Hey everyone

In this video I will tell you about top

20 American novels by 20 great American

authors. These are some of the best of American

literature in a span of 150 years. Not only you

learn about the greatest American novels but

also about 20 of the best American authors. You

might also like to hear what these great novels

are about. At the end I will discuss the common

themes in American literature and I will try to

sum up American literature in a single sentence.

But first let me answer the

question why American literature.

For me American literature has

a very unique, beautiful voice.

American authors try to capture the voice

of their main character quite beautifully.

Why is voice important in America? This has to do

with the second reason I love American fiction.

I’ve a deep belief in individual autonomy and

no country on earth symbolises this more than

America where characters are independent

enough to develop their own unique voices.

America is relatively young which means people

are less bound by traditions and history.

More American authors have been

rule-breakers and innovators.

The third reason I love American

literature is its social criticism.

If you look at America’s literary history, first

it was criticism of old traditions of Europe, then

Puritanism, then slavery, then capitalism, and

inequality. American fiction is also pragmatic,

trying to sort out the complexities modern

societies and problem of inner cities,

rather than escaping to the country.

It’s a voice of reason and progress.

Ok, now the novels I have chosen are

presented in chronological order,
from first to last. I’ll start
with a master of short stories.

The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe

Poe (1809-1849) is the father of modern gothic

stories. He mainly wrote short stories and poems.

In his prose poem, Eureka, he predicts the big

bang theory that everything came out of nothing.

Also Poe’s short stories were ground-breaking. If

you read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, it

reminds you of Poe’s short story The Tell-Tale

Heart about a gruesome murder confession and how

self-torment is as powerful as interrogation by

others. The story is about an eye, vulture like,

that brings chill to your back. It’s hauntingly

beautiful and incredibly suspenseful. So for me

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the greatest American

short fiction writers of all time. It goes without

saying, short stories as a form has a very rich

history in America. Even today, Americans produces

more short stories than most countries thanks to a

tradition set by the grand master Edgar Allan

Poe. A Japanese author, Edogawa Ranpo, took

the name in honour of him. See if you can

find Edgar Allan Poe in Edoga-Wa-Ran-Po.

Now from a few page short story to a

giant sperm whale of American literature.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851)

Herman Melville (1819-1891) has a

towering figure in American literature. Moby

Dick is about Ahab, a ship captain and his

quest to take revenge on a sperm whale that

bit off his leg. If someone bites off my leg,

I would probably do the same. But not chase

a sperm whale. Revenge is never a good idea

and on a giant animal it’s even more stupid,

which we find out at the end of this novel.

Our civilisation or modernity rests on a

single idea that humankind is the master

of this earth and nature is ours to tame, control

and even destroy. So one can say that modernity,
while it has given us many good things, it has
also turned humans into mad monsters of nature.

Ahab is mad in his quest to take revenge.

Getting rich is a kind of madness that

results in deforestation, over-fishing, and

over polluting the air and water. Moby Dick is

often called the greatest American novel. Call me

Ishmael or Moby Dick or whatever you like, for me

the novel is a bit too long. Don't tell anyone,

I skipped paragraphs, pages and even chapters.

But it’s without a doubt a fantastic novel, if you

manage to finish it. Fun fact there is a character

called Starbuck who loves drinking coffee, but

also very reasonable man who even tries to kill

Ahab and return home. Now I know where the

Moby Dick of coffee world got its name from.

Our next pick is a shorter novel.

Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain (1884)

Mark Twain (1835–1910) was a literary wizard,

but a terrible investor. He made a lot of money

from writing but lost them in bad investment.

Huckleberry Finn is one my favourite novels.

When it was published, the author of Little

Women Louisa May Alcot tried to ban the novel for

using colloquial language, something beneath her.

The novel is narrated by an unschooled teenage boy

as he drifts on the Mississippi River with Jim an

ex-slave. Both are on the run from society’s

cruelty. Jim tries to be free from society’s

terrible practice of slavery and Huckleberry

tries to get away from the cruelty of grownups.

Two things I love about this novel. Huckleberry’s

voice is a an example of voice I love about

American literature, raw and honest, perhaps

the most beautiful voice in literature.

Second, his unique, naïve perspective on

slavery, seen from the eyes of a child,

how dehumanising slavery was. The ending is not

great, as Mark Twain introduces Tom Sawyer to add
a bit of Hollywood action into the mix. But
still it’s a fantastic novel. Unfortunately

I hear it’s banned in some schools and

libraries due to its racial language.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898)

Henry James (1843-1916) had a kind of obsession

with Europe. Most of his novels were about the

difference between Americans and Europeans.

His famous novels such as Portrait of a Lady

and Ambassadors were ground-breaking at the

time but a bit cliched nowadays. So I chose his

shorter novel, The Turn of the Screw about 120

pages long. Don't blame me after Moby Dick.

The novel reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe.

It’s a kind of ghost story that deals with a

governess and two children and a huge house.

At first when the ghosts appear, they look like

some estate agents lurking around as if trying to

sell the house. But as the narrative progresses,

the characters explore and try to understand more,

things get darker and darker until someone

dies. I suppose the novel is trying to say

that there is some dark secrets in every

person or family’s past. Sometimes it's best

to keep the past sealed. The Turn of the Screw is

similar to some English novels of 19th century,

mainly Jane Eyre by Emily Bronte, the secret in

the attic kind of story. It’s also apparently

the most analysed piece of fiction. So I’m going

stop right here. Read it because it’s exciting and

very short. And you can claim you have read Henry
James, and become a member of an exclusive club.

Okay from ghosts to dogs turning into wolves.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London (1905)

Jack London (1876–1916) was also successful

writer and a celebrity of the day. The Call

of the Wild is also a very short novella,

about 80 pages long. The story is told from

a dog’s perspective. Sled dogs were employed
in a goldrush in Canada. The main character is
a dog called Buck. He is stolen in California

and taken to the cold climate of Canada. It’s

nature at its worst. As the environment gets

worse and worse, so does Buck. He becomes more

like a wolf as his natural instincts kick in.

Jack London like Cormack McCarthy and Jose

Saramago seem to suggest that as things get worse,

we become worse too in our dealings with others.

Since as children we learn to treat others well,

but in the right environment or wrong environment,

we can also unlearn it quickly and become savages.

Jack London and Jose Saramago were both socialists

so believed we are nothing but the product of our

social environment. Thousands of years ago

dogs were wolves and humans turned them into

domestic dogs. The Call of the Wild appears like a

children’s story, but very dark. It reminded me of

The Lord of the Flies by William Golding where

teenagers turn into brutes on a desert island.

Now from the wilderness of Canada

to the wild west of New York.

The Great Gatsby F Scot Fitzgerald (1925)

F Scot Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is the novelist

of the Jazz Age who captured the extravaganza of

the American wealth before the great depression.

The Great Gatsby is about American capitalism and

American dream. Gatsby spends years working hard,

legally and illegally to acquire wealth. Now that

he is a wealthy man he throws parties to attract

a woman he fell in love with a long time ago.

Gatsby is a man of new money, and acts like a

peacock bird, trying to get a woman’s attention

by inviting the whole town to his mansion to

show off his opulence. But the woman,

Daisy, is married to a man of old money,

or a man of established class, who also cheats on

her. Finally they meet and it all ends in tragedy.

Gatsby is like the last of those romantic

heroes who get rich like a modern banker,

stealing from others so that he

can marry the woman he loves,

I mean someone else’s wife. It’s not meant to be

a comedy, but I felt it was funny. Use someone

else’s money to get someone else’s wife. That’s

hilarious to me. The novel is beautifully written.

If I’m perfectly honest, the story didn't

move me much. It’s like any other love story,

but I did enjoy the writing. You will find some

of the most beautiful sentences in literature.

Okay from one party to

another party, I mean funeral.

As I lay dying by William Faulkner (1929)

William Faulkner (1897 –1962) won the Nobel

Prize in 1949. As I lay Dying is a story of a

family trying to take the corpse of their dead

mother to another town. Narrated by 15 different

people as they make the treacherous journey

while facing many challenges. The novel is about

life and death. For me the biggest takeaway was

how a death in the family changes those alive.

A birth is usually a celebration but also a

responsibility to care for the baby, but a death

is unburdening of responsibility but it provides

a huge learning moment, a moment of reflection

on life and its priorities. Here the family

goes through a transformation of their own

as they carry the dead body to the cemetery

in another town. While death is generally

seen as tragic but here there is a kind of

comedy infused in the story. The novel in many

ways reminded me of my favourite Mexican novel,

Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo which I discussed

here. They are both very lean, as if written

a longer piece and then removed half to keep the

bare-bone. That’s what death does to us. You’re

naked. In terms of storytelling, it is a fantastic

literary work. It can be a bit confusing, and the
language of some of the characters a bit difficult
at times to understand, but a work of genius.

It’s also sad but funny too. The whole story

is comic as they are trying to carry the dead

body to another town. I loved the novel. It’s

very short and the chapters are even shorter.

15 people are gathered to reflect on their

lives as they try to bury an old woman.

Okay, we move to California for our next pick.

"Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck (1937)

John Steinbeck (1902 –1968) was the Dickens

of America as he wrote about the poor and won

the Nobel Prize in 1962. I’m beginning to form a

theory. If you write about the poor consistently,

you will win a Nobel Prize awarded by one of the

richest countries in the world, Sweden. Okay back

to Steinbeck. His most famous novel the Grapes of

Wrath is about the poor of America after the

Great Depression of 1930s. If the Great Gatsby

by Fitzgerald showed the opulence of American

capitalism before the Great Depression, the

Grapes of Wrath published 15 years later showed

the consequences of it on the poor. A picture of

before and after. I chose his short novel here, Of

Mice and Men. It’s not about mice but a lot about

two men, a big child and a tiny man, who try to

achieve their American dream by buying a piece of

land as their home. California promises everyone,

goldminers, farmers, and these days actors and

tech people but delivers very little in return

for these two unlikely friends. It’s a delightful

read but also heart-breaking. I highly recommend

this novel, barely 100 pages but it punches so

hard that will make you cry. This is not a

joke. Lennie’s punch is as lethal as the story.

Okay, our next choice questions pretentiousness.

The Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger (1945)

Salinger (1919-2010) wrote one novel and called it

a day. But what a novel. An absolute favourite of

mine. The Catcher in the Rye has a terrible title,

it makes no sense. It’s not catchy at all. I

guess it adds to the enigma. The story is about a

teenager who is perhaps sectioned in a psychiatry

clinic. He narrates his own story wandering in New

York and his school, while talking to his teacher,

sister, cab driver and a prostitute. Holden

Caulfield finds the world nothing but pretentious

and phony. He’s pretty annoying as a friend,

but almost perfectly wonderful on the pages

of a novel. His voice is an absolute beauty.

Again American fiction, thank you for the voice. I

think Salinger spoke from the heart in this novel.

It’s about the anger, struggle, and confusion

of becoming an adult in society. It’s a novel

written by a man experiencing mid-life crisis

but set his story in the precarious landscape

we call teenage years. Apart from the

beautiful voice captured in this novel,

I also like the fact that it’s short and

also Salinger is an author of a single

novel. They all add up. A wonderful

novel. It’s in my top 5 of all time.

Okay, from an angry young man to a

man hiding from society’s injustice.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952)

Ralph Ellison (1913-94) won the National Book

Award 1953 for his masterpiece, Invisible Man.

While reading it, it reminded me of Dostoevsky’s

novel Notes from the Underground, but

things couldn't be more different.

It’s about an un-named black man who narrates his

own story. He recounts his experiences of racism,

black activism and finally decides to go hide

in an underground, to be invisible. This allows

him to articulate his own story. What I love

about this novel is that it is not overtly

political despite dealing with one the most

pressing political issues in America. Instead
it focuses on the character as an individual
despite the society boxing him as part of a race

and group. Often in the fight for a group’s

rights, individual voices are forgotten.

One of the paradox of today’s discourse

on racism is that by addressing things

as race-based, individuality is lost.

When individuals become less important,

race takes centre-stage. Invisible Man captures

that individual voice, otherwise lost in the

crowd’s voice. And the victims of racism are at

the end of the day individuals. This novel is a

powerful voice of one such individual who seems

to be invisible on both sides of the argument.

Okay from racism to old age.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952)

Ernest Hemingway (1899 –1961) won the Nobel Prize

in Literature in 1954 for his novels depicting

the madness of wars in Europe in the 20th

century. His most famous is Farewell to Arms

but reading it didn't really move me much. So

here I chose his short novella, The Old Man and

the Sea. If Moby Dick is about the madness of

a man chasing a whale, here the old man chasing

a fish is very reasonable and treats the fish

as his equal. Santiago, a Spanish-Cuban man is the

unluckiest fisherman in the world he goes on for

84 days without a fish. Then he catches a large

one who pulls the old man into the sea for days.

Almost comic but it’s dead serious.

Finally he manages to kill the fish

but on his way to the shore, many sharks

chase him. Finally the sharks eats the fish

leaving the old man with the bones only, again a

very funny picture. He returns to his cabin and

falls asleep. I mean for days. His apprentice

finds him and promises to go fishing with him

the next time. I think The Old Man and the

Sea is Hemingway’s answer to Moby Dick,
short, but beautifully sharp like a harpoon always
on target. It’s a simple novel on the surface

but hits you deep on the inside. Childhood dream

juxtaposed with old age reality. Beautiful novel.

Okay from the sea to the air, from fighting

old age and a fish to fighting in stupid wars.

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller (1953)

Joseph Heller (1923 –1999) experienced

war first hand as a pilot which he used in his

novel Catch 22. The main character is a pilot

who tries to get out of the war. The only way out
for a physically healthy man is to prove that he’s

insane. However If you can prove your insanity,

then you can’t be insane. Because if someone

is mad, that person wouldn't know that himself.

Hence catch 22. An impasse. That’s basically the

idea and the plot of the story. What I find with a

lot of novels with an amazing new, catchy idea is

that the idea becomes central and that ruins the

story sometimes. Overall a great novel about the

madness of war. In this novel, however, men’s fate

was much more tragic as they were the ones giving

their lives for stupid wars that they couldn't

escape from. Nowadays armies recruit women, but

back in the days, men were forced to fight in wars

in which most of them never returned home. Catch

22 is a wonderfully funny, yet deep novel about

the stupidity of wars. Another book published in

the same year, 1953 is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray

Bradbury about a book burner who becomes the

champion of literature and books. Fahrenheit 451

is another novel victim of its own central idea or

premise or the title or a combination of all. 451F

is the degree in which paper burns. I found the

novel quite plain apart from the title and central

idea. Catch 22, however, is pretty funny at times.

Okay, the next one is a beast of a novel.

The Recognitions by William Gaddis (1955)

William Gaddis (1922-1998) is
considered a post-modern novelist. I have one
thing in common with Gaddis, we both worked for

Kodak, the old photo company. Who knows one day

I might be able to write masterpieces like his.

The Recognitions, his debut novel, is one of the

most difficult books on this list. A young man,

the son of a priest, decides to become an artist,

moves to Europe then New York, where he is

persuaded to forge famous artists’ signature

on his paintings to sell at a higher price.

This experience makes him disillusioned and also

he questions his own authenticity. He learns that

his father has gone mad and believes in an old

Persian religion. He moves to Spain in search of

meaning for his life. He is no longer sure of his

true authentic self, what is original and what is

fake, like the good old zebra problem. Am I black

with white stripes and white with black stripes.

There are many ironic twists in this novel. It has

an element of Proust in that the main characters

look at art as legacy for their lives. Proust

was an optimist, but Gaddis some 50 years later

and two terrible world wars later, is a somewhat

pessimist. It also has Goethe’s Faust element,

selling your soul, artistic integrity, for

money. Just as reading Proust is an experience,

reading the Recognitions is also an experience

and not for everyone. It’s probably the most

European novel by an American in its

outlook and artistic sensibilities.

Okay, the next one is the most

quintessential American novel. Or is it?

"On the Road" by Jack Kerouac (1957)

Jack Kerouac (1922-69) was a novelist

of the Beat generation, a kind of neo-romantic,

counter-culture movement. If Fitzgerald captured

the jazz age in his novel, Kerouac incorporated

jazz in his writings. On the Road is considered

one of the best novel of American freedom,

incorporating the quintessential dream of
moving freely through a series of bus journeys
across the vast country and even to Mexico. At

the heart of the novel a friendship between Sal

Paradise and Dean Moriarty based on Kerouac and

Neil Cassidy. Reading it feels like reading many

separate stories tied together as a novel. On the

whole there doesn't seem to be a purpose. They

criss-cross America and that’s it. I think that’s

the point of the novel. Life just happens. We add

a rational explanation afterward, but at the time

of existing, we do not have all the knowledge to

have a clear goal or make a complete sense of it.

It’s a novel without middle and end. Just

the beginning, full of promises that never

materialises. It’s a search for something, but

we don't know what. It feel like it was written

by a French writer who belief in Buddhism idea

of detachment, escape from society and crowd.

Okay we are back in history with this next novel.

To kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

Harper Lee (1926 –2016) like Salinger published

one novel and then sat back to enjoy life. It

took her 55 years to publish her second novel,

which was written before her debut novel. Think of

slow writers. To Kill a Mockingbird has one of the

most beautiful titles and is also the most popular

novel in America. The story is told by a six-year

old narrator whose lawyer father, Atticus Finch,

is fighting for justice for an African American

man falsely accused of rape of a white woman.

It deals with racial injustice in America that

is always tragic. The story is very moving that

brought me to tears several times. Some couldn't

believe a six-year girl could narrate such a

great story, but you don't really notice that

and it is not an issue as you are engrossed in

the tale. Atticus Finch is probably the one of

the very few good lawyers in history. I think

it is a shame the book has been removed from
some libraries for its use of racial slurs. The
same with Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I think

people should be able to read books to learn

from past mistakes. Some criticise the novel

for being written by a white middle class woman

who use a white lawyer defending a black man.

I think we should encourage good people to

do good things irrespective of their colour.

Okay in the next novel is about

war and the meaning of life.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)

Kurt Vonnegut (1922 –2007) infused science fiction

with satire and postmodernism. He was serious but

also not serious. Reading him feels very fresh.

Reality depicted in raw, unadulterated sort of

way. His most famous novel, Slaughterhouse-Five,

as the title suggests is an anti-war novel that

uses science fiction to allow the main character,

a war veteran to travel to his past. The novel

reflects on the nature of war and the meaning of

life or lack of it. The narrator remembers

bits and pieces of his past war memories.

Those memories come to him at random in a kind

of flashbacks and then he moves to the past and

comes back. The lack of clear structure works

here as the main character seems lost as well.

It’s not a difficult novel to read despite the

subject matter being very deep and profound.

The novel tells us that our being

on this earth, the conception,

birth, growing up are all so unlikely events

that questions the existence of war that

destroys all that in a blink of an eye. It’s

a novel of being in time, traveling in time,

and seeking purpose in time. Time is a

prison we all live in. Very Proustian.

Okay from the shamelessness of war

to the shamelessness of life itself.

Post Office (1971) by Charles Bukowski:

Charles Bukowski (1920 –1994) born in

Germany was an American writer of the mundane

ordinary life. He reminds me of the TV series,

Shameless. If you feel a misfit, out of

place, a stranger in many gatherings,

have some unusual thoughts from time to time,

or feel very ordinary then you’re in the right

company. This book makes you feel you are not

that different from others. Charles Bukowski

tells the truth if there is such thing as truth.

He tells you everything as crudely as possible.

He lives an authentic life, however depraved

that may seem to some people. Life is a series

of mistakes. Your conception is often a mistake,

by your parents. Someone mentioned this to me

after my Top 10 Japanese novels in which I talked

about Sayaka Murata’s novel The Convenience Store

Woman. They are both about characters who are

not considered normal in the eye of the society.

This liberates you from your assumptions that

life is not what it seems. There is a lot of

drinking. Plenty of great comedy. Plenty of simple

sex. Don't read it if you are not open-minded

about different ways of living. Or maybe you

should read it to understand the world better.

Okay from the very ordinary

men to extra-ordinary women.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982)

Alice Walker, born in 1944, won the Pulitzer

Prize in in 1983 for her best-known novel, The

Colour Purple. It’s written in a series of letters

between two sisters, Celie and Neat separated

at birth they face different problems, but what

unifies their experiences is the abuse they get

from men. Men are not good in this novel. As a man

I felt it made me feel guilty. I loved how strong

the characters were, despite their miserable

lives. There are some half-decent men but overall

there is not much good things about men and
I think painting men as flat characters is the
downside of this book. I think Alice Walker being

a very vocal feminist, her politics hinders her

artistic instinct a bit. There is also the issue

of racism but it’s sexism that is at the heart of

the novel. Unfortunately the book has also been

subject to censorship as there are many explicit

heterosexual and homosexual incidents. I liked

the poetic writing. But there is too much misery

caused by one sex on the other in this novel and

also the letters become a bit too repetitive at

the end. Still it’s a powerful novel nonetheless.

Okay from women fighting sexism to

women fighting for self-identity.

Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) won the

Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for her novel Beloved. Set

in late 19th century America, Beloved tells the

story of one black family and their haunted house.

Sethe is a freed slave who lives with her daughter

and another man. One day a stranger called

Beloved shows up at their door. Sethe senses

Beloved is her child killed at a young age, so

tries everything to please her. In doing so she

risks her own health and well-being. Then just as

Beloved had showed up , she disappears one day,

leaving Sethe devastated. It depicts a deeply

racist society that had dehumanised the black

population. But there are some good white

people in the story and also good men

unlike in Color Purple. Overall, I found Beloved

to be a more artistic novel while the Color

Purple more political. Beloved is also a really

psychologically deep novel. After finishing the

novel, I look up Toni Morrison and she distanced

herself from feminism saying that she needed the

artistic freedom. Beloved has many layers, there

is the idea of self, how it’s constructed and

how it is diminished. Slavery had destroyed the

idea of autonomous self among the slaves. The
novel plays with that idea as Sethe is not sure
if Beloved is part of her that she had lost.

Okay my next pick is another short story writer.

What We Talk About When We Talk

About Love by Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver (1938 –1988) was a genius short

story writer. He didn't write a novel but I

cannot have a list of great Americans without him.

When you say a writer’s voice, Carver is the best

example of that. His sentences are simple but

beautiful. He is a master of artistic simplicity

that makes you pause and smile. After reading

his short stories you feel good about life.

In What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is

about two couples having a drink and they decide

to talk about love. That’s it. They try to answer

questions like, Is it love when someone is trying

to kill himself because he loves you so much? Is

it love when someone hurts you because he loves

you so much? The two couples seem they are having

a great time but the conversation seem so deep.

Carver’s another masterpiece is Cathedral, which

I discussed in another video so don't want to

repeat here. That’s even better than this. So

I highly recommend you grab one of his short

stories. He has the most beautiful voice not only

in American literature but in the whole world.

Okay from slow life of Carver’s

world to the chaos of a jungle world.

The Road Cormack McCarthy (2006)

The Road is perhaps one the best novels

of America in the last 20 years. The writing is

exquisite with it short chapters that reads like

a short poem. It is about a father and son heading

south in America after an apocalyptical event that

has destroyed everything. It’s a dog-eat-dog

world with plenty of violence and fear.

Other humans are monsters. To be perfectly

honest I loved the writing but not the story.
I think when people talk about individualism being
all about selfishness, this novel is a perfect

example of everyone to themselves. History

shows that in the face of disasters, people,

I mean ordinary people, come together. It’s only

groups and nations who create a border around

themselves. But ordinary people gravitates towards

others. Not in this novel. Seeing another human

is the worst feeling in this novel. Not

my cup of tea. But I loved the writing.

Two of my favourite authors, Paul Auster and

Philip Roth, are not included in this list.

I figured 20 is a round number. I couldn't

do with 10 because there are so many great

novels out there. Actually I don't know if

you noticed, the list has 20 novels and two

short stories by 22 authors. Another author I

missed was Truman Capote and his masterpiece

Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Raymond Chandler’s The

Big Sleep. America has so many amazing novelists

that I could do another video covering those

I haven’t talked in this video. But for now,

these are the ones I think should be considered

the greatest American novels of all time.

Okay, what’s American literature all about?

As I looked at these 20 authors and their

writings, a few common themes came

up consistently. If you look at early

American literature, the common theme is often

self-reflection. For example in the works Poe

and Melville, individuals critically looking at

themselves which relates to the religious doctrine

of confession. But later on American literature

tackles the idea of dream versus reality. Often

romantic or financial dreams are shattered by the

socio-economic realities. For example in the works

of Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Hemingway, and William

Gaddis people try to achieve their romantic dreams

or American dreams, but they mostly fail. Racism

is another major theme in American literature,

for example in the works of Mark Twain, Herbert

Lee, Ralph Ellison, and Tony Morison. But if you

think about, literature that tackles racism or

sexism is in fact a fight for individual freedom,

which is perhaps the most prominent theme in

American literature. The fight against racism,

the madness of war in the works of Heller and

Vonnegut or the fight against what’s considered

socially normal in the works of Bukowski or the

aimlessness of life in the works of Kerouac are

attempts for individuals trying to be free

from the constraints of societal inequality,

pressure, and expectations. So for me, American

literature can be summed in a single sentence.

American literature is about individuals

trying to break free from social boxes.

What do you think? Have I missed anything? What

are your favourite American novels and novelists?

I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for watching.