I vote Moby Dick because, even though you can skip the middle third, as has been noted, there's a lot going on in there. Exploration, obsession, dry zooology, and one of the chapters is written in play format. Things switch around and the bigness of the narrative is part of it, for me.
Anyway post your opinions.
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Anonymous2005-03-23 12:57
Brave New World, it speaks volumes about what's wrong with us.
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Anonymous2005-03-23 12:58
<3 Holden Caulfield
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Anonymous2005-03-23 13:55
Nah, there's a little Holden Caulfield in all of us. Nothing special.
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Anonymous2005-03-24 18:33
goddamned phonies
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Anonymous2005-04-03 14:53
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
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Anonymous2005-04-06 19:33
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
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Anonymous2005-04-09 15:45
On the Road
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Anonymous2005-04-12 7:05
I like Ernest Hemingway very much.'The Old Man and the Sea 'is best of my life.
Strong, gently, and softly. And hundsome.
The Old Man And The Sea is a wonderful book. I read it often.
Have you read The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald?
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Anonymous2005-04-19 19:11
Lolita
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Anonymous2005-04-20 3:46
anything by David Sedaris. Though now that I am in college and rereading his books they seem less amusing and more depressing than they did when I read them early in high school.
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Anonymous2006-03-10 0:23 (sage)
The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
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Anonymous2006-03-12 17:16
Green Eggs and Ham
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Anonymous2006-03-16 16:53
The author has to be American, people. There is absolutely no way in hell for a non-American to write a true American novel. Hemingway, Huxley, and Nabokov are far calls from American.
I vote The Great Gatsby as well. Death of a Salesmen would top it if it weren't a play. Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck and Player Piano by Vonnegut are both contenders for the top too.
Salinger is too atypical and Eastern and the Beat bastards are too anti-American.
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Anonymous2006-03-16 17:30
Archie
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Anonymous2006-03-16 23:43
>>6
Agreed. It shows the horror and "splendor" of the American animal set loose. Fucking fried gold.
ummm yeah hemingway is a brit, but I gotta say the whole idea of "great american novel" is very... strange. I mean who cares what the greatest american novel is?- the question what's the best novel is much cooler? Fucking nationalism man. it's everywhere.
I vote "Cat's Cradle" by Vonnegut
fuck the grapes of wrath btw
never read the book about the white whale but probably as annoying as Grapes.
What about the great gatsby?
yay for Fear and Loathing.
I like Chuck Palahnuik - I see nobody's voted in any of his books.
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Anonymous2011-06-29 14:18
East of Eden was Steinbeck's best, not Grapes or Mice. Neither is it the greatest american novel, that's obviously huck finn.