Is The Great Gatsby the Great American Novel?

[David Morris]

A faulty list doesn't include Faulkner.  And I don't think All the King's
Men fits this league.

On Saturday, May 4, 2013, Mark Kohut wrote:

> Great American Novels:
> Moby Dick
> Huck Finn
> The Great Gatsby
> The Scarlet Letter
> The Grapes of Wrath (?)...does anyone ever reread?
> All the King's Men
> Portrait of a Lady
> Invisible Man
> Augie March or Herzog?
> Gravity's Rainbow
> Against the Day
>
> 11 of a top 10 list...(I guess Steinbeck would have to be dropped but that
> feels not just to the Joads.
>
> Argue and creat your own list, Plisters.....
>
>
>
>
>
>   *From:* alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com <javascript:_e({},
> 'cvml', 'alicewellintown at gmail.com');>>
> *To:* pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
> 'pynchon-l at waste.org');>>
> *Sent:* Saturday, May 4, 2013 7:51 AM
> *Subject:* Re: Is The Great Gatsby the Great American Novel?
>
>  The idea of a "Great American Novel" or "the Great American Novel" is
> useful, even if it serves an argument that no such novel exists or has ever
> existed or can ever exist, that is, a Platonic Ideal or,
> anti-Platonic...anti-Cannonical...etc...argument. To dispense with it is to
> acknowledge that it needs dispensing with and this might follow the common
> approach of tracing its origins to an essay by De Forest, and then
> examining how the Americans, writing in a language that was around long
> before they were, one that is named after their Mother oppressor, and so
> on...so American novel and the Spirit of forming a novel, American voice
> and theme and character and plot and so on, distinct from and equal to, if
> not, as with all other things, greater than the fading Empire's
> productions, past present and future. The novel that holds in its womb and
> loins the Zeitgeist, as surely GG does more than any other great work
> of the period, is yet another way of defining the phrase, and on this and
> on many other counts, one can certainly argue convincingly, given academic
> generosity, that Fitzgerald's little book is a Great American Novel or,
> novella, at least.
>
> It has been argued that GR or M&D are Great American novels, but I would
> have to go with AGTD, were I too argue that P has written one. Though V.
> and GR are, in many respects, more like Moby-Dick, and Confidence Man, two
> candidates for the accolade, AGTD has Twain in the mix, and all manner of
> other things that make it a far better Graet American Novel than GR or M&D.
>
>
> On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 1:56 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'richard.romeo at gmail.com');>
> > wrote:
>
> I thought it was How to Make Love like a Porn Star
>
>
> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/may/01/is-great-gatsby-great-american-novel
> >>
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby#Reception
> >>
> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Novel
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
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