I’ll just hop right into this: There is no Great American Novel, and I doubt there ever will be one. I don’t think there will ever be a book that will ever be canonically superior to any work produced before or after it. You can approximate, of course. For my intents and purposes, “The Great Gatsby” has always been my vote for the Great American Novel, if you’re going to insist upon it.
But there is another danger in insisting upon the Great American Novel. To be blunt, the whole notion is archaic. The idea is intrinsically 19th century—the phrase “Great American Novel” originated from an essay by a bloke named John William DeForest.
The essential idea was trying to shore up American literature against European literature. No surprise, of course, considering this was the time of Dickens, Balzac, Tolstoy—the big’uns—and America was still getting a hang of the whole “being a new country” thing. The rationale is that an epic work was required to perfectly encapsulate America.
And let me tell you, encapsulation is a bitch. It’s short-sighted, too. Part of the trouble in trying to write The Great American Novel (or The Great English Novel or The Great Antarctic Novel) is how fleeting the prestige is. Sure, you could write an 897-page novel which totally captures America as it is, but for how long?
A big flaw in this rationale is that if The Great American Novel is/was written, what then? Should you just give up because someone else already succeeded? The funny thing about culture is there are no absolutes; it changes or it dies. Maybe count on 20 years of relevance before being consigned to the reliquary.
Of course, the other point about The Great American Novel is how it’s less a work than a spirit/inspiration. I can count a number of works that have been considered Great American Novels—“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Catcher in the Rye,” “Moby-Dick,” “Gravity’s Rainbow,” “Lolita,” “On The Road”—maybe they don’t capture the scope of American social life, but they live up to certain principles.
You could take one of these novels and argue that—to one extent or another—they live up to the majesty and iridescence of the American Spirit, but remember that encapsulation is really damn hard to pull off (if any piece of literature has ever pulled it off).
You could argue “Catcher in the Rye” encapsulates the American Spirit in its questioning identity/authority. You could argue “Absalom! Absalom!” demonstrates how much the past meshes with the present—how time is a complicated mosaic, and the importance of history. You could argue “Moby-Dick” demonstrates that the American Spirit subsists upon a sense of freedom, autonomy and a preponderance of sperm.
But what does it all mean? What is it all supposed to mean? Is the whole thing meaningless?
Before you ask, I haven’t been dipping into any Camus or Sartre—no existential draught for me (which I imagine tastes like cigarette butts, cheap brandy and a vague sense that you left an oven on somewhere but you can’t do a damn thing about it). Nonetheless, it’s a question I’ve been wresting with for a while.
As a tangible object, the Great American Novel is pretty worthless these days; American culture is, in many ways, world culture these days. As an ideal, it holds more water, but if The Great American Novel is really just about ideas/themes, then any novel can be a Great American Novel.
Culture is indelibly global these days—it’s silly to think of it as a sort of arms race, and trying to write nationalistic literature is a pissing contest. At the heart of The Great American Novel is what it actually means to be American, a question that probably can’t (and shouldn’t) be answered. It’s a point in constant flux. And it can’t be confined to something as simple as one book.
Has the next Great American Novel already been created? Plead your case for “The Great Gatsby” or other classic works to Sean at sreichard@wisc.edu.
