October 11, 2020

Novel Considerations covid-19: day 204 | US: GA | info | act

The bookstore is bothering me. I have to submit my book orders for the spring, and my novel class is holding me up. Here are the shortish, contemporary American and British novels I’m considering so far. The ⭐️ed ones are probably on the syllabus.

• Atwood — The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) ⭐️ ✅ 💯
• Baldwin — Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) ✅ 💯
• Ballard — Crash (1973) ⭐️
• Burgess — A Clockwork Orange (1962)
• Butler — Kindred (1979)
• DeLillo — White Noise (1985) 💯 / Zero K (2016) ✅
• Dick — Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
• Ishiguro — Never Let Me Go (2005) ⭐️ ✅ 💯
• Mailer — An American Dream (1965) ⭐️ ✅ 💯
• McCarthy — Blood Meridian (1985) ✅
• Morrison — The Bluest Eye (1970) ⭐️ ✅ 💯
• Pynchon — The Crying of Lot 49 (1965)
• Robinson — Housekeeping (1980)
• Roth — American Pastoral (1997) ✅
• Tiptree — Houston (1976, novella) ✅ 💯
• Vonnegut — Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) ⭐️ ✅ 💯

I know: most are white men. I figure I can get in seven or eight novels. I guess it would help if I had a focus tighter than “the novel in English after WWII.”

Update: How about “The Mythology of the New West” as a loose theme? What are the narratives that attempt to define us as a collective after World War II? What is the role of religion, capitalism, race, gender, human rights, etc.—and what forces are aligned against them? The second round choices have a ✅. If I keep it to one novel per decade, I can probably come up with a manageable list. I’m going to have to make some hard choices.

Update 2: 💯 indicates a final selection.

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