Trying to put together a short list of 5-7 books that most comprehensively capture the character of America. All I have are Moby Dick and JR by Gaddis.I think this is a retarded exercise but my ocd wont allow me to not do it. What would /lit/ add or remove?
A Confederacy of DuncesJ RDog of the South Fear and Loathing in Las VegasAmerican Psycho Flight ClubThe Confidence Man
The Great GatsbyDeath of a SalesmanBlood MeridianA Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's CourtI'd also add Brave New World and Notes from Underground. Neither one was written by an American but they both feel quintessentially American to me.
>>24983220The Talmud
Moby DickLeaves of GrassMuir, Emerson, Twain. DickGreat Gatsby Invisible ManConfederacy of Dunces
>>24983220Well, you have the pre-counterculture america and the post-counterculture america. If you're asking for the latter:>The Closing of the American Mind>Infinite Jest>JR>The Culture of Narcissism>America by Baudrillard>Underworld>The Corrections
>>24983220Tom Sawyer and The Catcher In The Rye are emblematic of a distinctly American mentality and mode of life.
>>24983312And if you want pre-counterculture:>Leaves of Grass>Moby-Dick>Gone with the Wind>Emerson's Essays>The USA Trilogy>Grapes of Wrath>John Cheever's Stories
There's nothing particularly American about Moby-Dick
>>24983220Moby Dick is the rootless cosmopolitan's idea of the character of America. That's why it was unpopular when it was first published and didn't became a "Great American Novel" until the 20th century after modernism had taken root.
>>24983318HAAAA HAHAHAHAHARead it again.
>>24983220Gore Vidal's United States, particularly the sections State of the Union and State of Being
>>24983220>The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper>Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne>Emerson's Essays>Blood Meridian, McCarthy>Gone With The Wind, Mitchell>Shelby Foote's Civil War history>Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald>Hell, I Was There!, Elmer Keith>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Thompson>Robert Service's Cold War history>American Psycho, Ellis
>>24983220only literature you need nowadays is the mcdonalds menumaybe 50 years ago there was an american spirit that was worth expressing in literature.americans I met around the world are embarassing
These were all staples when I was in school>The Great Gatsby (dreams/class), The Grapes of Wrath (hardship/resilience), Huckleberry Finn (race/freedom), Invisible Man (identity), To Kill a Mockingbird (justice/prejudice)
>>24983220there's already a chart made
>>24983416here's another
Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1854) Thoreau speaks to themes that run right to the heart of American life: the longing for independence, the identity with the natural landscape, the skepticism toward government and formal social institutions.
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855). The 1855 edition was the first of many published during and after Whitman’s lifetime. In the introduction to one edition he wrote: “I claim that in literature, I have judged and felt every thing from an American point of view which is no local standard, for America to me, includes humanity and is the universal. America (I have said to myself) demands one Song, at any rate, that is bold, modern, and all-surrounding as she is herself.”
>>24983409To Kill a Mockingbird is boring as all get out, replace it with Twelve Angry Men.
>>24983220Uncle Tom’s CabinChild of GodThe Sound and the FuryLolitaThe JungleEast of Eden
>>24983416>japanese novel>burgerpunk
>>24983492Yeah. The burgerpunk (capitalist commercialization) is ubiquitous. Much like cyberpunk wrapped around the world
The Talmud
