"You’d struggle to find a trio of European novelists — from the last 250 years, at least — to pit against Melville, Pynchon and McCarthy, or poets to pit against Stevens, Bishop and Frost, or directors to pit against Kubrick, Coppola and Lynch."
Really? You think Melville, Pynchon and McCarthy are greater than Tolstoy, Flaubert and George Eliot? Stevens, Bishop and Frost greater than Leopardi, Rilke or Yeats? Actually a strong argument could be made that America's most distinguished poet is T.S. Eliot and its finest novelist Henry James, both of whom produced most of their most personal and mature work in England. As, in fact, did Kubrick! And come to that (while, in the end, aesthetic evaluation is a subjective matter), I think Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman and Roberto Rossellini created richer, more complex, more mature films than any American director - much as I also respect and admire the grace, charm and beauty of the old Hollywood at its best.
Good argument! I almost put an aside about Eliot being American, whereas Europeans tend to think of him as British, but you're right about novelists. That said, just to be pedantic, "you'd struggle" doesn't mean "you'd fail"! I think the very act of rivalling European culture is impressive given American youth.
I think if you are going to take the time scale back 250 years, then you wouldn't even struggle! I mean, in some cases, you can even do it within one country - Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev - of whom at least the first two are arguably greater than any American novelist to this day; or Balzac, Flaubert, Proust. And when it comes to poetry, I don't think any American 19th-century poet is a match for Byron, Pushkin, Goethe, Baudelaire, etc. But if we restrict ourselves to the period post-World War I, it's a much more even contest. F. Scott Fitzgerald or Evelyn Waugh? Saul Bellow or Alberto Moravia? Or in poetry, Robert Frost or Philip Larkin? How fortunate then that we don't have to choose between them!
We don't, indeed. I think I'll have to wave a white flag on novelists - though I'd rather re-read Moby Dick than Crime and Punishment or Anna Karenina!
I agree, and would add: travel to some very remote place and there’s a far greater chance people would have heard of Orwell, than Pynchon or McCarthy, even Melville, and their language might have absorbed “Orwellian” and “Big Brother”. And only three American authors are in the top ten bestselling authors of all time, but there are five British authors (the other two are Belgian and Japanese).
Ah! - for me Anna Karenina is the book that justifies the novel as a form. And would you really rather re-read all those descriptions of the minutiae of nineteenth-century whaling practices in Moby Dick? (Personally, I think Melville's masterpiece is Billy Budd - with not a word wasted; you can read it in an afternoon).
I’m in serious danger of feeling better-informed and kindly-disposed toward my fellow man for having read this exchange; which lest we forget occurred within an online comment section.
It’s not unpleasant, but it’s going to take some getting used to.
America’s the greatest country on earth, I say as an outsider. But it does exert a gravity on the discourse that’s disconcerting. I know of a talented Arsenal podcaster who can refer to ICE agents as deathsquads unironically but consider the exclusion of IRGC affiliates from US soil as a grotesque and spiteful action, a view that seems pretty standard across more thoughtful sporting media.
FWIW, I probably disagree with you on the Iran conflict. I like to troll pinkos by telling them the most antifa thing to happen in years was the decapitation strike carried out on the leaders of the regime.
This is a nice, balanced article. But...
"You’d struggle to find a trio of European novelists — from the last 250 years, at least — to pit against Melville, Pynchon and McCarthy, or poets to pit against Stevens, Bishop and Frost, or directors to pit against Kubrick, Coppola and Lynch."
Really? You think Melville, Pynchon and McCarthy are greater than Tolstoy, Flaubert and George Eliot? Stevens, Bishop and Frost greater than Leopardi, Rilke or Yeats? Actually a strong argument could be made that America's most distinguished poet is T.S. Eliot and its finest novelist Henry James, both of whom produced most of their most personal and mature work in England. As, in fact, did Kubrick! And come to that (while, in the end, aesthetic evaluation is a subjective matter), I think Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman and Roberto Rossellini created richer, more complex, more mature films than any American director - much as I also respect and admire the grace, charm and beauty of the old Hollywood at its best.
Good argument! I almost put an aside about Eliot being American, whereas Europeans tend to think of him as British, but you're right about novelists. That said, just to be pedantic, "you'd struggle" doesn't mean "you'd fail"! I think the very act of rivalling European culture is impressive given American youth.
I think if you are going to take the time scale back 250 years, then you wouldn't even struggle! I mean, in some cases, you can even do it within one country - Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev - of whom at least the first two are arguably greater than any American novelist to this day; or Balzac, Flaubert, Proust. And when it comes to poetry, I don't think any American 19th-century poet is a match for Byron, Pushkin, Goethe, Baudelaire, etc. But if we restrict ourselves to the period post-World War I, it's a much more even contest. F. Scott Fitzgerald or Evelyn Waugh? Saul Bellow or Alberto Moravia? Or in poetry, Robert Frost or Philip Larkin? How fortunate then that we don't have to choose between them!
We don't, indeed. I think I'll have to wave a white flag on novelists - though I'd rather re-read Moby Dick than Crime and Punishment or Anna Karenina!
I agree, and would add: travel to some very remote place and there’s a far greater chance people would have heard of Orwell, than Pynchon or McCarthy, even Melville, and their language might have absorbed “Orwellian” and “Big Brother”. And only three American authors are in the top ten bestselling authors of all time, but there are five British authors (the other two are Belgian and Japanese).
Ah! - for me Anna Karenina is the book that justifies the novel as a form. And would you really rather re-read all those descriptions of the minutiae of nineteenth-century whaling practices in Moby Dick? (Personally, I think Melville's masterpiece is Billy Budd - with not a word wasted; you can read it in an afternoon).
I would. But you're more of a reader than me, I've never read Billy Budd. I will now!
I’m in serious danger of feeling better-informed and kindly-disposed toward my fellow man for having read this exchange; which lest we forget occurred within an online comment section.
It’s not unpleasant, but it’s going to take some getting used to.
Eliot became the perfect English Anglican bank clerk 😁 more English than many of his peers.
Oxford lit and lang grad. I love great novels from all over the world but for years have favoured recent American novelists of our insipid Brit ones.
McCarthy and Roth before McEwen any day. Updike.
America’s the greatest country on earth, I say as an outsider. But it does exert a gravity on the discourse that’s disconcerting. I know of a talented Arsenal podcaster who can refer to ICE agents as deathsquads unironically but consider the exclusion of IRGC affiliates from US soil as a grotesque and spiteful action, a view that seems pretty standard across more thoughtful sporting media.
FWIW, I probably disagree with you on the Iran conflict. I like to troll pinkos by telling them the most antifa thing to happen in years was the decapitation strike carried out on the leaders of the regime.
The history of the world is splattered with blood. Homo sapiens is the apex predator and always capable of extreme violence.
That millions of strangers all over the world - especially the Christian world - live together peacefully is extraordinary.
I'm a Brit. Boomer so soaked in American popular country since birth. Still love rock 'n roll, aged 74.
I love America. The City on the Hill.
Need to deal with those extreme left Dems - they want to destroy the USA. As do Labour, here.
I tend to think of America and Americans as being the same as us, but somehow the bell curves there are stretched. It’s a land of extremes.