The Great British Novel

[Lizzie]

 t.s. eliot

He was British. He forsook us and became one of yours.

Or was that the point? That one of our so called good artists was actually yours?

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why do american writers hanker after writing The Great American Novel, at all? Why aspire for greatness? Is that a real question?

why don’t british writers or australian writers or french writers or german writers (serious german writers) or russian writers harbor similar desires? Don't they? You can't seriously know what's in everyone's mind.... Just because they don't SAY they do doesn't mean they don't.

but this is by the by, because i’m  assuming, regardless of aspirations and consciously demarcated goals, there surely are novels equivalent to The Great American Novel, for all of those other places. Word on the street is that Anna Karenina is the greatest novel ever written, The Brothers Karamazov coming in a close second. Just like the Olympics, the gold always goes to Russia.

Except this year, I guess.