Favorite American novel of the 19th Century

[BurtWorm]

Poll question: Favorite American novel of the 19th Century

[BigMcLargehuge]

1. Gotta go with Mellville

It's one of the only books I've ever reread for pleasure.

[BurtWorm]

2. It is a wonderful book.

I was rereading parts of it last week. It gave me tremendous pleasure when I first read it a few years ago. It's an original!

[Nazgul35]

3. you must've read the abridge version...

or are you gonna tell me the chapter on pollpitching sweep you away?

:evilgrin:

5 chapters of whale story....87 chapters on how to be a whaler...ugggghhhhhhhh.....

[BigMcLargehuge]

7. actually... I was born and raised in New Bedford

so the actual Whaling technology parts were amazingly informative. He collected more whales and whaling research than anyone of his day, AND managed to write an amazing story to make it palatable.

[BurtWorm]

9. Those chapters are actually extremely creatively written

They're not just straightforward expositions about whaling. They're full of sexual innuendo and allusions to all sorts of literature. I was totally entranced by them.

[SOteric]

4. Stephen Crane, "The Red Badge of Courage."

And it should be noted that while her greater success was just a smidge after the turn of the century, Edith Wharton is better identified with the 19th century, as well.

[BurtWorm]

8. I wanted this to be strictly chronological.

I thought about Wharton. I could have included Dreiser's Sister Carrie, actually, and Norris's McTeague. There were some great novels written in the last decade.

[dofus]

5. I read Uncle Tom's Cabin

several year's ago when NPR's Talk of the Nation was doing their book club of the air. I was amazed at how incredibly good and riveting that book is. It's power comes from the fact that it was written while slavery was still an entrenched system. Unlike pre-Civil War novels written after 1865, there's no sense at all that it (slavery) will come to an end, and so there's a despair and sense of struggle throughout the book that is utterly grounded in the reality of the time.

Towards the end, when the action is taking places on a plantation down the river, it feels almost like a Nazi concentration camp in WWII. I thought I was reading a vision of the future.

[HEyHEY]

6. Take one from Huck and add it to Tom Sawyer

Loved that book

[mitchum]

10. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is my favorite American...

novel of any century. However, Harold Frederick's "The Damnation of Theron Ware" is an underappreciated masterpiece.

[CShine]

11. Edited

[WindRavenX]

12. Huck Finn

One of the most misunderstood books ever written. I fail to see how it is racist- Huck is a moral character that realizes the pain that slavery causes.
A wonderful, wonderful book.