One aspect of Huckleberry Finn (the novel) that I think is relevant today is the spectacularly stupid zero-sum conflict between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. It seems relevant to the US's politics and many international conflicts
Definitely Twain and it's not even close. Huckleberry Finn even has the episodic flavor of The Odyssey.
For books you have "The Innocents Abroad", "Roughing It", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "A Tramp Abroad", "The Prince and the Pauper", "Life on the Mississippi", "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court".
That's a hell of a lineup and includes a LOT of the flavor of the US as a young country.
I always found it relevant that in Spanish-dubs they translate the name of Homer to "Homero" which would be basically how you would refer to the classic author rather than to some american layman. (as if e.g. in France I translated Homer as Homère instead of plainly Homer).
The stories still passed down and translated into other languages two thousand years from now will be the answer. I think Sherman's memoirs could become something like the Iliad. They're surprisingly funny, engaging, and insightful, and Mark Twain (mentioned in this comment thread) had a hand in the memoirs IIRC.
I think it is somewhat weird that nobody put Twain in.
I could also see someone suggesting Hemingway, although I don't buy it.
Hart Crane at this point in time seems somewhat secondary, so that was surprising.
The Tracy Chapman thing seemed seriously like a troll, I could definitely agree to a black Homer, but then I guess it would be Langston Hughes or James Baldwin as my choices.
To suggest someone though who has the name recognition for American literature that Homer had for the Greeks, it would need to be Twain. You can't really have a great national writer that hardly anybody in the nation can name.
This falls into the great American author conversation and for that I would probably have to say Mark Twain or John Steinbeck. If you want to talk about lasting influence on the large literary world it is probably Edgar Allan Poe.
Tracey Chapman is an all time great, but beyond a few song probably doesn’t rise to the American Homer status. I don’t think I would put a songwriter forward for that but if you did it would have to be Dylan.
> I think it is somewhat weird that nobody put Twain in
Edit: Lots of hate here. The question was why people didn't suggest Twain to be "America's Homer", and I answered the question: Twain is controversial, at least for some schools, and for someone such as CK, which should tell you something. Let's try not to shoot the messenger. If you didn't balk when you reached this line the first time you read the book, there might actually be something wrong with you.
"He [Mark Twain] also said 'There once was a man named [N-word] Jim,' so not everything he said was perfectly amazing" - Louis CK
I think Tracy Chapman is not a troll choice, but a prediction. It is an interesting pick that highlights that highlights that all the picks are predictions, given the age of the country.
I think it is probably not a prediction that will end up right, because music is sort of limited by changing musical styles. But it is an interesting one.
Whitman was first in my mind, he invented free verse poetry after all, embodying the American wilderness in form before content.
If we are going to include musicians, Tracy Chapman indeed seems like a troll when have the significantly more impactful Bob Dylan, who dramatically altered the musical and political discourse at a key time in American history. Tracy Chapman... had a few good hits?
Tis surely Twain, but come on, he came ages after Homer and came with civilisation that was not there in America when Homer lived.
The whole idea for looking for America’s …Homer is just super bizarre. Modern (last 150-200 years) of America is not what it was thousands of years ago - it stands on the burial grounds of millions of indigenous people obliterated altogether with their cultural inheritance.
It is questionable even today if American authors bear more the heritage of European literature than anything else.
Homer was 2k years ago. Conquistadors made sure nothing would be left of anything that was 2k years ago. English and French, besides being smarter in the north, dis likewise.
So your American Homer’s legacy perhaps lies buried down in some unmarked indigenous grave.
Twain seems the obvious choice, so yeah I’m disappointed they didn’t even mention him. Given that they invited submissions, I’d have loved to see a bigger variety, rather than two Frosts and two “no one”s. Those are both good choices, but not super interesting to read two of when other choices are left out.
The lowest person in a society is a doorway to the structure of that society. Twain narrated this regardless of whether we consider it poetry or folkloric fiction.
Stephen King. Homer was not great literature at the time he his works were written. He was popular entertainment with a dose of folk religion. I’m not sure Homer existed. 1000 years from now people will say the same of SK.
I'm really not sure how anything else could be interpreted? I think this was actually very much to people's frustration even, as Homer was often misunderstood in their eyes, e.g. Plato often expresses this sentiment.
Some good takes so I hate to be glib but no one because 1. the US was founded long after the invention of writing and even the printing press plus 2. bronze age morality and worldview are completely alien to us in ways that no subculture in the US is.
I cannot answer that and I think it will be years before, so I went with "Nobody Yet".
Tracy Chapman is an interesting pick, but I think she could be in the future. But I am surprised Thoreau was not in the list, at least from what I was able to read.
I think that steinbeck is probably the correct answer. the iliad and the odyssey are not just "action epics", they are parable-ish in what they communicate to readers (or listeners) of their society. For example, it's not a coincidence that odysseus sleeps around the aegean sea while penelope chases suitors off at home.
Twain is a pretty good second choice, but Steinbeck has a pretty good lock on parables of American aspirations and its society both good and bad.
Steinbeck also wrote "the pearl" and of course "of mice and men"
English majors seem to have banded together to crown only the most inaccessible and politically charged authors as worthy of attention. If you like anyone else, you're just too inexperienced or partisan to appreciate real literature. To hell with them.
The answer is Brandon Sanderson who is freely sharing his knowledge of how to write with the world. His teachings will touch more in the coming years than any stodgy 1920s writer ever cared to.
Do you consider Frost inaccessible (or for that matter politically-charged)? I think every kid who grows up in New England reads him in elementary or middle school.
Brandon Sanderson writes forgettable stories for pubescent children. His characters fill very specific plot roles and those plots don't really deviate in any interesting way. Saying he's Temu Terry Pratchett is doing a giant disservice to Pratchett.
Since nobody seems to want to do it, I'll throw Kurk Vonnegut out. We're a satire of a nation and he's our greatest satirist (sorry Sam Clemmens, you're too earnest, even when telling a joke.)
Lots of excellent suggestions here. F. Scott Fitzgerald's missing so far - that's not necessarily who I'd choose but he belongs in the conversation. I don't think he's an especially interesting pick - Gatsby is cited as the Great American Novel as often as Moby Dick or Huck Finn - but he's a superlative writer who (like every high schooler in the country knows) explicitly and directly engaged with the meaning of America.
The most technically correct answer is Walt Whitman.
Longfellow got dismissed by several people here for being too sentimental - but I would argue that sentimentality and saccharine character is distinctly part of America's mythos.
Washington Irving and Parson Weems would both also be good candidates. Early writers who had a penchant for mixing real history with tall tales.
The name I would throw out is John Ford. Ford basically invented the modern action movie, the mythology of the West, redefined masculinity, established the tropes of a hero, etc.
117 comments
[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 103 ms ] threadOne aspect of Huckleberry Finn (the novel) that I think is relevant today is the spectacularly stupid zero-sum conflict between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. It seems relevant to the US's politics and many international conflicts
For books you have "The Innocents Abroad", "Roughing It", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "A Tramp Abroad", "The Prince and the Pauper", "Life on the Mississippi", "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court".
That's a hell of a lineup and includes a LOT of the flavor of the US as a young country.
Also the American Homer is/was Garrison Keillor. Homer’s delivery was oral and radio is surely closer to oratory than books.
Though other American countries (even just North American countries) might have different opinions, so maybe he's just the USA's Homer.
Recommendations elaborated on in the article are a solid set. Mark Twain or Walt Whitman would probably get my vote.
I could also see someone suggesting Hemingway, although I don't buy it.
Hart Crane at this point in time seems somewhat secondary, so that was surprising.
The Tracy Chapman thing seemed seriously like a troll, I could definitely agree to a black Homer, but then I guess it would be Langston Hughes or James Baldwin as my choices.
To suggest someone though who has the name recognition for American literature that Homer had for the Greeks, it would need to be Twain. You can't really have a great national writer that hardly anybody in the nation can name.
Some of his works are already in the public domain in the US and can be found on Project Gutenberg, so you may not have to buy.
Tracey Chapman is an all time great, but beyond a few song probably doesn’t rise to the American Homer status. I don’t think I would put a songwriter forward for that but if you did it would have to be Dylan.
Edit: Lots of hate here. The question was why people didn't suggest Twain to be "America's Homer", and I answered the question: Twain is controversial, at least for some schools, and for someone such as CK, which should tell you something. Let's try not to shoot the messenger. If you didn't balk when you reached this line the first time you read the book, there might actually be something wrong with you.
"He [Mark Twain] also said 'There once was a man named [N-word] Jim,' so not everything he said was perfectly amazing" - Louis CK
Poe seems like an obvious candidate no one listed.
I think it is probably not a prediction that will end up right, because music is sort of limited by changing musical styles. But it is an interesting one.
If we are going to include musicians, Tracy Chapman indeed seems like a troll when have the significantly more impactful Bob Dylan, who dramatically altered the musical and political discourse at a key time in American history. Tracy Chapman... had a few good hits?
The whole idea for looking for America’s …Homer is just super bizarre. Modern (last 150-200 years) of America is not what it was thousands of years ago - it stands on the burial grounds of millions of indigenous people obliterated altogether with their cultural inheritance.
It is questionable even today if American authors bear more the heritage of European literature than anything else.
Homer was 2k years ago. Conquistadors made sure nothing would be left of anything that was 2k years ago. English and French, besides being smarter in the north, dis likewise.
So your American Homer’s legacy perhaps lies buried down in some unmarked indigenous grave.
Twain wasn't a poet. The article specifies right at the start that it's looking for a great American poet.
I'm really not sure how anything else could be interpreted? I think this was actually very much to people's frustration even, as Homer was often misunderstood in their eyes, e.g. Plato often expresses this sentiment.
Tracy Chapman is an interesting pick, but I think she could be in the future. But I am surprised Thoreau was not in the list, at least from what I was able to read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_of_Eden_(novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath (one of the best books i've ever read)
Twain is a pretty good second choice, but Steinbeck has a pretty good lock on parables of American aspirations and its society both good and bad.
Steinbeck also wrote "the pearl" and of course "of mice and men"
Dare I suggest Bob Dylan?
The answer is Brandon Sanderson who is freely sharing his knowledge of how to write with the world. His teachings will touch more in the coming years than any stodgy 1920s writer ever cared to.
Longfellow got dismissed by several people here for being too sentimental - but I would argue that sentimentality and saccharine character is distinctly part of America's mythos.
Washington Irving and Parson Weems would both also be good candidates. Early writers who had a penchant for mixing real history with tall tales.
The name I would throw out is John Ford. Ford basically invented the modern action movie, the mythology of the West, redefined masculinity, established the tropes of a hero, etc.