i recently re-read Moby Dick (minus a few paragraphs on whale classifications—in case you haven’t read it, there really is no punchline to that chapter; although, you may want to punch melville for including it) and i suddenly thought to myself, possibly naively, “why is there no Great British Novel?” so, like any scholar worth his salt, i googled it. I found this article. 

it doesn’t answer the question. but, it asks a few: is there a Great British Novel? what is it? do we need one? is the concept of The Great American Novel based on a typically american insecurity british authors don’t experience? is there really no british national identity that could be captured in a novel? alternatively, is the british identity so uniform that every british novel express it? etc.

i literally have neither the time nor patience to answer these questions, myself. but, would like to read some of your thoughts on the matter.

ps. controversially, Marabou Stalk Nightmares is my pick for The Great British Novel.

About the whale classification, I think that was a trend for novelists to fill space, like in highschool we had to write a bunch of different kinds of essays, so why not continue showing off your writing capabilities. Oscar Wilde would spend paragraphs positioning furniture on a room. Notre Dame has a chapter on historical architecture, my favorite example is from 'house of leaves' by Mark danielewski, where an entire chapter about the science behind an echo gave me a chill at the end when the character heard an echo.

(12-10-2017, 12:17 AM)CRNDLSM Wrote:  About the whale classification, I think that was a trend for novelists to fill space, like in highschool we had to write a bunch of different kinds of essays, so why not continue showing off your writing capabilities.  Oscar Wilde would spend paragraphs positioning furniture on a room.  Notre Dame has a chapter on historical architecture,  my favorite example is from 'house of leaves' by Mark danielewski, where an entire chapter about the science behind an echo gave me a chill at the end when the character heard an echo.

true story.

all this focus on the word "great". lots of things in america are great, so maybe that´s why, just a common adjective. i don´t want to be derogatory towards the novel´s authors, only the term great novel, it seems too close to great nation. does it matter how a novel is classified if it captures me?

There was no great American novel, just as the American Dream has never been fulfilled or vaguely articulated. The Russians, the Germans and the French had Tolstoy and Goethe and Balzac and Flaubert. America has never had time for great art. And even Moby-Dick mostly took place at sea. Most American novelists wrote their books in or about Europe during the early 20th century, and afterwards the standards and expectations went back down. England has Dickens, or had him. He might not be so important anymore. I think Invisible Man and Slaughterhouse-Five are the most representative American novels. Of British novels I like Of Human Bondage.

Actually....it has. Repeatedly. Copiously. Behold:

"The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals (democracy, rights, liberty, opportunity and equality) in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, as well as an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.

The American Dream is rooted in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that "all men are created equal" with the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

A national ethos? Or the national ethos?

(12-10-2017, 02:05 AM)rowens Wrote:  America has never had time for great art.

Music (with Jazz and Pop both American inventions), Movies (invented by Americans), Video Games...not to mention two of the greatest poets in the English language. I can't speak for novels, though.

As for Hemingway, Twain, and Fitzgerald all being rubbish?

Take a seat.

Fast-paced art. The art of the man with no time and no history. The man unstuck in time, and invisible.

(12-10-2017, 02:29 AM)rowens Wrote:  Fast-paced art. The art of the man with no time and no history. The man unstuck in time, and invisible.

I'm certain Whitman made his own history, and Dickinson wasn't a man.

Americans have very little sense of subtlty and nuance, or history. Hemingway wanted to write the Great American Novel because there was no such thing. He wrote good novels in Europe then fell away. He wrote great American short stories though. Whitman and Dickinson created their own poetic, which stamps them as individuals not as Americans. All great art, and great dreams, in America are individual not national. America has never had a Tolstoy or a Goethe or even a Celine. Nor has the British, which, like America, are several different nationalities.

although i agree with rowens that americans are pretty rubbish when it comes to art (basquiat and pollock and t.s. eliot being notable exceptions)* i can’t see how there is no such thing as The Great American Novel. it’s a bit like saying there’s no such thing as a romance novel. i suppose a single definitive “Great American Novel” cannot possibly exist outside abstraction, given the criteria for writing one includes that it be time period specific; but attempts have most certainly been made, and quite a few books have been nominated. Moby Dick being one of them.
so, and as you yanks will insist on making this all about you—that may very well go some way to answering the following questions—why does this concept exist for american and not british novelists? why do american writers hanker after writing The Great American Novel, at all? why don’t british writers or australian writers or french writers or german writers (serious german writers) or russian writers harbor similar desires?
but this is by the by, because i’m assuming, regardless of aspirations and consciously demarcated goals, there surely are novels equivalent to The Great American Novel, for all of those other places. i just wondered what they were. if there were such an appellation, what would be The Great British Novel? Brighton Rock? Trainspotting? Pride and Prejudice? something more contemporary that i’ve never heard of?


*i know this isn’t exactly what you said, Rowens, but it’s what i chose to hear.

When a young person tells you they want to be a writer, you say, You might write THE Great American Novel. You don't say, You might write the NEXT Great American Novel. The Great American Novel is a mythical, ever elusive ideal. It came out of the struggle of Americans to overcome their European literary traditions. Hemingway fighting Turgenev and then taking on Tolstoy. The Americas and the British don't have and don't need THE great novel. And you'd be hard-pressed to find a Russian or a German one today either.

Quote:why don’t british writers or australian writers or french writers or german writers (serious german writers) or russian writers harbor similar desires?

Ego. The cult of the individual. The desperate need to be thought of as the best. I don't think any of us have that, as nations -- the British were the best at one point, arguably, but have long since abandoned that concept of supremacy. Additionally, pinning a national identity upon a single static point in history is backwards-looking -- do American writers truly want to write the Great American Novel, or do they merely want to have written it?

(12-10-2017, 07:48 AM)shemthepenman Wrote:  if there were such an appellation, what would be The Great British Novel? Brighton Rock? Trainspotting? Pride and Prejudice? something more contemporary that i’ve never heard of?

Peter Pan

(12-10-2017, 08:14 AM)Leanne Wrote:  

Quote:why don’t british writers or australian writers or french writers or german writers (serious german writers) or russian writers harbor similar desires?

Ego.  The cult of the individual.  The desperate need to be thought of as the best.  I don't think any of us have that, as nations -- the British were the best at one point, arguably, but have long since abandoned that concept of supremacy.  Additionally, pinning a national identity upon a single static point in history is backwards-looking -- do American writers truly want to write the Great American Novel, or do they merely want to have written it?

i agree, americans do seem to have a vulgar inferiority complex sublimated in grand hyperbolic gestures. i would, however, argue that british people haven’t abandoned the idea of supremacy, at all. in fact, on the contrary, our arrogance, unlike the american’s, is simply so ingrained after centuries of dominance that our supremacy is not even subconsciously questioned. this actually might explain why there is no such idea as The Great British Novel.

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(12-10-2017, 08:16 AM)Leanne Wrote:  

(12-10-2017, 07:48 AM)shemthepenman Wrote:  if there were such an appellation, what would be The Great British Novel? Brighton Rock? Trainspotting? Pride and Prejudice? something more contemporary that i’ve never heard of?

Peter Pan

never read it. 

what novel would you say expresses what it means to be quintessentially australian?

There is no quintessential Australian. The bushman image of the 1800s is still lauded, but never truly existed except as a tool of Federation to distance us from the "lordly" English, much like the cowboy image that distracted the US from their nation's cowardly, predatory behaviour in both world wars.

To my mind, the most Australian character ever was written by Andrew McGahan in his novel Praise (1992):

"It was three days after my twenty-third birthday. I'd just quit work at the drive-through bottle shop of the Capital Hotel. I'd been there three years, working twenty hours a week at serving the cars and stacking beer in the fridges. I had no fondness for serving cars or stacking beer, but even so it took an ugly dispute between the staff and the management to get me out. They didn't sack me, but they sacked everyone else, people who'd been there for years longer than me. I showed up for the evening shift and my name was the only one left on the roster. They wanted me to work the next four days straight, twelve hours a day, until they made up the numbers. I'd never worked four days straight in my life. If I'd been a man of strength I would've walked out there and then, left the customers waiting, the manager screaming. I wasn't a man of strength. I waited until the end of the shift. I closed up the shop. Then I resigned. Quietly. The manager asked me why. He asked me if it was something personal. There wasn't much I could say. I was tired. I felt it was time to wind that part of my life down. Work wasn't the answer to anything."

(12-10-2017, 07:48 AM)shemthepenman Wrote:   t.s. eliot

He was British. He forsook us and became one of yours.

Or was that the point? That one of our so called good artists was actually yours?

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(12-10-2017, 07:48 AM)shemthepenman Wrote:  why do american writers hanker after writing The Great American Novel, at all? Why aspire for greatness? Is that a real question?

why don’t british writers or australian writers or french writers or german writers (serious german writers) or russian writers harbor similar desires? Don't they? You can't seriously know what's in everyone's mind.... Just because they don't SAY they do doesn't mean they don't.

but this is by the by, because i’m  assuming, regardless of aspirations and consciously demarcated goals, there surely are novels equivalent to The Great American Novel, for all of those other places. Word on the street is that Anna Karenina is the greatest novel ever written, The Brothers Karamazov coming in a close second. Just like the Olympics, the gold always goes to Russia.

Except this year, I guess.

(12-10-2017, 10:18 AM)Lizzie Wrote:  

(12-10-2017, 07:48 AM)shemthepenman Wrote:   t.s. eliot

He was British. He forsook us and became one of yours.

Or was that the point? That one of our so called good artists was actually yours?

yes, that was a joke. and people say americans struggle with irony.

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(12-10-2017, 10:18 AM)Lizzie Wrote:  

(12-10-2017, 07:48 AM)shemthepenman Wrote:   t.s. eliot

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(12-10-2017, 07:48 AM)shemthepenman Wrote:  why do american writers hanker after writing The Great American Novel, at all? Why aspire for greatness? Is that a real question?

why don’t british writers or australian writers or french writers or german writers (serious german writers) or russian writers harbor similar desires? Don't they? You can't seriously know what's in everyone's mind.... Just because they don't SAY they do doesn't mean they don't.

but this is by the by, because i’m  assuming, regardless of aspirations and consciously demarcated goals, there surely are novels equivalent to The Great American Novel, for all of those other places. Word on the street is that Anna Karenina is the greatest novel ever written, The Brothers Karamazov coming in a close second. Just like the Olympics, the gold always goes to Russia.

Except this year, I guess.

yes, i think everyone is getting hung up on the “the great” part when the “american” part is the defining element of the phrase. the great american novel is something like a genre... a bit like “the oscar winning film”. there are loads of great american novels, of course. but The Great American Novel is supposed to express what it means to be american. i was just curious as to why this particularly patriotic genre isn’t something other nations seem to covet; as well as the question, which book novel etc expresses britishness (or whatever other nationalness) the best.

like i said, i think Marabou Stalk Nightmares captures a very particular britishness at a very particular time perfectly and unflinchingly.

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(12-10-2017, 09:42 AM)Leanne Wrote:  There is no quintessential Australian.  The bushman image of the 1800s is still lauded, but never truly existed except as a tool of Federation to distance us from the "lordly" English, much like the cowboy image that distracted the US from their nation's cowardly, predatory behaviour in both world wars.  

To my mind, the most Australian character ever was written by Andrew McGahan in his novel Praise (1992):

"It was three days after my twenty-third birthday. I'd just quit work at the drive-through bottle shop of the Capital Hotel. I'd been there three years, working twenty hours a week at serving the cars and stacking beer in the fridges. I had no fondness for serving cars or stacking beer, but even so it took an ugly dispute between the staff and the management to get me out. They didn't sack me, but they sacked everyone else, people who'd been there for years longer than me. I showed up for the evening shift and my name was the only one left on the roster. They wanted me to work the next four days straight, twelve hours a day, until they made up the numbers. I'd never worked four days straight in my life. If I'd been a man of strength I would've walked out there and then, left the customers waiting, the manager screaming. I wasn't a man of strength. I waited until the end of the shift. I closed up the shop. Then I resigned. Quietly. The manager asked me why. He asked me if it was something personal. There wasn't much I could say. I was tired. I felt it was time to wind that part of my life down. Work wasn't the answer to anything."

excellent. i haven’t read it. but definitely will. cheers.