The Neglected 20th Century American Novel

Interesting idea. Who are the students who will be reading these books? College students?

I like the suggestions of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and A Separate Peace. It's also nice to have a mix of books, with some the students will have never heard of, and some being classics that the students are familiar with in some sense, without necessarily having read them. This list, as it is, most likely covers those two spheres quite nicely (though it depends on who your students are).

As for further suggestions, I can throw out a few ideas, although I might be able to make even better suggestions if I can get more of a sense of what kind of books you're looking for. There are probably enough neglected books for many, many classes, so narrowing the list down to an amount for a single class will obviously involve some kind of criteria besides a book simply being neglected in some sense.

But in any case, I'll just throw out a small selection of titles to start with, and see what happens.

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. (I know you've lived in New Orleans, so I figured you're probably familiar with this book.)

We by Yevgeny Zemyatin. (The less well-known predecessor to essential books like Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World.)

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (Very famous author obviously, but most people read other Hemingway books before this one.)

Cry, the beloved country by Alan Paton. (Another book that's fairly well-known, but might be considered neglected in terms of how many people have read it. Might be interesting also because of the book's setting in South Africa.)

No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre. (This is a play, not a novel, but it's an easy introduction to an author not widely read nowadays by young Americans.)

Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help. This sounds like a fun class.

Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49"
Philip Roth's "The Human Stain" (written in 2000, grrrrr)
Ishmael Reed's "Mumbo Jumbo"


(and I second "The Moviegoer" by Percy)

"The Bushwhacked Piano" by Thomas McGuane
"Ironweed" by William Kennedy
(Another vote for Separate Peace)

Chris P said:

I'm surprised some of you think A Separate Peace isn't studied enough.

I'm not sure if they're study worthy, but when I think of 20th Century novels I think of:

Rabbit, Run - John Updike
40 Days of Musa Dagh - Franz Werfel
A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh
Zorba the Greek - Nikos Kazantzakis
Generation X - Douglas Coupland
On the Road - Jack Kerouac

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I thought about mentioning Rabbit, Run, myself.

I can understand your point about A Separate Peace. Honestly, I don't know how widely that book is read or studied. But I liked seeing it on the list because it's a book I've enjoyed (several times actually).

Probably wouldn't have mentioned it if Bbird hadn't mentioned it first, though.

I think Updike needs to be on the list somewhere even if not one of his Rabbit books. He might make a nice addition to a 20th century American fiction class with some of his shorts. But, if you are looking for novels, I think Rabbit, Run is a good one to go with.

a question:

how late into the 20th century would you go with your reading list?

there are several great novels that come close to the year 2000 that I'd add

milly said:

a question:

how late into the 20th century would you go with your reading list?

there are several great novels that come close to the year 2000 that I'd add

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Yeah, I was wondering that, too, since you mentioned The Human Stain. That book was published in 2000, I believe.

Coincidentally, I was thinking about mentioning Portnoy's Complaint (another Roth novel) in my earlier list, but wasn't sure if it would be considered neglected. I'm pretty sure none of my friends have read it, at least.

I thought of Portnoy's too, mostly because it was a sort of cementing book for Roth but wasn't sure because of the graphic nature of it by comparison to The Human Stain or even American Pastoral

Of course, that might be just the ticket for today's college age readers...not sure, either way, it'd be nice to see more students reading Roth when yeah, I know NONE of my friends have

How about The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe? Can you assign that book to high school or college kids? I read it when I was in high school but I might be unusual.

I'm not sure whether it is now or not, but it used to be that A Separate Peace was one of the assigned novels to be read by almost every high school student (along with To Kill a Mockingbird and a few others).

milly said:

I thought of Portnoy's too, mostly because it was a sort of cementing book for Roth but wasn't sure because of the graphic nature of it by comparison to The Human Stain or even American Pastoral

Of course, that might be just the ticket for today's college age readers...not sure, either way, it'd be nice to see more students reading Roth when yeah, I know NONE of my friends have

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Yeah, I read Portnoy's Complaint when I was a teenager. The naughty bits certainly didn't bother me.

American Pastoral is actually my favorite Roth book. That might be a great choice if Bbird doesn't mind the fact that the book was published in the late nineties.

American Pastoral is about 4 down on my Roth fave list. But, for a reading discussion, it would easily be the first. I think the late 90's should count.

blacbird said:

An idea for a literature class I'd like to teach, suggested by a bit of personal message correspondence here. The concept isn't so much "forgotten" works, as it is works much less often read than they deserve to be. In some cases it involves works by very famous authors, but not the ones most commonly studied. My proposed reading curriculum, order not yet determined:

Mildred Pierce, by James M. Cain
The Ox-Bow Incident, by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
Miss Lonelyhearts, by Nathanael West
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
Java Head, by Joseph Hergesheimer
Native Son, by Richard Wright
Sartoris, by William Faulkner
Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger
A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
The Journal of Albion Moonlight, by Kenneth Patchen

other nominees?

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The Locusts have no King -- Dawn Powell

It's been pointed out to me in PM that three of my suggestions were not by American authors, which I knew, although I seem to have glossed over the word "American" in the thread title.

So I'll make up for it by suggesting some books to replace them, all by American authors.

In no particular order,

1. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles (It might be interesting to include a book by an American author who spent so much of his life abroad, and reflected that in his work. This novel takes place in North Africa.)

2. This Side of Paradise or Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Everyone has read The Great Gatsby. But Fitzgerald's other novels, not so much.)

3. Summer Crossing by Truman Capote. (This might be an interesting pick, because it's a book neglected for an unusual reason. It was Capote's first novel, and he claimed to have destroyed the manuscript, but it was found in the trash by Capote's house sitter, who held onto it for years. The book was finally published fairly recently (maybe five years ago or so), long after Capote's death. If that's too obscure, there's also Breakfast at Tiffany's, but that's certainly not quite as neglected.)

Hope this helps!

I almost added those other Fitzgerald ones. I think This Side of Paradise is fantastic.

I'd also add Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" as a possibility

and, perhaps one Saul Bellow or Bernard Malamud pick would be nice...and definitely different from the standard reading lists you typically see in college

Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler. (Neglected in class, at least.)

almost anything by don delilo....underworld is a marvel...

Dandroid said:

almost anything by don delilo....underworld is a marvel...

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Nobody every talks about Libra do they?

Torgo said:

Nobody every talks about Libra do they?

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libra is on my list for reread very soon.

How about adding some women to the list? Some suggestions:

The Handmaid's Tale, Margret Atwood
Their Eyes were watching God, Zora Neal Hurston
Play it as it Lays, Joan Didion
Oral History, Lee Smith
Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy
Beloved, Toni Morrison
I know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou