To Skip Writing the Great American Novel

            The chapter begins with talking about Jane Austen and how when her novels were written they were contemporary. Edmundson talks about how this is true for all novels. He also talks about what people want from their fiction writers. Edmundson says that people want their fiction writers to them how things are now. He then switches to how it is for the great American novel must be for now as well as last for all time. He talks about James Joyce’s Ulysses, though that is, as he mentions, more of an Irish novel. He also mentions how Moby Dick is an anomaly since it was not well received during the time of its publishing but has since flourished in the future.

I feel like if someone wants to talk about either writing or not writing the great American novel they have to write about American writers. This chapter is spent mostly talking about English and Irish writers. This has little to do with the idea of the chapter. The mention of Herman Melville near the end of the chapter does little when he talks about writing the great American novel. Edmunson does mention what might be required to write the “great American novel”, but those qualities aren’t exactly necessary. The entirety of the chapter seems like it’s mostly filler that has nothing to say about writing as an American, but rather reading as a fan of literature. If he actually mentioned writing as an American it would shed light on the idea of the great American novel as a concept in the present day.

            Writing as an American is something that is an interesting idea. You can write as an American and not even come close to writing the great American novel. Yet if you want to write the great American novel you have to write as an American. You need to be able to grasp the idea as well as be able to express it in a way that lets other people know what your idea of America is. The problem of that is now everyone has their own concept of what America is and what the American dream is. The entire concept of the America is scattered and torn so the idea of writing something that could be considered the great American novel is just as scattered. To see what might be a way to write and to skip writing the great American novel is to look back at other American novelists and see how their novels stand up now.

            F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is one of the best examples of what could be considered the great American novel. The character is Gatsby achieves a form of the American dream, which is something every American strives for. That is the very essence of what should make an essential great American novel, yet Edmunson didn’t mention it. He seemed too focused on other things rather than American novelists. Fitzgerald’s novel conveys what could be the perfect example of the American dream even though the character of Gatsby dies in the end because of something out of his control. With Gatsby achieving what is essentially the American dream, he exemplifies the idea of American in the 20s. The only reason that I could think of that would make Edmunson not include the novel is because it wasn’t necessarily well received when originally published. This was how Moby Dick was received when it was published, the only difference is The Great Gatsby was published much earlier. This could be him saying that it isn’t what he thinks of as literature so it obviously couldn’t be considered as a great American novel.

            Another novelist that could and should have been mentioned is Mark Twain. Nowadays one of the first things that comes to mind when mentioning Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is liberal use of a certain word, it was a much different time, even though there are more to his novels. Mark Twain’s writing shows life during the late 1800s and does a good job of doing that. Edmunson never mentions Twain even though he is a perfect example of an American novelist. It couldn’t even be said that he wouldn’t say that Twain wasn’t literature, because he is thought of as such. Twain does fulfill both being an American novelist and literature, which is something that should make him be the perfect example for an example of the great American novel. It isn’t even that Twain wouldn’t be considered literature because he is considered as such. Even with his more fantastic writings, Twain has a way of writing that brings you in to the world of his time.

            The next two American novelists I’m going to look at are Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. The only problem that I have is I’ve not read an extensive amount of Hemingway and I’ve never been able to finish a Faulkner novel. Hemingway wrote mostly about war, which stems from his experience in World War 1. Faulkner wrote about the south and that’s basically all I know about him. I do know that Hemingway and Faulkner didn’t get along well and criticized each other’s writing style. The only reason that I could think of for Edmunson not including either of them is because of them being recent or recent in comparison to other literature. Hemingway’s writing portrays America at war, even that has changed since his works were originally printed.

            There are other American novelists to examine but those I chose were but a small selection. John Steinbeck would be another novelist to look at, even though he wrote around the same time as Hemingway and Faulkner. Edmunson’s focus on British writers seems to be the only thing he cared about while writing the chapter. These have been just some examples of American novelists the he could have used rather than focusing on British writers. Each of the examples I gave were specific ways of writing that expressed America in the best way for each of the novelists.

            The concept of what it is to be American is more scattered than it ever has been before. This makes even starting to write the great American novel the hardest it has ever been. Writing the exact right thing to portray America for someone that is either from another country or someone that wants to know what it was like during the specific time. That’s one of the reasons all of the novelists I chose as examples were perfect examples of American novelists. Each one of them wrote in specific ways that showed the country and sometimes the world the way that the saw it. Fitzgerald’s novel even portrayed the American dream in a way that was cautionary, which the cautionary part of it holds true even today as the American dream has changed even in the slightest way.

            But to skip writing the great American novel is something that is the most basic thing to do. Most all of the people that even mentioned writing the great American novel is that of someone that doesn’t care much for it. They don’t want to write it, because those that are writers think that it’s far too pretentious to set out to write such a novel. I don’t think people set out to write the great American novel when they sit down to write a novel. It isn’t something a person necessarily wants to do. That lends credence to the fact that skipping writing it would be what most people would prefer to do. Writing something in such a specific way makes it hard on the author, even writing about the idea of writing the great American novel is hard. Edmunson might have focused on British novelists rather than American ones because of this reason. This however does seem to keep the chapter from its key point. Focusing on novels and novelists from outside of America keeps the chapter from really even saying what it is even supposed to say. Edmunson is so focused on literature from outside of the country and he ignores the literature of this country. He even just mentions the great American novel and what might even make one as a passing sentiment. Even the one he mentions he says doesn’t necessarily fit what he would consider the great American novel, even though he doesn’t really go into what he considers the great American novel.