Toward a New Ameri-canon
March 16, 2024 2:19 AM Subscribe
This list includes 45 debut novels, nine winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and three children’s books. Twelve were published before the introduction of the mass-market paperback to America, and 24 after the release of the Kindle. At least 60 have been banned by schools or libraries. Together, they represent the best of what novels can do: challenge us, delight us, pull us in and then release us, a little smarter and a little more alive than we were before. from The Great American Novels [The Atlantic; ungated] [CW: a list which almost by definition lacks your favorite American author or novel]
I don't hate it. American Psycho is garbage, though; this seems to be trying to be a middle-brow list with a lot of genre fiction, and I humbly suggest there are at least twenty better writers who are at least as well known who could better fill the horror niche that poseur-y bullshit currently occupies. In general, I think the first half of the list is more solid than the more contemporary half, which feels a little tentative and iffy to me.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:12 AM on March 16 [12 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:12 AM on March 16 [12 favorites]
Lots of my favorites on here but also some of these picks are, in high literary terms, “dogshit”
posted by bxvr at 4:19 AM on March 16 [10 favorites]
posted by bxvr at 4:19 AM on March 16 [10 favorites]
I should say, too, that the smattering of comics kind of makes me wish they hadn't bothered. A Contract with God, Watchmen and Sabrina is a little like listing Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Nightcrawler as the three films everyone MUST see. It's just odd. And frankly, you'll have more fun reading The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina than Sabrina, a cold, weird book that I imagine will soon be some Atlantic readers' first and last graphic novel.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:23 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:23 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
"The Corrections" is what un-sold me on Jonathan Franzen.
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:24 AM on March 16 [8 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:24 AM on March 16 [8 favorites]
Not nearly as divisive as I thought-- or hoped?-- it would be. Give me the hot takes, not another recommendation for The Great Gatsby.
posted by Pitachu at 4:47 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
posted by Pitachu at 4:47 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
Eh, I think the problem with these lists is that the books are foundational. They became classics because they powerfully spoke to their time. Since that time is gone, so is much of the power, even if the book lives on in its influence in later books. A Farewell to Arms and The Watchmen launched 1000 imitators and disciples, but are they really worth reading now? I mean, I’ve read both of them years ago, but I’ll likely never go back except out of historical interest. Gatsby and Invisible Man are still worth reading because the writing is totes beautiful and the imagery striking, but a lot of the others are only interesting for their influence.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:02 AM on March 16 [7 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:02 AM on March 16 [7 favorites]
It's not clear to me how much they were selecting "best" and how much "most influential." For example, Roth's Portnoy is, I think, more the former than the latter.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 5:31 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 5:31 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
A perfectly fine list but it would be a better list with Chester Himes.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:36 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
posted by From Bklyn at 5:36 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
Yeah, not a terrible list. Sorta odd choice to go with Crying Lot of 49 and not Gravity's Rainbow if choosing a Pynchon.
posted by coffeecat at 5:39 AM on March 16 [8 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 5:39 AM on March 16 [8 favorites]
The Great American Novels of the last 100 years. I was surprised by some omissions until I actually read the introductory text.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 5:43 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
posted by paper chromatographologist at 5:43 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
It's odd to me that they included Watchmen, as both Moore and Gibbons are English, but not Maus. I see their explanation but... Yeah, it's still a weird choice.
I really like Colson Whitehead but I am surprised that The Intuitionist is the book of his they went with. Maybe I need to revisit it.
posted by synecdoche at 5:46 AM on March 16 [11 favorites]
I really like Colson Whitehead but I am surprised that The Intuitionist is the book of his they went with. Maybe I need to revisit it.
posted by synecdoche at 5:46 AM on March 16 [11 favorites]
This is a better list than many I've seen, but how is Watchmen American? I'm not a Frank Miller fan, but if you're specifying American and not written in English, wouldn't it be better to go with The Dark Knight Returns? Not nearly as good, but comparable in terms of impact.
(It says published by an American company, but so were other great novels written by people outside of the US)
posted by Hactar at 5:49 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
(It says published by an American company, but so were other great novels written by people outside of the US)
posted by Hactar at 5:49 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
This is so much more adventurous than that stodgy "100 Best Novels of the 20th Century" list Modern Library put out around the turn of the millennium.
posted by goatdog at 5:58 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
posted by goatdog at 5:58 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
it’s an interesting list. not the list i would have made (at the very least replace Updike, a terrible hack, with John Cheever’s The Falconer) and there are some novels i’ve never seen on a list like this before that are now want to reads. also nuts to ignore Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America imo
posted by dis_integration at 6:00 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 6:00 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
Interesting to choose Little, Big as the John Crowley entry when The Solitudes (and the rest of the Ægypt tetrology) is pretty explicitly his life's work that took him two decades to complete.
You could say "they're not choosing parts of a series" but then again they chose The Fifth Season, which is book 1 of Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:11 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
You could say "they're not choosing parts of a series" but then again they chose The Fifth Season, which is book 1 of Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:11 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
Sorta odd choice to go with Crying Lot of 49 and not Gravity's Rainbow if choosing a Pynchon.
from the article, they're planning on revisiting this decision when they have managed to actually finish Gravity's Rainbow
posted by logicpunk at 6:19 AM on March 16 [40 favorites]
from the article, they're planning on revisiting this decision when they have managed to actually finish Gravity's Rainbow
posted by logicpunk at 6:19 AM on March 16 [40 favorites]
I know the purpose of these lists is to get people who should know better to bite the hook and say "why this instead of that?" because engagement, but really. Dos Passos definitely should be on the list, but not for USA - it should be for Manhattan Transfer FFS. That novel is a masterpiece.
Sigh. I took the bait. I feel dirty but know I'm not wrong.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 6:23 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
Sigh. I took the bait. I feel dirty but know I'm not wrong.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 6:23 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
Yeah, after about 2000 it gets iffier, which is only natural. Not that any of those are bad books, but the ones I've read just seem very middling.
Tripmaster Monkey is really good, highly recommend, it will cheer you up in the long run. By happy coincidence, it is one of my favorite novels, and I'd say it's definitely optimistic about America in a way that is not in fact repulsive.
I would have chosen Gilead if only allowed one Marilynne Robinson book, and probably not The Round House for Louise Erdrich, not that there's anything wrong with The Round House. I think that's what is so tricky about having to sort the whole thing by publication year; if you only have a limited amount of space for the 2000s, you can't necessarily choose things where except where they'll fit.
The trouble with when these lists include SFF is that they're obviously not choosing from a deep bench - you feel like the people choosing haven't read deeply on this theme and are just picking from books well-known to non-interested parties. Little, Big is certainly a good book, a better book definitely than The Fifth Sacred Thing, but it has sooooooo much less to say about this country. In fact, if I were going to pick modern SFF that had something positive to say about the possibilities of Being From Here, I'd pick The Fifth Sacred Thing and swap Always Coming Home, which is so rooted in Californian and American history, for The Dispossessed.
And honestly, I think Sarah Schulman's People In Trouble really is a Great American Novel, a great queer American novel about self-fashioning and AIDS and morality and Donald Trump and activism.
I also notice that of the books I recognize, almost none are from a really left wing standpoint. Tripmaster Monkey, maybe, but that's veiled a bit under the story of darling Monkey, surely one of the most likeable of male protagonists.
You know what they should do? Memoir. One hundred American memoirs, and they could role in, eg, Delany's Heavenly Breakfast, which is maybe less great as a memoir than The Motion of Light In Water, but wow it is stories from a time.
posted by Frowner at 6:32 AM on March 16 [8 favorites]
Tripmaster Monkey is really good, highly recommend, it will cheer you up in the long run. By happy coincidence, it is one of my favorite novels, and I'd say it's definitely optimistic about America in a way that is not in fact repulsive.
I would have chosen Gilead if only allowed one Marilynne Robinson book, and probably not The Round House for Louise Erdrich, not that there's anything wrong with The Round House. I think that's what is so tricky about having to sort the whole thing by publication year; if you only have a limited amount of space for the 2000s, you can't necessarily choose things where except where they'll fit.
The trouble with when these lists include SFF is that they're obviously not choosing from a deep bench - you feel like the people choosing haven't read deeply on this theme and are just picking from books well-known to non-interested parties. Little, Big is certainly a good book, a better book definitely than The Fifth Sacred Thing, but it has sooooooo much less to say about this country. In fact, if I were going to pick modern SFF that had something positive to say about the possibilities of Being From Here, I'd pick The Fifth Sacred Thing and swap Always Coming Home, which is so rooted in Californian and American history, for The Dispossessed.
And honestly, I think Sarah Schulman's People In Trouble really is a Great American Novel, a great queer American novel about self-fashioning and AIDS and morality and Donald Trump and activism.
I also notice that of the books I recognize, almost none are from a really left wing standpoint. Tripmaster Monkey, maybe, but that's veiled a bit under the story of darling Monkey, surely one of the most likeable of male protagonists.
You know what they should do? Memoir. One hundred American memoirs, and they could role in, eg, Delany's Heavenly Breakfast, which is maybe less great as a memoir than The Motion of Light In Water, but wow it is stories from a time.
posted by Frowner at 6:32 AM on March 16 [8 favorites]
Of the ~40 of these I've read, there were only a couple that made me go "What? No. Why?" That, plus the fact that it's not entirely Boring Choices, makes me feel like it's scoring a lot higher than these kinds of lists usually do.
Obviously, if I made such a list, it would be completely different, but this seems like a pretty decent one.
posted by kyrademon at 6:46 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
Obviously, if I made such a list, it would be completely different, but this seems like a pretty decent one.
posted by kyrademon at 6:46 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
If your list don't include Siri Hustvedt then your list could use some fixin'
posted by Ardnamurchan at 7:15 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
posted by Ardnamurchan at 7:15 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
Pleased to see The Dispossessed and The Fifth Season on there (the latter a tip from fellow Mefite suelac! Thanks again), but I'd swap the predictable PKD for A Scanner Darkly. On the whole, though, could be a lot worse.
posted by rory at 7:16 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
posted by rory at 7:16 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
I remember "the Great American Novel" being a sort of running midcentury joke about something that would never really be pinned down, like "the missing link." I probably heard about it from Snoopy.
Both of these ideas gradually dissolved, but I remember where I was when I was reading a book and thinking, this is it. This is the Great American Novel! And it was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which, I'm glad to see, is on here.
A little mystified about how The Dispossessed got there. Le Guin is as American an author as you'd want, specifically Californian, but it's not an American book. Always Coming Home is, though, I would say. I'd put it on this list just because I'd put it on any list of "books that are good and you should read them."
posted by Countess Elena at 7:19 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
Both of these ideas gradually dissolved, but I remember where I was when I was reading a book and thinking, this is it. This is the Great American Novel! And it was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which, I'm glad to see, is on here.
A little mystified about how The Dispossessed got there. Le Guin is as American an author as you'd want, specifically Californian, but it's not an American book. Always Coming Home is, though, I would say. I'd put it on this list just because I'd put it on any list of "books that are good and you should read them."
posted by Countess Elena at 7:19 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
Good gender parity in the list! I am surprised and delighted.
I often go into lists like this with a huge chip on my shoulder about "it's going to be all white dudes" but in this case it's much better than that. So they tried, they really tried, to be representative, whatever else you want to say.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:19 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
I often go into lists like this with a huge chip on my shoulder about "it's going to be all white dudes" but in this case it's much better than that. So they tried, they really tried, to be representative, whatever else you want to say.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:19 AM on March 16 [3 favorites]
I agree with some others here that Watchmen is a poor choice, and that Maus or The Dark Knight Returns would be good alternatives-- especially Maus, which is just as influential as the other two, and has aged better than either one of them.
As for the other graphic novels on the list, the Will Eisner entry is fine, but I've never even heard of Sabrina before. I would've gone with Black Hole, personally.
posted by May Kasahara at 7:22 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
As for the other graphic novels on the list, the Will Eisner entry is fine, but I've never even heard of Sabrina before. I would've gone with Black Hole, personally.
posted by May Kasahara at 7:22 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
A little mystified about how The Dispossessed got there.
It's a critique of America disguised as SF. Well, the half that isn't set on its anarchist utopian twin world.
posted by rory at 7:23 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
It's a critique of America disguised as SF. Well, the half that isn't set on its anarchist utopian twin world.
posted by rory at 7:23 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
While I understand the capriciousness of these sorts of things, it still gave me a tiny thrill to see a friend make it on the list (Kevin Wilson, for "Nothing to See Here").
It really is an amazing book.
posted by griffey at 8:15 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
It really is an amazing book.
posted by griffey at 8:15 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
I mean, Maus is non-fiction (I don't recall the animal symbolism as a thing that affects the way the story is written; it's just a graphic element), so that's that -- it isn't a novel. It may be a graphic novel, but that's just a rhetorically clumsy term for "comic book."
I wasn't awake enough when I saw this post for it to even dawn on me that Watchmen is not really an American anything -- it takes place in America and it was published by an American publisher, but the main creators are from the UK, yeah. On waking, I feel like what makes Watchmen important is not much to do with what would make any novel important, and I'll explain what I mean. Although I would argue that Watchmen is a fine story with rich characters and great dialogue, where Watchmen is most remarkable is in its form, what it does with the medium of comics itself. That may have a lot to do with why, of the three Watchmen adaptations, you have a fairly straightforward narrative film that most sane people agree is horrible, a TV show that has very little to do with the source material, and a cartoon that is literally someone filming the comic book pages while someone reads the words out loud (I think; I haven't seen the whole motion comic).
The (probably) least artistically successful of the these is the first, which is the one that tries hardest to transplant the original work to a different medium. That's a little like making an opera out of Light in August. Or scooping up the contents of the Atlantic Ocean and air dropping them into the Mojave because you would like to put a beach there. The work is so much of a piece with its medium that efforts to relocate it will at worst lead to disaster, and at best to something that succeeds but is far removed from the original work.
So does it belong in a list of best novels? To me, it's a strong argument that comics are as different a thing from prose fiction as film or poetry. I'd like comics to be as respected as other media, but squishing prose and comics together can only lead, in my opinion, to criticism and analysis of comics through a reductive lens, or at least a completely inappropriate one.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:21 AM on March 16 [7 favorites]
I wasn't awake enough when I saw this post for it to even dawn on me that Watchmen is not really an American anything -- it takes place in America and it was published by an American publisher, but the main creators are from the UK, yeah. On waking, I feel like what makes Watchmen important is not much to do with what would make any novel important, and I'll explain what I mean. Although I would argue that Watchmen is a fine story with rich characters and great dialogue, where Watchmen is most remarkable is in its form, what it does with the medium of comics itself. That may have a lot to do with why, of the three Watchmen adaptations, you have a fairly straightforward narrative film that most sane people agree is horrible, a TV show that has very little to do with the source material, and a cartoon that is literally someone filming the comic book pages while someone reads the words out loud (I think; I haven't seen the whole motion comic).
The (probably) least artistically successful of the these is the first, which is the one that tries hardest to transplant the original work to a different medium. That's a little like making an opera out of Light in August. Or scooping up the contents of the Atlantic Ocean and air dropping them into the Mojave because you would like to put a beach there. The work is so much of a piece with its medium that efforts to relocate it will at worst lead to disaster, and at best to something that succeeds but is far removed from the original work.
So does it belong in a list of best novels? To me, it's a strong argument that comics are as different a thing from prose fiction as film or poetry. I'd like comics to be as respected as other media, but squishing prose and comics together can only lead, in my opinion, to criticism and analysis of comics through a reductive lens, or at least a completely inappropriate one.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:21 AM on March 16 [7 favorites]
Yeah, after about 2000 it gets iffier, which is only natural.
I've heard it said of songs, that you don't really know whether something has stood the test of time for about fifteen years. (Popular Song) may serve the zeitgeist entirely well when it's fresh and new, but to really matter on the long term (to continue to speak to us), you've got to wait a decade and a half to truly know. Based on my own impressions, I think there's something to this.
But when it comes to novels, which are bigger, broader, more EVERYTHING than a simple pop song, I wonder if it's a longer time scale. Probably double. Because of the books I've actually read, I can't see anything on that list that's less than about thirty years old that would interest me right now. Or more to the point, that I'd get enthusiastic about recommending.
posted by philip-random at 8:26 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
I've heard it said of songs, that you don't really know whether something has stood the test of time for about fifteen years. (Popular Song) may serve the zeitgeist entirely well when it's fresh and new, but to really matter on the long term (to continue to speak to us), you've got to wait a decade and a half to truly know. Based on my own impressions, I think there's something to this.
But when it comes to novels, which are bigger, broader, more EVERYTHING than a simple pop song, I wonder if it's a longer time scale. Probably double. Because of the books I've actually read, I can't see anything on that list that's less than about thirty years old that would interest me right now. Or more to the point, that I'd get enthusiastic about recommending.
posted by philip-random at 8:26 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
Underground Railroad?
Neal Stephenson?
I don't like Sherman Alexie the person, but Absolutely True Diary is a pretty good book
Tom Wolfe?
I would think Mason & Dixon over anything else
posted by Snowishberlin at 9:24 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
Neal Stephenson?
I don't like Sherman Alexie the person, but Absolutely True Diary is a pretty good book
Tom Wolfe?
I would think Mason & Dixon over anything else
posted by Snowishberlin at 9:24 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
I agree with philip-random, I think any "best of list" that spans a century should skip the most recent "n" number of years, because we just don't know yet. It deserves its own FPP, but the recent What Makes an Album the Greatest of All Time interactive from The Pudding shows how much tastes change over time (and perhaps more importantly, when you open up the judging to a broader range of people)
posted by gwint at 9:59 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
posted by gwint at 9:59 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
Before I clicked, I gave it about an 80% chance that Lolita would NOT be included.
That it was is an act of bravery.
Now I guess I have to decide whether I think it should have been.
posted by jamjam at 10:00 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
That it was is an act of bravery.
Now I guess I have to decide whether I think it should have been.
posted by jamjam at 10:00 AM on March 16 [1 favorite]
To be fair, describing a book as an American novel because it made an American publisher money, not because the author identified as American, is pretty fucking American
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:07 AM on March 16 [15 favorites]
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:07 AM on March 16 [15 favorites]
The real reason I love reading metafilter posts about book lists is that I like reading people's potted commentary (and I like writing my own, yes). Absolutely, give me a comment about why Watchmen isn't a great novel per se, for instance. I like the short little insights (and occasional longer ones) that I get into these books.
I like Jo Walton's What Makes This Book So Great columns for much the same reason - reviews that aren't scholarly per se but are informed and are written by people who care about the specific book under consideration. A scholarly/big-picture review is great, a review by someone who thinks of themselves as a reviewer first and foremost can be great, but there's a lot to be said for a personal, amateur but reasonably thoughtful and informed response. (Not that Walton is an amateur, of course, but she's writing in a more personal voice rather than in, say, LRB mode.)
posted by Frowner at 10:13 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
I like Jo Walton's What Makes This Book So Great columns for much the same reason - reviews that aren't scholarly per se but are informed and are written by people who care about the specific book under consideration. A scholarly/big-picture review is great, a review by someone who thinks of themselves as a reviewer first and foremost can be great, but there's a lot to be said for a personal, amateur but reasonably thoughtful and informed response. (Not that Walton is an amateur, of course, but she's writing in a more personal voice rather than in, say, LRB mode.)
posted by Frowner at 10:13 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
To be fair, describing a book as an American novel because it made an American publisher money, not because the author identified as American, is pretty fucking American
We Are The Champions
the greatest American song of them all
posted by philip-random at 10:19 AM on March 16 [8 favorites]
I guess that I could see putting Watchmen on the list, because it is about America in a way that Maus basically isn't (plus, what KFB says above about Maus not really being a novel is true). I absolutely wouldn't suggest the Dark Knight Returns as a substitute, because, even if you allow that it was Frank Miller arguably at the height of his powers and before he really started putting out work that was ethically and morally awful, it's still not nearly as deep or rewarding as Watchmen. But I would take out Sabrina--KFB is right that it's "a cold, weird book", a good description of Drnaso's output generally--and sub in Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan; lots of people would also describe Ware's work as cold and weird, but that book in particular is very much about America, in a very unique way, and Ware has also (not unlike Alan Moore) done things with the comic medium that others can only vaguely grasp at. I'd also suggest Ghost World by Dan Clowes and My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris, a book which is memoir-ish but technically not one. (Maybe a roman a clef?)
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:41 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:41 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
Before I clicked, I gave it about an 80% chance that Lolita would NOT be included.
That it was is an act of bravery.
Now I guess I have to decide whether I think it should have been.
It's okay because Pale Fire, his very best, is on the list.
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:25 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
That it was is an act of bravery.
Now I guess I have to decide whether I think it should have been.
It's okay because Pale Fire, his very best, is on the list.
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:25 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
Was hoping to see Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and A Confederacy of Dunces on there, but 🤷🏼♂️
posted by TedW at 11:36 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
posted by TedW at 11:36 AM on March 16 [6 favorites]
not that there's anything wrong with The Round House
As a person who (a) deeply respects Louise Erdrich, and (b) spent a decent-sized chunk of their life in and around the Federal Indian Law world:
There is a whole lot wrong with The Round House. In terms of the (important!) issues to which she wanted the book to draw attention, it is a gigantic freaking mess.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 11:39 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
As a person who (a) deeply respects Louise Erdrich, and (b) spent a decent-sized chunk of their life in and around the Federal Indian Law world:
There is a whole lot wrong with The Round House. In terms of the (important!) issues to which she wanted the book to draw attention, it is a gigantic freaking mess.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 11:39 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
(And, like, she could have just phoned any one of the law schools in the US that has an Indian Law Clinic and asked if there was student who could read her MS and check it for sense and feasibility, and piles of folx would have *lost their minds with joy* about getting the chance to do it. It's just ... arrrgh!)
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 11:57 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 11:57 AM on March 16 [2 favorites]
Nice that they included The Stand, which is the only Stephen King book I've ever liked.
posted by lhauser at 12:07 PM on March 16 [4 favorites]
posted by lhauser at 12:07 PM on March 16 [4 favorites]
Hey, fun list! Plenty of snoozers and turds that no one reads these days unless forced to, but still—fascinating. Eisner yes, WATCHMEN no. Yaaay, Shirley Jackson!
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:09 PM on March 16 [1 favorite]
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:09 PM on March 16 [1 favorite]
Catch-22 is there, so I'm happy.
posted by Gadarene at 12:26 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
posted by Gadarene at 12:26 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
I had an early American lit prof in college who defined American lit as, "the tension between the American dream and the American fantasy." The American dream is the myth of our ideals, in modern parlance home, a white picket fence, a nuclear family - a functioning society. The American fantasy is manifest destiny, unlimited personal freedom, survival of the fittest. With that lens, this list reflects that view.
posted by frecklefaerie at 1:04 PM on March 16 [9 favorites]
posted by frecklefaerie at 1:04 PM on March 16 [9 favorites]
both Sula and Beloved, which I loved, as well as Song of Solomon, so pretty sure that puts Morrison as the most-listed author ... and Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings, which is just dazzling in ambition and execution.
Disappointed that Richard Powers doesn't make the list, for The Overstory if nothing else. Feels like an oversight.
Still, no bragging here-- I've only read 17 of the 133. I've got a lot of reading to do...
posted by martin q blank at 1:06 PM on March 16 [1 favorite]
Disappointed that Richard Powers doesn't make the list, for The Overstory if nothing else. Feels like an oversight.
Still, no bragging here-- I've only read 17 of the 133. I've got a lot of reading to do...
posted by martin q blank at 1:06 PM on March 16 [1 favorite]
BTW, The Pluto Gangsta, I think most authors’ opinions of their own works and what’s important among them are perilous to incorporate into listmaking of this sort. I’ve encountered less than five people, you included, who go to bat for the tetralogy… and maybe 100 who stan Little, Big. Double that, if I count people who’ve read it and are overall thumbs-up about it. I offer no opinion on which is better, but if you’re talking influence…
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:27 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:27 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
I'd take 300 level catch-22 and contemporary american warfare. for money.
posted by j_curiouser at 2:02 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 2:02 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
Peyton Place? My God, Peyton Place! (But no Dashiell Hammett, like Red Harvest.) Steven King? Not The Stand, Salem's Lot would be better. Dorothy Hughes is good, but The Expendable Man is the book for this list. And where's Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood, Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination. Ray Bradbury?
If we're "painting the American soul" where are the novels of US history such as E.L. Doctorow (Ragtime, The March), John Barth (The Sot-Weed Factor), Gore Vidal (Burr, 1876), Robert Lewis Taylor, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, Thomas Berger, Little Big Man.
And the least well-known great American novel: Charles Finney, The Circus of Doctor Lao.
There. Now I feel better.
posted by CCBC at 2:50 PM on March 16 [5 favorites]
If we're "painting the American soul" where are the novels of US history such as E.L. Doctorow (Ragtime, The March), John Barth (The Sot-Weed Factor), Gore Vidal (Burr, 1876), Robert Lewis Taylor, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, Thomas Berger, Little Big Man.
And the least well-known great American novel: Charles Finney, The Circus of Doctor Lao.
There. Now I feel better.
posted by CCBC at 2:50 PM on March 16 [5 favorites]
American Psycho is garbage, though; this seems to be trying to be a middle-brow list with a lot of genre fiction, and I humbly suggest there are at least twenty better writers who are at least as well known who could better fill the horror niche that poseur-y bullshit currently occupies.
I don't know. I don't really think American Psycho is supposed to be horror, and I feel like both it and Brett Easton Ellis are almost impossibly American in their casual selfishness. A while ago I posted an FPP about the "best Adam Sandler" movies. That is, not the best of his movies, but his movies that most signified his aesthetic. If we are talking about best American novels not as best novels, but as novels that are most emblematic of America, I don't think there are many better writers than Ellis in that regard. Cheever maybe?
Also, the best American novel is a movie. Fight me.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:12 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
I don't know. I don't really think American Psycho is supposed to be horror, and I feel like both it and Brett Easton Ellis are almost impossibly American in their casual selfishness. A while ago I posted an FPP about the "best Adam Sandler" movies. That is, not the best of his movies, but his movies that most signified his aesthetic. If we are talking about best American novels not as best novels, but as novels that are most emblematic of America, I don't think there are many better writers than Ellis in that regard. Cheever maybe?
Also, the best American novel is a movie. Fight me.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:12 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
In the sense that Ellis is a rich kid, a fake, a pretentious gasbag with little to say but a huge gift for self-promotion, he's as American as Don Draper. However, Don Draper is fictional and talented; and neither adjective, sadly, applies to Ellis.
I agree that the great American novel is a movie. That movie, of course, is Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:27 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
I agree that the great American novel is a movie. That movie, of course, is Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:27 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
Gatsby and Invisible Man are still worth reading because the writing is totes beautiful and the imagery striking, but a lot of the others are only interesting for their influence.
Have you re-read Gatsby recently? I read it again at the height of the pandemic and was struck by how damn contemporary it felt. Like, sure, we think of it as tied to the roaring twenties, stuck in time—but you could do an contemporary adaptation and literally the only thing you’d have to change is setting it in the Hamptons instead of East Egg.
posted by thecaddy at 3:36 PM on March 16 [11 favorites]
Have you re-read Gatsby recently? I read it again at the height of the pandemic and was struck by how damn contemporary it felt. Like, sure, we think of it as tied to the roaring twenties, stuck in time—but you could do an contemporary adaptation and literally the only thing you’d have to change is setting it in the Hamptons instead of East Egg.
posted by thecaddy at 3:36 PM on March 16 [11 favorites]
(And I’m gonna dig up my copy of Invisible Man now too. At the very least I want to re-read it before jumping into the new Percival Everett.)
posted by thecaddy at 3:38 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
posted by thecaddy at 3:38 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
Have you re-read Gatsby recently? I read it again at the height of the pandemic and was struck by how damn contemporary it felt.
Greil Marcus' "Under The Red White and Blue: Patriotism, Disenchantment, and the Stubborn Myth of the Great Gatsby" is worth a read:
For instance, the racist rants of Daisy’s husband, Tom Buchanan. “Civilization’s going to pieces,” Tom says in, as Marcus points out, the first spoken passage in the book besides those of the narrator, Nick Carraway. Tom is obsessed with the racist tome The Rise of the Colored Empires: “The idea is that if we don’t look out, the white race will be – will be – utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
“In 1925,” writes Marcus, “Fitzgerald couldn’t know that in less than fifteen years Tom Buchanan’s white genocide theories would rule Europe and send millions to extermination.” Or that almost a hundred years later a president and his senior advisor would be so closely aligned with those theories.
In one of those passages in which Marcus makes you feel as if you came up with the idea the moment he wrote it, he quotes George Will who, watching the Trump inauguration, called him “a Gatsby for our time.” Marcus disagrees. No,” he says, “Adulterer or president, Trump was always Tom.” Tom, like Trump, was one of the angry rich, raised with a bedrock belief in his entitlement and privilege; Obama, in contrast, “seemed like his own creation. That was the source of his aura, the sense of self command that drew people to him …”
(above from The National Book Review, here).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 4:50 PM on March 16 [12 favorites]
Greil Marcus' "Under The Red White and Blue: Patriotism, Disenchantment, and the Stubborn Myth of the Great Gatsby" is worth a read:
For instance, the racist rants of Daisy’s husband, Tom Buchanan. “Civilization’s going to pieces,” Tom says in, as Marcus points out, the first spoken passage in the book besides those of the narrator, Nick Carraway. Tom is obsessed with the racist tome The Rise of the Colored Empires: “The idea is that if we don’t look out, the white race will be – will be – utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
“In 1925,” writes Marcus, “Fitzgerald couldn’t know that in less than fifteen years Tom Buchanan’s white genocide theories would rule Europe and send millions to extermination.” Or that almost a hundred years later a president and his senior advisor would be so closely aligned with those theories.
In one of those passages in which Marcus makes you feel as if you came up with the idea the moment he wrote it, he quotes George Will who, watching the Trump inauguration, called him “a Gatsby for our time.” Marcus disagrees. No,” he says, “Adulterer or president, Trump was always Tom.” Tom, like Trump, was one of the angry rich, raised with a bedrock belief in his entitlement and privilege; Obama, in contrast, “seemed like his own creation. That was the source of his aura, the sense of self command that drew people to him …”
(above from The National Book Review, here).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 4:50 PM on March 16 [12 favorites]
Thanks for that, Pseudonymous Cognomen. I've always loved Gatsby, even though I don't care for a lot of the other things that tend to get lumped with it, and I think that analysis helps get at why.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:08 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 5:08 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
I don’t doubt I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but I’m glad to see On The Road there. There’s a lot to recommend it as, if not the best form of the American novel, at least the most American. The whole concept of escape, of exploration, of searching (especially the mythical west) for some idealized form of pure perfect experience that’s never there, that, by the time they got there, was long since gone, exploited, or never as good as it could have been is part and parcel of American culture. It’s a full length novel about yearning to play in the greener grass on the other side of the fence, and finding out the grass is the same sickly dull shade over there. It’s throwing everything away, again and again, no matter how many times you’ve been burned, to follow some madman selling promises of paradise, until finally you see how obviously a fraud the madman is, but still keep following along.
That the giant moment of catharsis only comes when they leave America, and end up in a brothel in Mexico, where the lead character reaches his version of heaven by realizing they can turn the stereo up as loud as they want, is its own little slice of throwing off the shackles of guilt and societal mores in the most meaningful, but utterly impactless moment of revelation, swiftly followed by the main character once again being abandoned by his messiah.
I mean, there’s a lot of America, a lot of stories, and cultures, and faiths, but On the Road is an incredibly perfect expression of one of them, and will always be one of the great American novels to me for that, warts and flaws and all.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:37 PM on March 16 [6 favorites]
That the giant moment of catharsis only comes when they leave America, and end up in a brothel in Mexico, where the lead character reaches his version of heaven by realizing they can turn the stereo up as loud as they want, is its own little slice of throwing off the shackles of guilt and societal mores in the most meaningful, but utterly impactless moment of revelation, swiftly followed by the main character once again being abandoned by his messiah.
I mean, there’s a lot of America, a lot of stories, and cultures, and faiths, but On the Road is an incredibly perfect expression of one of them, and will always be one of the great American novels to me for that, warts and flaws and all.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:37 PM on March 16 [6 favorites]
American Psycho? NO no no no no. The Fifth Season? I read it. I don't understand, to be honest, why it has the reputation it does.
I will now cease yelling at the passing clouds, and step aside for the next person.
posted by jokeefe at 5:53 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
I will now cease yelling at the passing clouds, and step aside for the next person.
posted by jokeefe at 5:53 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
Given that children’s books are included, where in the world are Mildred Taylor and Yoshiko Uchida? Where is Beverly Cleary? In general this is a better list than many, but those omissions stand out to me.
posted by epj at 6:46 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
posted by epj at 6:46 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
this looks like my third year English major / creative writing bookshelf collection
also interesting that the only Didion novel they chose was soon after she stopped being a regular columnist for The National Review. the book is a social critique of 'modern' NY+LA culture where the main character's choice to have an abortion eventually leads to a psychotic break
why not include this version of Didion unthinkingly on the list, it's on everyone's best-of list isn't it?
posted by paimapi at 8:08 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
also interesting that the only Didion novel they chose was soon after she stopped being a regular columnist for The National Review. the book is a social critique of 'modern' NY+LA culture where the main character's choice to have an abortion eventually leads to a psychotic break
why not include this version of Didion unthinkingly on the list, it's on everyone's best-of list isn't it?
posted by paimapi at 8:08 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]
The Fifth Season? I read it. I don't understand, to be honest, why it has the reputation it does.
because it's a fucking amazing series that engages with systemic oppression and trauma but does it with a kind of gentleness that everyone secretly wished for when reading Octavia Butler, whose works are brilliant but so incredibly emotionally exhausting? because NK Jemisin knows how to write and render a scene with clarity and conviction? because all the characters are so deeply complex, have multiple, sometimes conflicting desires and beliefs like real people do, a truly rare kind of character rendering inside of a genre notorious for single-minded characters? because it's plotted out so well and is based on a fascinating world and concept? because it discusses colorism in a bold, revealing way to those of us who aren't steeped in it on the daily? because it's one of the most realistic depictions of experiencing, confronting, living with, and surviving trauma that I've read and it spoke to me as someone who survived decades of physical and emotional abuse?
we definitely read very different books
posted by paimapi at 8:16 PM on March 16 [11 favorites]
because it's a fucking amazing series that engages with systemic oppression and trauma but does it with a kind of gentleness that everyone secretly wished for when reading Octavia Butler, whose works are brilliant but so incredibly emotionally exhausting? because NK Jemisin knows how to write and render a scene with clarity and conviction? because all the characters are so deeply complex, have multiple, sometimes conflicting desires and beliefs like real people do, a truly rare kind of character rendering inside of a genre notorious for single-minded characters? because it's plotted out so well and is based on a fascinating world and concept? because it discusses colorism in a bold, revealing way to those of us who aren't steeped in it on the daily? because it's one of the most realistic depictions of experiencing, confronting, living with, and surviving trauma that I've read and it spoke to me as someone who survived decades of physical and emotional abuse?
we definitely read very different books
posted by paimapi at 8:16 PM on March 16 [11 favorites]
I understand their desire to limit the books to the last century, but they left out of lot of books that really defined, and continue to define, American culture. Just off the top of my head, and some really obvious examples that might not be the best: Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter revolves around a hypocritical Puritanism that has never gone away here. Twain described the ideal American boyhood and confronted race in ways that are still with us. Sinclair’s The Jungle describes corporate maleficence and the exploitation of immigrants; also still relevant in today’s America. Perhaps they could do a separate list of pre-1920s novels to complement this one.
posted by TedW at 6:37 AM on March 17 [5 favorites]
posted by TedW at 6:37 AM on March 17 [5 favorites]
Yesterday, I'd been about to go to the library when I read this, so I picked up some books from it.
Death Comes for the Archbishop was a total surprise because I had been made to read Cather's A Lost Lady when I was in school, way too young to understand her. I thought it would be another mannerly, small story when it's an enormous tale of faith and racism and brutality and the Southwest. I couldn't put it down, and I went right through it.
I'd forgotten I already read A Contract with God because I forgot the title story, but it immediately came to mind when I kept reading, and the others are unforgettable. Full of that midcentury male misogyny, though, bordering on apology for pedophilia. Why did they resent their poor mothers and wives so much? Even so I'd recommend it because the linework is so alive and the rendering is extremely true, even where the female characters are despicable. So are the men, to be sure; no one is good in the tenement unless they are a victim or loser of some kind. I understand there are sequels which are better, so I'm going to look those up.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:07 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Death Comes for the Archbishop was a total surprise because I had been made to read Cather's A Lost Lady when I was in school, way too young to understand her. I thought it would be another mannerly, small story when it's an enormous tale of faith and racism and brutality and the Southwest. I couldn't put it down, and I went right through it.
I'd forgotten I already read A Contract with God because I forgot the title story, but it immediately came to mind when I kept reading, and the others are unforgettable. Full of that midcentury male misogyny, though, bordering on apology for pedophilia. Why did they resent their poor mothers and wives so much? Even so I'd recommend it because the linework is so alive and the rendering is extremely true, even where the female characters are despicable. So are the men, to be sure; no one is good in the tenement unless they are a victim or loser of some kind. I understand there are sequels which are better, so I'm going to look those up.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:07 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
paimapi, The Fifth Season clearly spoke to you. That's cool. All of the books on that list (at least the ones I know of, whether I read them or not) spoke to someone deeply at some point. That is not the same thing as why the book has the reputation it does!
Lots of people upthread are dogging on American Psycho, for instance, because they dislike Ellis, but American Psycho was and remains influential as a satire of capitalism and serial killer biz all at the same time, as well as being a persistently popular cult novel. They are conflating "I don't like American Psycho" or "I don't like Bret Easton Ellis" with "American Psycho is not influential," which is a real mistake. Also add in there that transgressive fiction doesn't have the same cache today that it once did, and artists who do transgressive shit are often more likely to be pilloried as Problematic Artists than lionized as risk-takers, sometimes for very good reasons. The book was and remains important, though, if not (I don't know) necessarily beloved these days.
(The idea that we can anoint novels published in the last year or two as Great American Novels is very silly, of course, and many of the choices are on there for fundamentally political reasons. No one is going to be reading them in ten years, let alone fifty. Difficult, unlikeable books that are not even loved by the people who champion them.)
jokeefe, I am personally interested in pivotal SFF novels, but that aside, The Fifth Season belongs on this list for many reasons:
* It resonates with many readers. See above, but also try Googling "i loved the fifth season".
* It resonates with many science fiction and fantasy readers of color, many of whom had the experience of the field for decades that it was mostly white authors writing about white concerns. Jemisin is one of a number of authors who shifted the way thousands of readers, writers, and publishing professionals think.
* It won or was nominated for the major genre awards, meaning it resonated with both readers and critics/tastemakers.
* It has been heavily influential in the field.
* Nearly ten years on from publication, it is of serious interest to scholars in multiple disciplines. Most books appear, maybe get some attention, and then fade from popular, academic, etc. interest. Not so, here.
* Jemisin is influential and very well regarded, receiving a MacArther "genius" grant. Jemisin also got a significant deal to adapt the Broken Earth trilogy for the screen, so we're going to be seeing a lot more of it. She was also included in one of those "100 most influential people in the world" lists by Time Magazine.
In short, The Fifth Season has the reputation that it does because it is a successful work of art, having succeeded in most all of the major ways that a work of literature can succeed in the 21st century, and its author has a significant reputation, in her field and beyond.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:12 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
Lots of people upthread are dogging on American Psycho, for instance, because they dislike Ellis, but American Psycho was and remains influential as a satire of capitalism and serial killer biz all at the same time, as well as being a persistently popular cult novel. They are conflating "I don't like American Psycho" or "I don't like Bret Easton Ellis" with "American Psycho is not influential," which is a real mistake. Also add in there that transgressive fiction doesn't have the same cache today that it once did, and artists who do transgressive shit are often more likely to be pilloried as Problematic Artists than lionized as risk-takers, sometimes for very good reasons. The book was and remains important, though, if not (I don't know) necessarily beloved these days.
(The idea that we can anoint novels published in the last year or two as Great American Novels is very silly, of course, and many of the choices are on there for fundamentally political reasons. No one is going to be reading them in ten years, let alone fifty. Difficult, unlikeable books that are not even loved by the people who champion them.)
jokeefe, I am personally interested in pivotal SFF novels, but that aside, The Fifth Season belongs on this list for many reasons:
* It resonates with many readers. See above, but also try Googling "i loved the fifth season".
* It resonates with many science fiction and fantasy readers of color, many of whom had the experience of the field for decades that it was mostly white authors writing about white concerns. Jemisin is one of a number of authors who shifted the way thousands of readers, writers, and publishing professionals think.
* It won or was nominated for the major genre awards, meaning it resonated with both readers and critics/tastemakers.
* It has been heavily influential in the field.
* Nearly ten years on from publication, it is of serious interest to scholars in multiple disciplines. Most books appear, maybe get some attention, and then fade from popular, academic, etc. interest. Not so, here.
* Jemisin is influential and very well regarded, receiving a MacArther "genius" grant. Jemisin also got a significant deal to adapt the Broken Earth trilogy for the screen, so we're going to be seeing a lot more of it. She was also included in one of those "100 most influential people in the world" lists by Time Magazine.
In short, The Fifth Season has the reputation that it does because it is a successful work of art, having succeeded in most all of the major ways that a work of literature can succeed in the 21st century, and its author has a significant reputation, in her field and beyond.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:12 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
The problem with American Psycho is that we collectively tried to suppress it, belittle it and sideline it instead of engaging with it and understanding it. And as a result, we got to live it. The repressed always returns.
posted by chavenet at 7:57 AM on March 17 [3 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 7:57 AM on March 17 [3 favorites]
Especially when aided and abetted by the catchy, can't-miss hooks of Huey Lewis!
posted by cupcakeninja at 8:02 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 8:02 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
I'll drop it after this, but I don't like Bret Easton Ellis OR American Psycho, lol. I think its "observations" about capitalist American culture, misogyny, racism, etc., are trite and disingenuous. This book is basically patient zero for "satire" that is really just a pampered white dude who wants to say offensive things and get away with it, and while I suppose that was influential, so was the first guy to shit in a brown paper bag, set it on fire, and leave it on somebody's front porch on Halloween.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:03 AM on March 17 [7 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:03 AM on March 17 [7 favorites]
I will say that I enjoyed Less than Zero when I was in high school, though. Short, punchy, to the point, it was kind of like a young adult novel for precocious, nihilistic teens.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:27 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:27 AM on March 17 [2 favorites]
I tend to think of American Psycho the book as being merely pig iron that Mary Harron made a very sharp and useful knife out of. The only BEE book that I've actually liked was The Rules of Attraction.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:09 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:09 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
All of the books on that list (at least the ones I know of, whether I read them or not) spoke to someone deeply at some point. That is not the same thing as why the book has the reputation it does!
so I didn't really talk about this because I assumed it was a well-understood assumption about any best-of list published by a household brand like The Atlantic but every list like this, as 'objective' as its criteria may be, is forcefully and irrevocably biased by gatekeepers and institutions of power
Ellis, I think, is probably hated for this moreso than many other authors because he so completely is a rich prep school kid whose work likely wouldn't have risen to the status that it has if he wasn't in proximity to power. the same goes for so many of the stodgier 'canonical' books - wealthy parents, guaranteed places in academia and fraternal privilege, internships and entry-level work at powerful corporations right out of graduation, a 'say yes' attitude from publishers and small journos, and so on
Jemisin, Butler, and a minority of other authors on this list are only on this list because of the multi-dimensional quality of their work. the craft? beautiful for those trained to recognize it. the thematic content? revolutionary, pointing us in a direction of a better, more humane world. like in the real world, BIPOC work twice as hard for half the credit - a work like theirs has to be both readable, groundbreaking, and possessing literary chops just to exist on the same platform as American Psycho (as if Babbitt hadn't already rendered, much more subtly, the emptiness of corpo-American life a groundbreaking sixty years prior)
on a list where an obvious cadre of Phillip Roth stans (the most annoying of all the Creative Writing/English major types in any academic setting, like why do you feel the need to monologue in every single fucking class discussion with the most banal takes) held sway, this evidence of sun-damaged, leathered heuristics makes it just such a boring list - one that serves less as a guide for actual revolutionary work and more as a signifier of the Gormenghastian politicking and tastes of The Atlantic, its resistance to change, it's milquetoast acceptance that sure, we can have some BIPOC on here like instead of Pearl S Buckley's The Pearl you can have... Maxine Hong Kingston or Amy Tan or Jhumpa Lahiri or Sandra Cisneros or one of the other handful of BIPOC that white academia decided were acceptable to read two decades ago
posted by paimapi at 9:11 AM on March 17 [6 favorites]
so I didn't really talk about this because I assumed it was a well-understood assumption about any best-of list published by a household brand like The Atlantic but every list like this, as 'objective' as its criteria may be, is forcefully and irrevocably biased by gatekeepers and institutions of power
Ellis, I think, is probably hated for this moreso than many other authors because he so completely is a rich prep school kid whose work likely wouldn't have risen to the status that it has if he wasn't in proximity to power. the same goes for so many of the stodgier 'canonical' books - wealthy parents, guaranteed places in academia and fraternal privilege, internships and entry-level work at powerful corporations right out of graduation, a 'say yes' attitude from publishers and small journos, and so on
Jemisin, Butler, and a minority of other authors on this list are only on this list because of the multi-dimensional quality of their work. the craft? beautiful for those trained to recognize it. the thematic content? revolutionary, pointing us in a direction of a better, more humane world. like in the real world, BIPOC work twice as hard for half the credit - a work like theirs has to be both readable, groundbreaking, and possessing literary chops just to exist on the same platform as American Psycho (as if Babbitt hadn't already rendered, much more subtly, the emptiness of corpo-American life a groundbreaking sixty years prior)
on a list where an obvious cadre of Phillip Roth stans (the most annoying of all the Creative Writing/English major types in any academic setting, like why do you feel the need to monologue in every single fucking class discussion with the most banal takes) held sway, this evidence of sun-damaged, leathered heuristics makes it just such a boring list - one that serves less as a guide for actual revolutionary work and more as a signifier of the Gormenghastian politicking and tastes of The Atlantic, its resistance to change, it's milquetoast acceptance that sure, we can have some BIPOC on here like instead of Pearl S Buckley's The Pearl you can have... Maxine Hong Kingston or Amy Tan or Jhumpa Lahiri or Sandra Cisneros or one of the other handful of BIPOC that white academia decided were acceptable to read two decades ago
posted by paimapi at 9:11 AM on March 17 [6 favorites]
Yes, context and gatekeeping are huge! Long before and after a book gets to the shelf. Your comment was framed (as I read it) in terms of your response to the work, so that was what I addressed.
I assumed it was a well-understood assumption
To each their own, but I don't assume a given user knows any of what you just wrote. I love MetaFilter for its diversity of knowledge and experience, and that most definitely includes the fact that there are people here who participate in discussions like this with opinions based on everything from reading one book a year to attaining doctorates in literary studies to reading very regularly and without any real awareness of literary culture.
posted by cupcakeninja at 9:40 AM on March 17 [1 favorite]
I assumed it was a well-understood assumption
To each their own, but I don't assume a given user knows any of what you just wrote. I love MetaFilter for its diversity of knowledge and experience, and that most definitely includes the fact that there are people here who participate in discussions like this with opinions based on everything from reading one book a year to attaining doctorates in literary studies to reading very regularly and without any real awareness of literary culture.
posted by cupcakeninja at 9:40 AM on March 17 [1 favorite]
Probably the greatest pleasure of threads like this for me is impassioned — and in this case pretty convincing! — defenses of books I actively dislike, such as Ghidorah's apologia for On the Road. I’m going to have to take another look at that one as well as Kerouac in general.
posted by jamjam at 10:39 AM on March 17 [5 favorites]
posted by jamjam at 10:39 AM on March 17 [5 favorites]
I understand their desire to limit the books to the last century, but they left out of lot of books that really defined, and continue to define, American culture. Just off the top of my head, and some really obvious examples that might not be the best: Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter revolves around a hypocritical Puritanism that has never gone away here.
That is an excellent point, TedW!
I continue to think of The Scarlet Letter as a great novel that will never not be relevant to US culture.
Most recently, just thinking back on the book without rereading it (probably not the wisest course considering the kind of implication I’m about to draw), it finally dawned on me that Hawthorne, without saying so explicitly, expected at least some of his readers to grasp that Roger Chillingworth, Hester Prynne's ghoulish and rather demonic husband, is actually an abortionist as well as a doctor and an "alchemist".
posted by jamjam at 11:16 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
That is an excellent point, TedW!
I continue to think of The Scarlet Letter as a great novel that will never not be relevant to US culture.
Most recently, just thinking back on the book without rereading it (probably not the wisest course considering the kind of implication I’m about to draw), it finally dawned on me that Hawthorne, without saying so explicitly, expected at least some of his readers to grasp that Roger Chillingworth, Hester Prynne's ghoulish and rather demonic husband, is actually an abortionist as well as a doctor and an "alchemist".
posted by jamjam at 11:16 AM on March 17 [4 favorites]
The Adventures of Augie March made it on the list. I listen to the audiobook often, and the author's use of language and his way of condensing psychological insight into a single sentence blows my mind.
posted by storybored at 2:33 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
posted by storybored at 2:33 PM on March 17 [1 favorite]
NK Jemisin knows how to write and render a scene with clarity and conviction? because all the characters are so deeply complex, have multiple, sometimes conflicting desires and beliefs like real people do, a truly rare kind of character rendering inside of a genre notorious for single-minded characters? because it's plotted out so well and is based on a fascinating world and concept? because it discusses colorism in a bold, revealing way to those of us who aren't steeped in it on the daily? because it's one of the most realistic depictions of experiencing, confronting, living with, and surviving trauma that I've read and it spoke to me as someone who survived decades of physical and emotional abuse?
we definitely read very different books
Dear paimapi:
Can I say how much I loved your use of "Gormenghastian" just above? In all seriousness, awesome, and catches something about the Atlantic that I already knew but had not articulated yet, not nearly so beautifully.
I appreciate what you are saying about The Fifth Season and its sequels. I did read them all, the entire series. I would never deny the importance of any work that spoke helpfully to anyone's experience of abuse or oppression; there's lots of room for different readings of books, and your feelings about those novels are far more widely shared than mine. Jemisin is a MacArthur Genius, after all, so I don't think my take on her work matters all that much. I still read a book where people turn into sentient rocks (for what reason?) and I found the casual destruction of the entire world at the beginning (by one of the main characters!) of the Fifth Season to be offputting. I don't like books where women are forced to kill their babies in order to save them, either, as it is emotionally painful for me, or books where the solved mystery of the earlier civilization isn't all that consequential. The Fifth Season, et al, were all those things--for me. In my single, quiet-ish opinion. This comment is very late in the thread, so you may or may not see it, but I felt I had to respond to it anyway, because it isn't that I don't care about oppression or power: I am older now, and my time for reading is necessarily limited, and I could have been reading something else. So it goes.
posted by jokeefe at 2:48 PM on April 14
we definitely read very different books
Dear paimapi:
Can I say how much I loved your use of "Gormenghastian" just above? In all seriousness, awesome, and catches something about the Atlantic that I already knew but had not articulated yet, not nearly so beautifully.
I appreciate what you are saying about The Fifth Season and its sequels. I did read them all, the entire series. I would never deny the importance of any work that spoke helpfully to anyone's experience of abuse or oppression; there's lots of room for different readings of books, and your feelings about those novels are far more widely shared than mine. Jemisin is a MacArthur Genius, after all, so I don't think my take on her work matters all that much. I still read a book where people turn into sentient rocks (for what reason?) and I found the casual destruction of the entire world at the beginning (by one of the main characters!) of the Fifth Season to be offputting. I don't like books where women are forced to kill their babies in order to save them, either, as it is emotionally painful for me, or books where the solved mystery of the earlier civilization isn't all that consequential. The Fifth Season, et al, were all those things--for me. In my single, quiet-ish opinion. This comment is very late in the thread, so you may or may not see it, but I felt I had to respond to it anyway, because it isn't that I don't care about oppression or power: I am older now, and my time for reading is necessarily limited, and I could have been reading something else. So it goes.
posted by jokeefe at 2:48 PM on April 14
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