Also some novels that tell what America is/was about at that time -
Gone With The Wind - tells the feelings of the south and the cause for some of its bitterness. The south lost the war but instead of being left alone to rebuild, carpetbaggers from the north came down and made life miserable for everyone. By the time they left, enough bitterness was stoked to keep the south backwards for generations.
The Grapes of Wrath - effectively tells the story of the Dustbowl migrant workers. Shows native Californians for what they are - not enlightened souls but frightened elitists. Also shows the ugly side of America - Americans turning on Americans. People who never gave a thought about how blacks were treated, if they survived the dustbowl and migration and humilation, now came away of what it was like to be treated inhumanely.
In Cold Blood - I think this crime novel showed America that we have monsters roaming the country - the first warning that we have serial killers in the nation.
How many GANs were there? I can't limit this to only one. It is impossible. But this was a delightful excercize for myself anyway.
Overall though, Samuel Clemens ranks highest I suppose. I personally enjoy his more political works more now. Huck.
To contribute to other consideration if I may, I like to break things down by decades so to speak, reflect on them, and then use such in rhetoric and writing. Of course, that might be the "decade" where I read the book as opposed to that in which it was published. For example:
Jim Harrison's "Legends of the Fall" is my favorite book of the last two decades of the 20th Century. It affected film as well by the making of the movie of the title name and also that of "Revenge" with Kevin Costner and Anthony Quinn(Madeleine Stowe as well).
Within this book then, the Novella "Revenge" is my choice. While at the same time, there are author's I read in time proximity along with Harrison: Thomas McGuane for one, McMurtry and Lonesome Dove was important. Elmer Kelton for another. In particular, Kelton wrote Great stories all related to the West(Texas) and he hasn't received the notice of McMurtry for example...undeservedly in my humble opinion. Here are 2 I recommend: The Time it Never Rained, The Good Old Boys. These books along with another 60's favorite comprise the spirit of independence, my sage brush rebellion attitude and longing for the open spaces, mountains and streams I guess: The Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey and it's two sequels.
If I go back to the 70's and 60's however, my choices change radically to books published well before those decades. In the 70's it was Hemingway. Hard for me to choose which. "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "Islands in the Stream" or Perhaps "To Have and Have Not". In the 60's it was Ayn Rand: "Atlas Shrugged". Mom had me read those when I was 10 or so around 1960--but also in this decade I read thoroughly Lee's Lt.s, "None Dare Call It (Conspiracy or Treason)" I cannot recollect the publication dates--parental political influence). ALSO F-451, 1984 both were of import. Pat Frank's book "Tomorrow" was it? There was another for the 70s, "Love In the Ruins" By Walker Percy?
Huck was the book for me of the 50's. I believe I read the "Cain Mutiny" at this time as well, ie, late 50's. It remains a tremendous work. Or Jack London anything.
In the y2k decade, I certainly haven't read enough to push a button on one. Oddly enough, I have become enamored again with Rand. The Fountainhead is it thus far.
But that is just a way of looking at things. If I just had to pick 1, it would be Huck as being the most influential work in so many ways. For me personally, perhaps now in this decade I will return to Faulkner, and be 14 again so to speak. Here I might pick "A light in August" or "Wild Palms". I suppose I will Let EH go. After all, I just got back from playing McGuane and Hemingway in Key West, fly fishing the flats. It didn't work. I am still me....
Regards to you:
David Bell -- Dai --
"I could just remember how my father used to say that the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time." From William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying"(Character Addie Bundren).
Or something like, when it is all said and done, you die and they throw dirt in your face(Unknown source).
Modern Library's readers picked the following:....ATLAS SHRUGGED, Ayn Rand....THE FOUNTAINHEAD, Ayn Rand....BATTLEFIELD EARTH, L. Ron Hubbard....LORD OF THE RINGS, J.R.R.Tolkien.....TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, Harper Lee....ANTHEM, Ayn Rand.
Quite a bit of difference between the tastes of the eggheads and the bourgeois!
Leni
...Well, maybe not, do you like Woody Guthrie? I do.
After seeing "Fight Club," I did read the book. It examines some really major themes. But I do think the film was better. The film realized what Pahlanik only sketched out.
Another important novelist is Don DeLillo. I wanted to read "White Noise," but after hearing people describe and retell it at such length and after trying to listen to another of his novels on audiobook, decided not to bother. His theme in "White Noise" is precisely how the craziness of reality defeats attempts to explain or fix its meaning in words.
If you are looking for a great post-modern novelist, DeLillo is perhaps you best bet, because he hasn't wholly lost touch with the world outside. I look forward to reading or listening to his "Libra" on the Kennedy assassination, though after trying to read Norman Mailer's and James Ellroy's stupifying works on the same subject, I suspect either writers will give up on Oswald or I will give up on reading.
Kurt Vonnegut may be another post-modern classic, though weighted much more towards popular fiction, than towards high art. Some rave about John Barth's "Sot-weed Factor" and other works, but I've not been tempted. Speaking purely as a non-reader, I wouldn't bother with Robert Coover either.
Reality does seem to defeat attempts to put it into words, especially since moving photographic or videographic images are so much more immediate. And literature does tend to be come obsolete quicker now than in the past centuries. Dip into Salinger, Mailer, James Jones, Cheever, O'Hara, Bellow from 50 years ago. That world is very much dead. Deader than Hemingway's or Dickens's world.
Musicals which best illustrate these elements of our national identity include THE MUSIC MAN,which best reflects the psyche of our people (that can-do, midwestern spirit) and OKLAHOMA, which reflects the primal connection with the land.
As a single work of great American fiction, HUCK FINN captures both the land, the spirit of our many people, and our inherent spiritually (through the symbolism and importance of the river, our freshwater source of life). However, anything by Sinclair Lewis involving the town of Zenith or the collective works of Faulkner would rival the Twain as Great American "Novels".