The Great American Novel (sometimes abbreviated as GAN) is the term for a canonical novel that generally embodies and examines the essence and character of the United States. The term was coined by John William De Forest in an 1868 essay and later shortened to GAN. De Forest noted that the Great American Novel had most likely not been written yet.
Practically, the term refers to a small number of books that have historically been the nexus of discussion, including Moby-Dick (1851), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), The Great Gatsby (1925), and Gone with the Wind (1936). Exactly what novel or novels warrant the title is without consensus and an assortment have been contended as the idea has evolved and continued into the modern age, with fluctuations in popular and critical regard. William Carlos Williams, Clyde Brion Davis and Philip Roth have written novels about the Great American Novel—titled as such—Roth's in the 1970s, a time of prosperity for the concept.
Equivalents to and interpretations of the Great American Novel have arisen. Writers and academics have commented upon the term's pragmatics, the different types of novels befitting of title and the idea's relation to race and gender.
The development of American literature coincided with the nation's development, especially of its identity.[1] Calls for an "autonomous national literature" first appeared during the American Revolution,[2] and, by the mid-18th century, the possibility of American literature exceeding its European counterparts began to take shape, as did that of the Great American Novel, this time being the genesis of novels that would later be considered the Great American Novel.[3][4][5]
The term "Great American Novel" originated in an 1868 essay by American Civil War novelist John William De Forest. De Forest saw it serving as a "tableau" of American society,[6] and said that the novel would "paint the American soul" and capture "the ordinary emotions and manners of American existence".[7] Similarly, Daniel Pierce Thompson said it had to be distinctly American.[8] Although De Forest espoused praise and critique for contemporaneous novels, he ultimately concluded that the Great American Novel had yet to be written.[4][9] The essay's publication coincided with the rising prestige of the novel. Previously, only five percent of American books were marked as novels, with most fictional works given the self-effacing title of a "tale".[10] In 1880, writer Henry James simplified the term with the initialism "GAN".[7]
The term soon became popular, its ubiquity considered a cliché and disparaged by literary critics.[11] Lawerence Buell stated that the concept was seen as a part of a larger national, cultural and political consolidation.[12] According to JSTOR Daily's Grant Shreve, as the concept grew, concrete criteria for the Great American Novel developed:
Additionally, Shreve states, referencing Buell, that "several 'templates' or 'recipes' for the Great American Novel emerged. ... Recipe 1 is to write a novel that is 'subjected to a series of memorable rewritings.' ... Recipe 2 is what Buell calls 'the romance of the divide.' Novels of this kind ... imagine national (and geographic) rifts in the 'form of a family history and/or heterosexual love affair.' ... Recipe 3, a 'narrative centering on the lifeline of a socially paradigmatic figure ... whose odyssey tilts on the one side toward picaresque and on the other toward a saga of personal transformation, or failure of such.'"[4]
From the turn of the century to the mid-twentieth century, the idea eluded serious academic consideration, being dismissed as a "naively amateurish age-of-realism pipe dream" not aligned with the culture of that time.[13][14][3] Writers such as William Dean Howells and Mark Twain were equally blasé. Frank Norris too saw the concept as not befitting the time, stating that the fact of a great work being American should be incidental.[14] Edith Wharton complained that the Great American Novel concept held a narrow view of the nation, simply being concerned with "Main Street".[14] At this time, it also grew to become associated with masculine values.[15]
Despite this critical disregard, many writers, prepped with "templates" and "recipes" for the matter, sought to create the next Great American Novel; Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis both sought to create the Great American Novel with The Jungle (1906) and Babbit (1924), respectively.[16][4] William Carlos Williams and Clyde Brion Davis released satirical explorations both entitled The Great American Novel – Philip Roth would later release a novel of the same name.[14][17][18] Bernard F. Jr. Rogers said that Kurt Vonnegut's "entire career might be characterised as an attempt to produce something like "the GAN", but of its own time".[3] The 1970s saw a general resurgence of the concept, with The New York Times using the phrase the most in their history, a total of 71 times.[19][a] The revival was perhaps the result of social change and related anxieties and the pursuit of a plateau between them.[19]
In the 21st century, retaining its contention and derision, the concept has moved towards a more populist attitude, functioning as "catnip for a listicle-obsessed internet".[4][20][21][b] Adam Kirsch noted that books such as Roth's American Pastoral (1997) indicate that writers are still interested in creating the Great American Novel.[23] Commenting upon the Great American Novel's place in the 21st century, Stephens Shapiro said that "Maybe the GAN is a theme that rises in interest when the existing world system is amidst transformation, as America's greatness of all kinds swiftly fades away."[5] When asked in a 2004 interview if the Great American Novel could be written, Norman Mailer—who had long been interested in the idea[24]—said it could not, for United States had become too developed of a nation.[25] Tony Tulathimutte similarly dismissed it as "a comforting romantic myth, which wrongly assumes that commonality is more significant than individuality".[26]
Multiple commentators have noted the concept's relation to racial and national identity, be it influence from by large-scale immigration, which brought forth authors closely aligned with the Great American Novel or novels detailing marginalized peoples, some furthermore trying to "bridge the racial divide".[20][27][23] Commenting upon the idea's racial aspects and presence in popular conscious, Hugh Kenner wrote in a 1953 issue of Perspective that:
The lad who was going to produce 'The Great American Novel' as soon as he had gotten his mind around his adolescent experience is part of the folklore of the 'twenties, and the prevalence of this myth documents the awareness of the young American of thirty years ago that the consciousness of his race remained uncreated.[14]
Perrin, Andrew Hoberek and Barbara Probst Solomon all noted that the 70s saw Jews pursue the GAN. Perrin said it was a boom decade for, what Hoberek, called the "Jewish GAN". Solomon was by 1972 sick of "nice Jewish sons who are writing the GAN". Aaron Latham, in a 1971 article, highlighted Roth and Mailer as Jews who wanted to the write the next GJN and GAN, respectively.[19]
The Great American Novel's relation to masculinity was seen as a problem by female writers. Gertrude Stein once lamented that, as a lesbian Jewish woman, she would be unable to compose the Great American Novel. Joyce Carol Oates similarly felt that "a woman could write it, but then it wouldn't be the GAN".[15] Viet Thanh Nguyen said that "[o]ne of the unspoken silences of the Great American Novel is the assumption that it can only be written by white men".[28] Laura Miller wrote, in a Salon article, that "The presumption and the belligerence embodied in this ideal have put off many American women writers". She also noted that many characters in Great American Novel candidates are male: "the notion that a female figure might serve the same purpose undermines the very concept of the Great American Novel".[24] Although British analyst Faye Hammill noted that Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, was one of the few that 'doesn't stink'.[29] Emily Temple of Literary Hub suggested that if the protagonist of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1963) were male it would likely be considered more seriously as a Great American Novel contender.[30]
There are several different interpretations of what makes a Great American Novel. Some say that it depicts a diverse group facing issues representative of "epoch-defining public events or crises."[7] John Scalzi felt that for a novel to be the Great American Novel it had to be ubiquitous and notable, and analyze United States through a moral context.[31] De Forest, similarly saw the Great American Novel as having to capture the "essence" of America, its quality irrelevant.[32] Norris considered the musings upon what made a novel "great" and/or "American" to showcase patriotic insecurity.[14] Mohsin Hamid echoed the idea that the GAN is indicative of insecurity, connecting it to a "colonial legacy".[33]
Commentators have said that the concept is exclusively American in nature.[32] Journalist John Walsh offered a national equal in the form of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1869); Buell felt that Australia was the only country to replicate America's search.[20][5][c] Scholes said that the Great American Novel has always been thought of adjacent to European literature.[20] David Vann was of the belief that they had to be "anti-American".[34] Rogers felt that it does not need to have American protagonists or be set in United States and should not espouse patriotism or nationalism.[3]
Buell identifies multiple types of Great American Novels. First is one who is subject to mysticism and stands the test of time.[35] The second is "the romance of the divide", which imagines national rifts in the "form of a family history and/or heterosexual love affair"—race often plays a role.[4][35] The third variety encapsulates the American Dream and see its protagonist rise from obscurity.[19] Fourthly, novels which are composed of a diverse cast of characters "imagined as social microcosms or vanguards" and who are placed with events and crises that serve to "constitute an image of 'democratic' promise or dysfunction". Buell also said speculative science fiction may be the basis for a possible fifth archetype.[5]
Kasia Boddy wrote that, "[s]ince its initial formulation", the concept "has always been more about inspiration than achievement; the very fact that it has been attempted but remains 'unwritten' providing a spur to future engagement with both nation and national literature".[15] Speculating on De Forest's intentions when devising the notion of the Great American Novel and commenting upon its development, Cheryl Strayed wrote that:
De Forest was arguing in hopes of not one Great American Novel, but rather the development of a literary canon that accurately portrayed our complex national character, has been lost on many, as generation after generation of critics have since engaged in discussions of who might have written the Great American Novel of any given age, and writers have aspired to be the one chosen — a competitive mode that is, I suppose, as American as it gets. It's also most likely the reason that the idea has persisted for so long. To think that one might be writing the Great American Novel, as opposed to laboring through a meandering 400-page manuscript...is awfully reassuring. I have a purpose! I am writing the Great American Novel![18]
Denoting an apocryphal state, film critic A. O. Scott compared the GAN to the Yeti, the Loch Ness monster and the Sasquatch.[36]