.

Wow. 5 white dudes. Sure, great books (except for Pynchon, imo), but give me a break. That is an incredibly boring list.

(Again, these are great books, I love three of them with all my heart, but American literature is so much more interesting and diverse than this list.)

>143 Jason461: what would be your list of 5?

>143 Jason461:

This is about diverse as it gets. These books are vastly different from one another in style, subject, philosophic underpinning, decade published, etc. It's also dubious to claim that it gets so much more interesting than literary giants. Why you're mentioning skin color though is hard to understand.

It would be depressing to think that all the gals were in the kitchen while the Great American Novels were being written, so I would suggest work by the fantastic Jane Smiley.

Smiley won the Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres - essentially a resetting of King Lear in the mid-west (available in an Everyman edition) but her 'Last Hundred Years ' trilogy which is in fact one very long novel ( Early Warning, Some Luck, Golden Age) is real GAN stuff.

Following the fortunes of the extended Langdon family, with a chapter per year, it covers the sweep of American history from the 1920s to 2015, and then speculatively to 2020 (the last book was published in 2015). It is not exactly a family saga - more an exposition on the effects of history on a family. Wonderful stuff, anyway.

>146 red_guy: I can't speak to anything else that Jane Smiley has written, but A Thousand Acres is one of the worst novels that I've ever read. In my mind, it is the prime example of how acclaim and prestige do not necessarily equate to actual literary quality.

On an American related topic. I’ve just received an email from FS regarding black history month. They are releasing an edition of Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin in 2025.

>148 assemblyman: I read this just the other day and it’s a fantastic novel, it’s quite short though so will be interesting to see if it gets the LE treatment.

I would say that books that are less than several decades old haven't stood the test of time, so I would hesitate to call any of them a 'great' of a whole range of literature before some time has passed. And let's face it, once you go back in time a while, women and persons of colour didn't have equal opportunities to produce great literature in western societies. The end result is that the 'great' classics, so to say, have a tendency to be white men, and there's no need to fault them or the people who call them greats for that. Give it a few hundred years and I'm sure things will have become more diverse in such 'classic greats' lists, as opposed to current literature where the range has already improved quite a bit.

To pick a German example: A really excellent 19th-century female author, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, left only poetry and - with the exception of one finished novella - fragments of longer works. Her mother found her talent deeply embarrassing - a woman, and a member of the nobility on top of that, just shouldn't be that smart and talented and produce great literature. So from an early age she did her best to hamper her and managed to cripple her talent in music and painting, but couldn't completely stop her writing, though she did her best there too by interrupting and making demands on her time. A lot of her work could only be done when she could spend some time living with a married sister. She was also stopped from making use of the money she earned (how embarrassing, too) or moving out (not acceptable at all). A man with the same talent at that time could have lived on his own and made a nice living, he could also have had the chance to develop his other talents. Those are just the sad facts - a lot of talent couldn't develop to the same heights as those of others due to the fact that certain groups were discriminated against. So yes, expect such a list to consist of white men - it's just a consequence of those times. That doesn't make those works less good, though it's a shame to think of what talent was lost and never came down to us like these did.

>147 CJDelDotto: What was it about A Thousand Acres that you disliked so much?

>143 Jason461: Keep in mind that this list contains the finalists from a previous open survey, so it is by no means objective or definitive. In terms of books from minority and women writers, Invisible Man, To Kill a Mockingbird and Little Women often make these types of lists, some of which were recommended earlier in this thread.

In hindsight, we should've probably gotten everybody to just choose Moby Dick to teach Folio a lesson. There are other ways to celebrate the 250th anniversary than making a show of "the great American novel". If Moby Dick really is the great American novel, and they've already released both an LE and a nice standard edition, then maybe this wasn't their best idea.

I think someone suggested a selection of great American novels - that would have been fun.

>154 SF-72: Yes, agreed, that would have made a lot more sense. FS could have curated a diverse selection and everyone could have selected what they wanted.

I voted for Huck Finn. Moby and Grapes are VG but I think Huck Finn is a great.

>142 ian_curtin: I too voted for Gravity's Rainbow. Not only is it a major novel and extremely influential (amongst some circles at least), but finding a decent hardcover copy is all but impossible unless you're willing to spend a lot - unlike most of the other titles on the list.

Personally I suspect it's more likely to get a FS edition than it seems from the voting here, simply because it's an unusual title that's not in the public domain. Why mention it unless there was either serious interest or it's already happening?

>147 CJDelDotto: I've only gotten two chapters in, but it has a muted writing style, few scenes, and mostly the protagonist telling the reader her memories. For a retelling of King Lear, I expected a faster start and a more vivid style.

I'm interested in your take on why it is so bad, but I will read the rest before I return to this thread. +)

>153 treereader: Not me. I want another LE of Moby Dick. I think they should do a very deluxe version of it.

>159 nau2002:

Bound in albino whale leather. Now wouldn't that be something.

>160 treereader: haha. Also to come with a special gift of a small vial of whale oil

>160 treereader: Albino whale foreskin embedded with 2.5g of pure white aged ambergris should be exclusive enough for the 2026 US Semiquincentennial! :)

is there a pre-order form ?

>143 Jason461: Yeah, that's the problem when you're going for "the greatest" or something along those lines, you naturally exclude so many other wonderful authors and works. I personally think the FS got this one wrong. If you're going to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, then the work in question should relate to the American Revolution in some direct way. LOA has "The American Revolution: Writings from the War of Independence" -- I think the FS should have gone for a beautiful illustrated edition of such a work.

In general response to some of the responses to me:

What I mean by "boring" is that Folio has generally done these books. Do we need new copies? Do we have to limit ourselves to things that have been on syllabi forever and ever. Also, I think Pynchon is awful, and if you're going to choose something recent, do better.

I do know that the list was crowdsourced. Crowds have boring taste.

If it were me choosing, I would pick books that, at least as far as I know, Folio hasn't done. It might look something like this (yeah, this is more than 5):

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Street by Ann Petry
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin (really, pick your Baldwin, so glad something of his is finally coming)

And god knows what else if I took the time to stare at my shelves until every Great American Novel Folio I've read that Folio hasn't published popped into my head.

America is a gigantic, complex nation. I'd love to see that complexity more thoroughly represented and I'd love to see a bunch of fresh titles that stimulate the conversation.

>165 Jason461: America is a gigantic, complex nation. I'd love to see that complexity more thoroughly represented and I'd love to see a bunch of fresh titles that stimulate the conversation.

Does this corroborate your earlier comment about 'white dudes'? If so, are you arguing that the complexity you are craving, goes beyond the book itself? How does that then address the 'Great' in the "Great American Novel'? Societal diversity/complexity and literary excellence are not necessarily bedfellows, therefore I believe this is a non sequitur.

>166 LesMiserables: I am arguing that if anyone thinks only white men have written novels that are both Great and represent the American experience, then that person does not understand America and has not read nearly enough American literature to have an informed opinion on the subject.

Folio could easily provide a more diverse list and see no drop off in quality.

Some of these books are becoming what Dickens was for Folio for a long time. My goodness, how many more editions do we need?

>167 Jason461: Ah, ok. Thanks for clarifying. I would argue however that Folio does not think that only white men have written novels that are both Great and represent the American experience. I would wager that their list is wholly based upon literary merit only and other considerations were not accounted for, which is rather refreshing in this day and age. I would also think that their list was brutally short and marketable.

>167 Jason461: "how many more editions do we need?"

I would like more editions. Some of us missed out on a limited edition and can't pay the outrageous prices on the secondary market.

I always thought that 19th and 20th century literature was a cultural expression of (dead ) white males for (reading ) white males. Any other cultural group dabbling into it seems like cultural appropriation.

American is rather industrious, perhaps a bit workaholic, and always up for a good joke. Maybe a to-do list or an instruction manual with a brightly colored chaotic cover hidden by a boring slipcase would suit us best?

>172 treereader: Perhaps Vonnegut's Player Piano!

>170 Macumbeira: In my view, great literature transcends the author’s racial and gender lines and isn’t limited to a single demographic’s consumption or experience.

It depends on how exactly we define the art-form of literary writing. It is more than "story telling" which indeed has no boundaries in racial, gender or time.

I think there are at least some people on this thread who could have stood to take some ethnic and gender studies classes in college.

LoL

>176 Jason461: Indeed, because nothing signifies authority on great literature like ethnic and gender studies.

>176 Jason461:

The funniest thing I’ve ever read on LT.

>178 bacchus.: Ha ha. Quite. The industry of nothing has long tentacles indeed.

You know, LT has some pretty lenient policies, but the wallowing in ignorance on display here is appalling a lot of the time.

Did white men write some of the great literature and some of the Great American Novels? Of course.

Did the write all of them? Obviously not. And they only way one can believe this is if one is racist, misogynist, and, frankly, poorly read (they've kept writing books since the 19th century ended).

A list of Great American Novels that only includes white men is flawed and biased. This is doubly true is it extended into the 20th c., which this list certainly does.

Understanding, via studying of other perspectives, that simply because society favored one group's POV, does not mean that this perspective is inherently superior should not be a controversial statement on a message board that should consist of relatively learned people.

I am now out on this discussion.

>181 Jason461: I think it’s important to take a step back and recognize that the discussion was never about ranking literature based on the background of the authors, but about appreciating great works, period. The point is to celebrate a wide range of literary contributions, not to discount any based on who wrote them. We don’t need to divide the conversation into us vs them and create divisions based on identity. As someone who doesn’t fit neatly into western labels, I find that grouping all “white men” into a monolithic category can be as limiting and reductive as any other generalization.

>181 Jason461: first, the list has only five entries. A sample set that small simply can't have much demographic variance.

Second, the demographic makeup of the USA was not as diverse (again by numbers), prior to 1950 (arbitrary cut off date, but the idea is that "great" requires some time to establish influence). Prior to 1950, the percentage of white Americans in the population was approximately 89.5% according to the 1950 Census data. So the fact that most of the writers here are white is not surprising.

Third, as a comparison, Chinese society right now is 91.51% ethnically Han, the dominant ethnicity in China. This is roughly equivalent to pre-1950 America. Would you say a list of Great Novels of China that only includes Han writers is flawed and biased? Of course not. It would actually be somewhat surprising otherwise, especially if you further assume the group in question is privileged to some degree.

Fourth, the list was the outcome of a voting procedure. No single person needed to "believe" anything about the representativeness of the list, unless you're suggesting that the company should step in and redo or modify the results if they don't match some preconceived expectation.

Really, the way the list came out is approximately what I would expect given a basic knowledge of demographic history, sociology, and statistics. Though I agree it's unfortunate there are no women on the list (Cather, Hurston, Wharton spring to mind).

But the data is the data. If you don't want a "people's choice awards" list, don't ask the people.

>181 Jason461: Agreed that the list is not well represented but I think you may be overthinking it. We're talking about the rebranded Folio Society that now exclusively publishes comic books, fantasy, horror, and all sorts of popular fiction. That Gravity's Rainbow and Lonesome Dove are on the list just shows how absurd the whole thing is. Not to disparage those titles and if they came out as future releases I would be happy, but, Great American Novel? Give me a break.

It's much harder to argue Steinbeck, Melville and Twain no matter how you feel about their oeuvre.

>183 abysswalker: I agree with the gist of this analysis.

Until 1865 black people were literally slaves in America. Women didn't have suffrage until 1920, not including all the other byzantine restrictions on women's ownership of bank accounts, etc., that continue long after. And, Civil Rights was "only" 1960s.

I am editing to add a note that I meant "only" to mean that I don't find the 1960s that far back in history. It's actually rather recent historically.

Because of these unfortunate societal restraints in the US, it isn't surprising that a list of authors for the Great America Novel will be dominated by white men for now and the near future.

I say near future as well, because unfortunately the GAN is typically not a genre book, but almost everything can be fitted into a genre nowadays and thus be considered "genre" fiction than "serious" fiction.

I agree that FS is leaning heavily into a lot of Fantasy and SciFi, but that's all the rage nowadays. Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan are two examples of people who started out "serious" tip-toeing into genre. Plus, we should applaud FS for the many "non-genre" titles they continue to produce. And non-fiction too.

Nobody wants to read personal accusations and put downs on this forum, at least I don’t. It doesn’t add anything to the discussion. Let’s go back to respectful debate mode, please!

Let me get this straight… Jason461 calls ignorance here appalling in a passive aggressive, beat-around-the-bush fashion and it’s acceptable, but to use language properly and directly is not acceptable? I genuinely want someone who flagged me to answer this question.

>189 User2024: yes
"Comment on content, not on the contributor."

He is commenting on the contributors… does content have the capacity for willful ignorance? Come on…

Some people are X

I am not!

A hit dog hollers is an American colloquialism. Looking up something more appropriate for ROW, Wikipedia suggested 'The lady doth protest too much', which I think is a separate case. But then uncovered 'Excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta'.

Learn something new everyday.

A vote for Pynchon, as I would likely buy it. It is the only novel listed that I would like to read but haven't.

The 'answer' is clearly Moby Dick, but I have 'good enough' copies on hand.

>194 kcshankd: I read Gravity's Rainbow and know that it is sometimes hear and there listed as a GAN, notwithstanding it almost winning the Pulitzer. But, is it really Pynchon's best? I have his other books on my tbr.

>195 billburden:

The only Pynchon I've read is V, and I recall loving it. It probably helped that I too was a crazed drunken sailor for a time...

>195 billburden:
I’ve read everything Pynchon has published and my favourite is Mason & Dixon. I actually think it should be considered as a Great American Novel, but recognize it does not have much broad appeal given its near 800 pages of dense 18th century-styled absurdity. It’s a bit of work with a LOT of capitalization. But it involves the surveying of the Mason-Dixon line at the time of the American Revolutionary War, and has gems like this:

“Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir'd, or coerc'd, only in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent, to be left within the reach of anyone in Power,- who need but touch her, and all her Credit is in the instant vanish'd, as if it had never been. She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government.”

That seems relevant these days. And it probably has my all time favourite opening sentence:

“Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr'd the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins, carried Hats away into the brisk Wind off Delaware,- the Sleds are brought in and their Runners carefully dried and greased, shoes deposited in the back Hall, a stocking'd-foot Descent made upon the great Kitchen, in a purposeful Dither since Morning, punctuated by the ringing Lids of various Boilers and Stewing-Pots, fragrant with Pie-Spices, peel'd Fruits, Suet, heated Sugar, - the Children, having all upon the Fly, among rhythmic slaps of Batter and Spoon, coax'd and stolen what they might, proceed, as upon each afternoon all this snowy Advent, to a comfortable Room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults.”

If you’re up for following these sometimes convoluted sentences it’s a lot of fun. It’s also laugh out loud funny and a moving story of friendship. Anyway, I can’t imagine Folio or anyone else doing a nice version of this anytime soon, but if they do I’ll be first in line! Definitely hoping for a Gravity’s Rainbow release at some point, even if it's not selected in this survey. I don't think it's a great fit here and voted for Grapes of Wrath despite being a huge Pynchon fan (actually feeling bad about that vote after writing this!).

>196 kcshankd:
>197 Folio_and_Fine:

Thanks for the reviews. I will definitely delve more into Pynchon's works.

So, did they ever announce the winner of the survey? If not, I hope they do. I feel like if they ask us to complete a survey, they should follow-up and let us know which book they will be publishing.

From what I've read of the beginnings of Moby Dick it was initially very unpopular and disappeared into oblivion for decades and only resurfaced after Melville's death once a group of talented writers recognised its worth. It was unrecognised by the average American reader and would still be languishing in obscurity if left to them.

I think some novels have a higher bar of entry to others when you approach them. These books are usually difficult to read, require much effort and prior knowledge and sometimes they are hybrids of different forms. They are a challenge. Moby Dick and Gravity's Rainbow fall into this category. It's almost guaranteed only a minority will like these books. Other books are much more accessible to the average reader. I like both types of novel.

Are there any GANs that have the depth and erudition of a Moby Dick or a Pynchon novel but are a breeze to read? I'm not sure. But I would be interested to know.

Steinbeck's Grapes, Twain's Huck, Hemingway's Old man come to mind
Gatsby ?

>201 Macumbeira: None of these really disrupt my expectations of what a novel should be. They don't require too much participation on my part. Not so with Moby Dick and Gravity's Rainbow. I just think there are two different approaches to what a great novel is meant to be.

>200 LT79: There is an Australian novel, probably not known outside of Australia that I think is wildly underrated, called Poor Fellow my Country by Xavier Herbert.
Outstanding in its depth, scope, and treatment of Australian fauna, flora, and historical intergenerational overlap of aboriginal and European Australians.

>202 LT79: bit they are a breeze to read

>203 LesMiserables:
But at nearly 1500 pages, Poor Fellow My Country is a challenge to read.

Maybe you should have a look at Gaddis’ Recognitions. Not really a breeze to read but deep reading and participatiob is certainly required.

>205 wcarter: It is, but ameliorated by the quality of the prose.

>204 Macumbeira: I agree, I suppose that was meant to be my point, they are a breeze to read because they are great novels in a typical way. You jump on and ride the wave. Great character and story. The thinking is mostly done for you. Books like Moby Dick and Gravity's Rainbow are great in another way. They play with the form, you have to participate and work with them, you can't be passive, they are not what is expected. They've clearly approached the novel in a different way. To me this gives these books more depth. There's a certain density and level of erudition that's gone into them that some people dislike (well actually, most people).

>203 LesMiserables: I've not heard of this book but I'm happy to give any book a go that's been overlooked. Thanks for the recommendation!

>206 Macumbeira: Thanks for the recommendation. I've been meaning to pick this one up.

>209 LT79: A challenge but very rewarding IMHO.

>208 LT79:

Yes, Pynchon played with the form. IMO he did the equivalent of someone writing the word, “Excrement” and calling it poetry. (It is poetry! He just played with the form!)

Disclaimer, I only read Gravity’s Rainbow. I’ll give him this, it is leagues better than Murakami’s 1Q84, another book whose esteem confuses me.

>212 User2024: That's actually a fantastic review and wouldn't look out of place on the back cover.

In terms of Murakami, I've only read the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (I felt it started well but fizzled out at the end) but now you've made me want to pick up IQ84!

If you think Pynchon is bad, I recently read Jealousy by Robbe-Grillet (another universally despised writer). This is a novel where the dramatic high points are blinds twitching, a chair with a slightly altered angle from the day before, and the sound of a tyre crunching on gravel. Gravity's Rainbow is a riot compared to Jealousy.

I found Weisenburger's companion book helped me appreciate Gravity's Rainbow more and some of the more interesting YouTube reviews. It's more than just playing with the form.

or lose yourself literally in Robbe-Grillet's labyrinth