Is The Great Gatsby the Great American Novel?

[eburns at gmail.com]

Lolita

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: kelber at mindspring.com
Sender: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
Date: Sat, 4 May 2013 11:23:40 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Reply-To: kelber at mindspring.com
Subject: Re: Is The Great Gatsby the Great American Novel?

USA - Dos Passos


LK
-----Original Message----- 
From: David Morris 
Sent: May 4, 2013 11:20 AM 
To: Mark Kohut 
Cc: alice wellintown , pynchon -l 
Subject: Re: Is The Great Gatsby the Great American Novel? 

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 <ZZZjavascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'alicewellintown at gmail.com');> >
 To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org <ZZZjavascript:_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 <ZZZjavascript:_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
 >
>



 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130504/2fc10f5c/attachment.html>