Tracking the ever-elusive Great American Novel

[jbor at bigpond.com]

I took the "assume you never heard from me" comment to mean that that 
"famous novelist" didn't vote for anybody, and so wasn't included on 
the list of those who did. But maybe not.

Note also how they've had to put a correction now on the "judges" page 
because they got Richard Powers mixed up with an author and historian 
named Richard Gid Powers. (Just to show that RP didn't vote for 
himself?)

Yeah, bothering to mention that Vollmann got "none" does stand out. But 
"best-selling"? Could also be Tom Wolfe.

DFW isn't on the judges list (and he could well be the "famous 
novelist" who said to "assume you never heard from me"), though Lethem 
is.

Now that I think about it, the way the whole thing has been set out 
with the "essay" and the list of judges' names reeks of this sort of 
titillation and gossip-mongering. It's still a pretty fine list though.

best

On 23/05/2006:

> "There were those who sighed that they could not possibly select one
> book to place at the summit of an edifice with so many potential
> building blocks - they hadn't read everything, after all - and also
> those who railed against the very idea of such a monument. One famous
> novelist, unwilling to vote for his own books and reluctant to
> consider anyone else's, asked us to "assume you never heard from me.""
>
> This sounds more like Vollmann.  I do believe that one or the other
> was him, especially because of this:
>
> "IS this quantitative evidence for the decline of American letters -
> yet another casualty of the 60's? Or is the American literary
> establishment the last redoubt of elder-worship in a culture mad for
> youth? In sifting through the responses, I was surprised at how few of
> the highly praised, boldly ambitious books by younger writers - by
> which I mean writers under 50 - were mentioned. One vote each for "The
> Corrections" and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," none for
> "Infinite Jest" or "The Fortress of Solitude," a single vote for
> Richard Powers, none for William T. Vollmann, and so on."
>
> Nice little jab at how he got no votes, which I'm not sure would have
> been included had he been cooperative.  I guess Fortress of Solitude
> and Infinite Jest got it, too, but Vollmann is definitely the name
> that stands out in that paragraph, to me at least, as the one who got
> no votes (it was only after a second read that it really registered
> that Lethem and Wallace got 0 as well).  Maybe it's just me.
>