American literature’s holy grail: Franzen, DFW and the hunt for the Great American Novel | Salon

By goldeagle49

Not gonna lie, “the hunt for the Great American Novel” always feels painfully cringe to me. It probably sounded more reasonable back when American lit was treated like it didn’t count, but that was forever ago. I wish people would just drop the whole thing and move on. Honestly, the US could use less staring at its own belly. Like, Canada is right there, and I don’t see a bunch of American literary essays acting like it doesn’t exist. And the rest of the world is even worse—either it’s supposedly a “universal” classic, so of course it qualifies, or it’s newer stuff that’s in some foreign language I can’t read and is tied to whatever big, politically loaded headlines are in the spotlight. Then people act like it’s exciting mainly because there’s war, poverty, and general barbarity involved, and somehow that makes everyone feel better while still playing the same “Great American Novel” game.