classic american literature

You can thank Huck Finn for making American Literature happen.

 

Twain was brilliant although I don't know if I agree with that statement. I love Twain.

I like Hemingway too.

Richard Wright and Kurt Vonnegut are also faves.

brad cook

 

Don't forget Faulkner! I personally am not a huge fan, but he is considered to be a great American writer.

 

Michael Moore - a modern day Dostoyevsky.

 

And I hope to God you're kidding.

Back to the point --

Try some Virginia Woolfe if you want some "modern" American classic literature. (Be forewarned, it's like slogging through somebody else's bad dreams.)

Vonnegut was a great writer.
Faulkner, not so much, just wrote a lot. In long, long, long, long sentences.
My mother swears there's a book he wrote that has a 7-page sentence in it.

Native Son was a great book, eh Digme?

How about... The Great Gatsby? F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Grapes of Wrath? Steinbeck.

To Kill a Mockingbird?

WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS?!!?!?!?! (2nd grade!)

Take a chance and read some Douglas Adams. Not American, but I wish he was.

 

What!!

British I think!!

Oh and no E on the end...

For great American Literature - read anything by Thomas Pynchon !

 

Yes, it blew my early college mind.

Black Boy and his short stories are great too.

brad cook

 

Yea, Miss Woolf was most definitely British.

 

What about Walt Whitman, the exerpts of Leaves of Grass I read were great. He's not from the same generation of Hemingway though.

I love American literature, it has a certain -wideness- in itself, a reflection of the vastness of the US, that I like a lot, the space that I miss terribly here in Europe.

 

let's see

the great gatsby
walt whitman as vorago mentioned
the other guy who wrote walden
maybe catcher in the rye
don delillo(sp?) with underworld(I think, bit heavyish)
steinbeck
was golding american?
the secret history by donna tart not classic, really good though.
and of course

on the road by jack kerouac, although it's either love or hate really
quite a random list this, but who cares..

do note that hemingway is rather unique, in my opinion you won't find his style of writing anywhere...

 

Cornish

 

whoops

 

It should all be classified as "English Literature" anyway!!

 

nah english literature is way better


j/k

 

I really really hated The Catcher In The Rye. Such a dull book. America has some good playwrights, though, like Tennessee Williams.

By the way, where have my Quick Reply and Quote buttons gone?

 

Right on!

Just like anyone playing Jazz anywhere in the world is playing "American Music".

Love the Great Gatsby...

 

Is English Literature a reference to the language of the literature or the place it is created?

I like:

Moby Dick
Grapes of Wrath
Brave New World

 

Bleh.

Seriously, F*** Hemingway.

Faulkner was where the stuff was.

 

In UK universities it's a reference to the language not the locale.