The Best Southern Novels of All Time

Ocford American ^ | August 27 2009

[a fool in paradise]

Will other FReepers identify which books would be considered “Southern Apologetics” so i may avoid them.

I thought that American literature was harsh on Southern people and then I got a taste of Canadian literature that held the same view of all Americans.

Read in college.

[LonePalm]

It is only 19 pages but how about H. L. Mencken's "Sahara of the Bozart?"

It was credited with single-handedly reviving the arts in the South after the civil war.

"You can't go home again" by Thomas Wolfe.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Picky.

[slumber1]

As much as I liked Lonesome Dove (and I did read the novel) The Last Picture Show is as good as To Kill A Mockingbird or anything by Faulkner.

Of course I am a Texas boy so I’m a bit biased in favor of novels set in Texas. Hud - by McMurtry is pretty darn good too

[Sudetenland]

I guess that’s why they make vanilla and chocolate ice cream...people’s tastes vary.

[Migraine]

Robert Ruark -- The Old Man and the Boy

James Dickey -- Deliverance made the list. That's good.

[Borges]

But in matters of pure fact, the story in TSATF is a genunine tragedy that encompasses many decades of Southern history. I hope you’ll give the book another chance one day. Not all of it is SOC.

[SoDak]

I agree, I’ve started that book many times and it just makes me hostile reading it. I threw my copy in the dumpster, lest anyone else happen upon it, and be vexed. Same goes for Ulysses, which is only good as a table-leveller.

[T Minus Four]

One of the most important Southern works of all time inexplicably failed to make the list!

[Tijeras_Slim]

Robert Ruark -- The Old Man and the Boy

A+!

[Borges]

Just get past the first section. It’s told from the point of view of a mentally retarded man who has no sense of time. Ulysses is great.

[Little Bill]

30/40 Krag if I remember correctly, had one when I was a kid, smooth action, very actuate.

[JoeProBono]

[Wallace T.]

The question arises as to whether Texas writers are Southern writers. Of course, Texas was predominantly settled by Southerners and is culturally Southern, but the physical environment of the Lone Star State is very different from the older Southern states. West of Fort Worth and Austin lie the vast Great Plains, a very different landscape than the rest of the Confederacy. The Texas economy did not enter a 80-90 year slump as did the rest of the South following Appomattox. Cattle and oil, along with vast areas open to homesteading, led to a far stronger economy and great population growth from 1870 until 1930, even as the older South stagnated. Additionally, Texas was for the most part not a battleground between 1861 and 1865, and Union invasions were easily repelled. Generals like Sherman and Sheridan did not devastate the state, unlike Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia. You also cannot discount the Central European and Hispanic influences, which, though mostly confined to Central and South Texas, are not found elsewhere in the South.

As a result, the effect of the Lost Cause and the pessimism engendered by decades of a stagnant economy were not factors in the Texas collective conscience, as they were in the pre-World War II South. Thus, the state's fiction writers did not reflect the same experience as those in the older South. Texas literature is related to Southern literature, but represents at least a subcategory, if not a separate one.

[slumber1]

Agreed - and I kinda took that into consideration when perusing the list which seems to be deep south oriented.

As always Texas stands apart from the rest

[winstonwolf33]