7 classic American literature everyone should read

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

American classical literature reflects the eternal truths of universal human significance. It is the duty of any educated person to read these works.

1. "Moby Dick", Herman Melville

Ahab never thinks, he only feels, he only feels; this is enough for every mortal. To think is insolence. This right, this privilege belongs to God alone. Thinking should be cool and calm, and our poor hearts are pounding too hard, our brains are too hot for that.

Moby Dick is the centerpiece of American romanticism. The epic story of Captain Ahab's violent, bordering madness hatred for the white sperm whale is full of Christian allusions and subtle metaphors. Through them, the entire spectrum of man's relationship with God, the natural element and himself is revealed.

In addition to its deep philosophical overtones, the novel is valuable from a cultural and historical point of view. No fiction book tells you as much about whaling as Melville's novel.

2. "Martin Eden", Jack London

Love cannot go astray, unless it is true love, and not a frail freak stumbling and falling at every turn.

London's strongest and deepest novel can be called partly autobiographical: there are many similarities between the writer and Martin Eden. Perhaps that is why the book is so fascinating and philosophically problematic. The author tried to find answers to questions that worried him during his life.

Martin Eden is the most curious attempt in American literature to combine European Nietzschean ethics with current religious and socio-humanistic teachings. The novel gives an exact answer why it is pointless to wait for the arrival of a superman. From either side of the Atlantic Ocean.

3. "The Trilogy of Desire", Theodore Dreiser

Financial activity is the same art, the most complex set of actions of intellectual and selfish people.

The cycle "Trilogy of Desire" includes three works: "The Financier", "Titan" and "Stoic". The novels are linked by a single storyline and tell the story of the life of Frank Cowperwood, a successful capitalist of the early 20th century.

Dreiser not only gives the broadest panorama of the socio-economic life of the United States at the turn of the century, but also reveals the moral and ethical problems of the capitalist world. The world in which we all live today.

4. "Farewell to Arms!" By Ernest Hemingway

Whoever wins a war will never stop fighting.

One of Hemingway's most famous novels, the themes of love, war and humanism are intertwined. A pure, light feeling between an American soldier and an English nurse arises in the face of a ruthless meat grinder. In her, the feelings are destined to go out.

This anti-war novel is a striking representative of the literature of the "lost generation." After reading it, you are imbued with such a strong aversion to death that people sow that you understand that literature is the most effective means against war.

5. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

A person merges into one with the place where he lives.

The Great Depression in the United States led to an acute shortage of jobs, which forced residents of poor states to migrate to more prosperous areas in search of food. The novel "Grapes of Wrath" tells about one such family, which was looking for a better life.

The miserable, beggarly existence of American farmers is shocking and creates a completely unexpected image of America. The novel reveals the reality of the Great Depression, which cannot be found in the pages of any history textbook.

6. The Catcher in the Rye by Jerome D. Salinger

The boredom was terrible. And there was nothing to do but drink and smoke.

Salinger's novel has a huge cultural impact. He is perhaps the most famous work of our time. What made it so popular?

The answer is quite obvious: Salinger in simple language (in which not the most censorship expressions have found a place) sharply and directly expressed the position of youthful rejection of social values. Each of us went through the stage of this rejection, but each eventually became a prisoner of the life imposed on him.

This book is a longing for a better world, so far from the real, with its paradoxes, stupidity and complexities.

7. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

- But what is generally sacred to Bokonists?

- In any case, as far as I know, not even a god.

- So nothing?

- Only one.

- Ocean? The sun?

- Human. That's all. Just a man.

Any novel by a writer can rightfully be on this list. No one has comprehended the 20th century better than Vonnegut.

The madness and irrationality that ruled at this time reveal their existence in the horror of a nuclear war. Any war in general. What is the meaning of ethics, morality, religion, if the history of mankind is the history of wars and murders?

People weave their story as if tying strings around their fingers. Let this design be called "Cat's Cradle". Why? What difference does it make, because there is actually no cat in the cradle, as well as meaning in the historical process.

The author received a master's degree in anthropology for the novel. The work of art was evaluated according to the criteria of a scientific dissertation. It definitely means something.