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I had a conversation with a friend and colleague late last month about a hypothetical class teaching the twentieth century through American novels, one per decade. As I explained to her, I’d stumbled across a similar scenario in a discussion somewhere in the wooly wilderness of the web a month or so back, and had begun mentally calculating which books I would choose for teaching such a class. The more I considered it, the more challenging of an exercise it became; the 1950s and 1960s seemed easy, but the 1970s and 1980s stumped me a bit. Most of the novels I read in the early to mid 1990s were written in the 1980s, but they were primarily sci-fi fantasy and cold war thrillers. Later on I encountered DeLillo et al, but I would never inflict DeLillo on my students — White Noise is an abomination that should be left on the shelf. I might assign McCarthy in a different class, but for one novel, representative of some aspect of the decade? Hardly. And the 1970s…well, I remember reading a lot of Michener in junior high, and then someone told me I should read Roth, which I did, then went back to Michener (Roth. Really? Why? No, seriously!). The lists became a little easier to generate when we started thinking about much more interesting female and minority writers; without a doubt, Morrison’s Beloved would be preferable to anything by DeLillo et al., at least in my book.
(I should note, as a caveat here, that my undergraduate and graduate studies alike focused very heavily on drama AND the Renaissance period, so while my friends were taking classes on 20th century novels, I was reading Jonson and Marlowe. I have no regrets!).
So, with that thought in mind, I figuredI would turn the question over to you folks on the interwebs, as I hear this is being called these days, and see what you are all thinking. We’ll start with the 1900s and work our way on up throughthe 1990s post-by-post, at least as long as folks are interested in the game. Here are the rules as such:
1) Pick an American novel first written or published between 1900 and 1909. For those of us who (sheepishly) scratch their heads at this suggestion, having lived primarily in the Renaissance or some other such superio- I mean, equally valid and interesting field of study – for the better part of a decade, I offer this list from Goodreads.com.
2) Give a brief suggestion as to how you see this novel fitting into a narrative arc of the twentieth century as told through the novel. Evolution of form? History of social / political movements? Expansion or recovery of discourses of race or gender? Sheer entertainment value (Hah! Pitch THAT one to a department and see how far you get!)?
Here’s my own pick:
1) For myself, I’m a little torn between Sinclair’s Jungle and London’s Call of the Wild, but ultimately would probably choose the latter. Part of this is because it looms much larger in my imagination; my grandparents kept a small stock of comics from the 1960s tucked neatly away in a chest, underneath a stack of blankets, and among them was the Classics Illustrated adaptation of the novel. While I had a substantial collection of comics books at home, they were all relatively new. These were special, a link to the past routed through an individual I never really knew (my uncle passed away while I was very young), and Call of the Wild was a bonus in that it extended back to the wild frontier days. I could curl up on the sofa in my grandparents living room in Northern Minnesota over holiday break, inhale the smoke from the wood furnace that heated the entire house, and look out into the snow-draped forest to imagine myself mushing across the Yukon with Buck.
2) Nostalgia trips aside, Call of the Wild strikes me as a better choice because it can be used to simultaneously thrill to and deconstruct the great American wilderness pastoral. Buck is an allegory for all of the unsuspecting men and women (but mostly men, in London’s world) who found themselves thrust into a situation where they had to decide whether to “kill or be killed, eat or be eaten.” The romantic image of the noble beast who reigns supreme in the forest is shattered, providing a metaphor for man’s illusory position vis-a-vis nature. The harsh elements of the Alaskan wilderness successfully resist the advancement of modernity — and here, modernity may even boil down to the simple concept of man being at the top of the food chain. Of course, there’s ample room for more contemporary readings as well; Buck’s successful dominance of the wolf pack near the end of the novel enables his superior bloodlines to take root and produce a new breed of dog-wolf hybrid, a trajectory suggestive of the notion that the European bloodlines of the white frontiersman would enable them to triumph over both the elements and the native (also fictitious) “Yeehat” indians. Thus, Call of the Wild strikes me as an excellent platform for dissecting the mental and emotional valences of first-decade 20th century America — the promise of the western lands dwindling in the face of harsh reality, leaving an enduring mythos about rugged American individualism, all built upon a discourse of subjection. Although the nostalgia may be what’s winning me over here in the end!
All right — your turn!
Amended:
As per the excellent suggestion in the comments below, feel free to provide two sets of answers — one open to the entire field of writers / novels, and one focusing on work by anyone OTHER than one of the straight, able-bodied white men. I’ll post my own updated response in the comments below later.
The Cognitive Turn 
Wharton’s The House of Mirth (1905) because it examines the fissures in the Gilded Age world and, thereby, launches a unique but also classic defense of the American individual crushed by the constraints of society. Plus it’s beautifully written and you can get a feminism argument in.
I still think this would be a fun exercise where you could include no white men (no white, straight, able-bodied men?) just to see how it would look and how it would/would not change the main narrative arc of literary history.
Absolutely! I remember that being part of our discussion on this topic — In fact, I’m going to amend the post to suggest this as a dual exercise — one w/out the good ol’ dead white men and one with.
I have to say, honestly, that I’ve been scratching my head on this one a bit. Once we hit 1910 and over, I’ve got some good texts to work with, but this has really been an illuminating exercise for me; I never envisioned 1900-1910 in American Lit being such a tricky period for me to work with. If only Cather had gotten on the ball a couple of years earlier in terms of publishing novels, I’d have an easy pick on this one! I’m going to break one of my own rules here and go with W.E.B. Dubois’s “Souls of Black Folk.” I know, I know, it’s not a novel, but it provides 1) a way to discuss the black experience at the turn of the century and 2) invites comparisons to Montaigne through its stake in the essay tradition, which can be used to propel readings of the collection as co-opting a powerful European literary genre.
I agree with Sarah about House of Mirth, but I’m also drawn to Dreiser’s Sister Carrie. Though long, it reads fast. In part what makes it valuable are the things that make it read fast: it has an omniscient narrator, a vice-and-consequences, rags-and-riches moral kind of storyline, and functions as a great example of the invisible form of the realistic novel. Bonus: it too features a strong female character, albeit one written by a white, straight, able-bodied dude.
I guess I’m going to have to square my shoulders and revisit Wharton, given all the the enthusiasm on her behalf here. I have a vague recollection of an uninspiring encounter with “Ethan Frome” in high school, which I suppose can at least be credited with bringing me to Cather via “O, Pioneers,” which followed it in the collection we used in my class.
1900s – L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). Most influential book of the 20th c.
1910s – Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology (1915). The Early 20th c. belonged to the Midwest. Although this is a collection of poetry, careful readers can find many narrative threads. In fact, one might call this a modernist experiment with narrative form.
1920s – Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt (1922). Hypocrisy.
1930s – William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! or Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men. While the latter is not technically a novel, both works play with the idea of narrative authority.
1940s – Richard Wright, Native Son (1940). Just devastating.
1950s – Clifford Simak, City (1952). Forgotten but delightful sci-fi oldie by a grandfather of the genre.
Will need to think more about the second half of the 20th c.
Good to hear from you, Tricia! Nice list — and nice, pithy analyses to boot! Some on here that I have yet to get around to — Simak is certainly intriguing. Since this has been successful thus far, I think I’m going to open up one of these discussions 1x/2x a week and see what else folks have to say … maybe play with genres, too…?
I am highly tempted to go with Sinclair’s The Jungle, but despite my love for that text I’m going to fudge this a little and go with Owen Wister’s The Virginian (1902) instead. It doesn’t really capture much in regards to the milieu of the first decade of the twentieth century in its subject matter. I prefer it for its very select historical perspective on everything from the pastoral, individualism, masculine and feminine tropes, capitalism, American exceptionalism and even colonialism. It gives a good sense of what Americans liked to think about America at the start of the twentieth century. The Virginian functions formally as general realism and as an extension of Cooper’s form of the historical novel. At the same time the novel’s underlying plot eventually destroys everything that it puts forward as making America great: specifically the frontier, which the title character has to overcome in order to prove his personal worth. The Virginian is also great for the connections it provides to a lot of defining features of the twentieth century. Wister suffered from nerves and was treated by Silas Weir Mitchell, the same doctor who ordered the Rest Cure for Charlotte Perkins Gilman and led to “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Of course, this all happened in the nineteenth century, but it provides a good way to set up the debates about sex and gender that dominate the twentieth. Finally, it’s a poster child for popular success and media adaptations: it has four film adaptations (ignoring a made for TV movie in 2000) and a nine year run as a TV series on NBC from 1962-1971. Exploring the reasons for that success over so many adaptations throughout much of the century would be a compelling way to start things out.
Getting away from the dead white guy trope I’m going to second sarahsss and say Wharton’s House of Mirth for the same reasons.
Love “The Virginian,” very nice pick, and I hadn’t really thought of it in terms of being an “extension” of Cooper before, but that seems like an excellent fit…I may have to steal that if called upon to teach this class one day!
Nick, I think The Virginian is a good choice. You could make connections from Thomas Jefferson (the prototypical Virginian) to neo-Westerns. I would definitely choose that over The Jungle. I might also consider Frank Norris’s The Pit, part of the unfinished Wheat trilogy.
Good call on the Jefferson connections, Tricia. It’s something that I haven’t had reason to emphasize in my own work on the novel so I tend not to explore it enough. Also, Norris’s The Pit is one that has been on my “to read” list for ages! Someday I’ll get to it.
Tricia took one of my top 2 w/ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: a book very few people read but everyone should. The other would be London’s The Iron Heel (1908). Besides obvious connections to the politics of the era, this novel has a number of interesting form/genre elements (first person female narration by a male writer, speculative fiction in an era prior to such a genre label existing, debatably the first dystopian novel, etc.) that would make it a good teaching book.
I’d be out of luck if I had to pick using Sarah’s criteria since the only thing that I’ve read and comes to mind is Austin’s The Land of Little Rain, which isn’t really a novel.
Tricia took one of my top 2 w/ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: a book very few people read but everyone should. The other would be London’s The Iron Heel (1908). Besides obvious connections to the politics of the era, this novel has a number of interesting form/genre elements (first person female narration by a male writer, speculative fiction in an era prior to such a genre label existing, debatably the first dystopian novel, etc.) that would make it a good teaching book.
I’d be out of luck if I had to pick using Sarah’s criteria since the only thing that I’ve read, meets the criteria, and comes to mind is Austin’s The Land of Little Rain, which isn’t really a novel.
Oh, and getting to do background on London’s biography, politics, and racism would be a good way to cover issues in the era that few other writers can offer.
That’s what I figure — the animal allegory leaves a lot of room for good old-fashioned formalist readings, and London’s socialist politics provide a nice bridge back to the works of Sinclair, etc.
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I’m weighing in rather late to the discussion, but definitely The Wonderful Wizard of OZ, it’s the first novel about consumer “shopping” and the idea that contentment is found through the purchasing of the right product (a medal, a diploma, etc.). This truly sets the frame for the 20th C.
I have to admit, I’ve never thought of “Oz” quite in that context before. It’s been forever since I read it, though — I was way too young to really appreciate the subtext, I know that! See, this is why I’ve been running this series, to generate ideas, and “Oz” is one I never would have put in the running until now!