The Great British Novel

[shemthepenman]

i still can’t put my finger on exactly why it’s such a big deal in american litarary culture (and not so much across the rest of the world) to aspire to write such a book. maybe it’s because national socialism’s ghost still lingers across europe like a bad smell, and to wrap a novel in the union jack feels a bit too dangerous. even now. 

We're a young country. That's how identity is formed, through self-reflection. It's a very natural part of growing up.



“The Great American Novel is the concept of a novel that perfectly represents the spirit of the age in the United States at the time of its publication.”

Then Anna Karenina is The Great Russian Novel. It's 800+ pages of "this is what it means to be Russian." And it's brilliant.

yes, the international counterpart of the great american novel is the national epic. every country has at least one. war and peace is also considered a russian national epic. all of shakespeare’s henry plays are british national epics. and so on and so forth.