5 ms·

Personally, aside from Russian literature, I now prefer American literature, which I think is underestimated in China. I really like that film adaptation, but w

Personally, aside from Russian literature, I now prefer American literature, which I think is underestimated in China. I really like that film adaptation, but what the film expresses is something else, not the same as the novel’s core theme. My own understanding is that American literature has at least three themes that are very distinctive and different from Europe(or other countries). One is the depiction of desolation and human loneliness before the American continent was developed into a prosperous land. Another is the pursuit of the American Dream, where people achieve success through relentless struggle. The third is what this novel expresses: what happens after success? Money and career cannot solve all problems; people need more to fill an entire life. I think this kind of contradiction is expressed most clearly in American literature and is also most worth articulating within the American cultural context. This is because its commodity economy and social transformation have been too successful, and it lacks the kind of historical entanglements that Europe has to dilute these problems. As a result, this sense of emptiness stands out even more sharply and demands a more urgent response. I don’t know if there are horror films like this, but I once saw something similar in the TV series WandaVision. She creates an illusion in which she and Vision are a standard middle-class couple, well-fed and well-clothed, with the visuals in black and white. This made it feel like a horror story to me. Why? Because you feel as if they lack nothing, yet they seem like empty shells: their lives are filled with commodities, and all their actions seem stripped of a spiritual dimension. Of course, I don’t think that America’s secular success means it has no spiritual world; rather, the former has been so successful that the latter has been greatly neglected. The purpose of American literature should be to depict, under the success of this commodity economy, what people’s inner lives have actually become, and what they ought to pursue. This, to me, is its most distinctive quality.

Exoristos 10mo ago
Ancestral Americans really do not have a "spiritual world," in my opinion, as acquisitiveness and power games suffuse even our churches, spiritual movements, and fraternal societies. The emptiness you delineate is very integral to the long-term American experience. As a reaction, addictive and manic personalities are endemic.
- yanhangyhy 10mo ago
  You reminded me of that experiment a social media influencer did earlier. American Christian churches refused to provide her with help, but other religions did.
  - lostlogin 10mo ago
    It almost makes you wonder who religion is for. https://julieroys.com/tiktok-experiment-most-churches-give-milk-starving-baby-probably-not/ https://julieroys.com/tiktok-experiment-most-churches-give-m...
    - Fnoord 10mo ago
      > It almost makes you wonder who religion is for. Roleplayers. People who want to LARP they're Christians, while in practice they don't behave like them when the situation arises.
  - brightball 10mo ago
    Those churches referred her to food pantries that were funded and operated by donations and volunteers from multiple churches. They help people so often that there are entire subsets of organizations dedicated to different areas of need. Food, housing, disaster relief, clothing, rehab, women’s shelters. One church in North Carolina that wasn’t involved with a local food pantry did just help her directly. In order to ignore all that you’d almost have to think that the social media influencer was just trying to get attention…
    - ZeroSolstice 10mo ago
      I think the saying is "missing the forest for the trees.[1]" Referring someone to another food bank or resource is not addressing or owning the immediate problem, which is what the experiment showed. Those organizations failed at their primary objective and instead of re-evaluating why they failed they hid behind process and procedure and how they were being tricked since it wasn't a "real" problem. There was a proper way to handle this situation as anyone who has worked or called into customer service or tech support where their issue was addressed no matter what the internal structure of the organization was. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/miss%20the%20forest%20for%20the%20trees https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/miss%20the%20fore...
Sprotch 10mo ago
You are going to love Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola.
- yanhangyhy 10mo ago
  i definitely will give it a try
  - librasteve 10mo ago
    La Bête Humane
    - yanhangyhy 10mo ago
      I know Zola, but I don't know why I haven't read his works yet. Just by reading the introduction, I know I would probably love all his works. Maybe it's because I've been reading more history and less fiction in recent years.
- rkomorn 10mo ago
  Balzac is quite fantastic. And also not great for you if you have too much empathy for the characters but decide to read 10 of his books/stories in a row.
normie3000 10mo ago
> My own understanding is that American literature has at least three themes that are very distinctive and different from Europe... Another is ... relentless struggle I feel like Russian literature touches on this.
- yanhangyhy 10mo ago
  I think there is, but not as stark as in the U.S.—the worldly success versus the spiritual “lack” is less contrasted.
  - normie3000 10mo ago
    Sorry - I was messing around by selectively misquoting you. Giving more of your original context: > where people achieve success through relentless struggle In my limited experience of Russian literature, the struggle doesn't lead to success!
    - yanhangyhy 10mo ago
      > In my limited experience of Russian literature, the struggle doesn't lead to success! There is a meme comparing different countries’ literature: France: “I would die for love.” England: “I would die for honor.” America: “I would die for freedom.” Russia: “I will die.” The harsh climate and scarce resources in Russia prevent it from producing something like the American Dream. People there seem to be more pessimistic.
      - nosianu 10mo ago
        > scarce resources What now??? Russia is one of the most resource-rich countries on the planet! They are just very inefficient in doing anything with it. The country and all its people should all be among the wealthiest on the planet.
        thaumasiotes 10mo ago
        > The country and all its people should all be among the wealthiest on the planet. ...because natural resources make a country wealthy? It hasn't worked anywhere else.
noname123 10mo ago
As a Chinese-American, in my humble opinion the Great Gatsby is the 1920's version of "On the Road", "American Psycho" and "Liar's Poker". In another words, it is about the American spirit to chase money/success/glamour in spite of the protagonist's preconceived understanding that doing so would end up ultimately futile and empty. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgasmic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther ... And one fine morning- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." IMHO, the green light is the dopamine rush of the American spirit. Your notion of the American inner life that it somehow does exists I agree with but it is imho a far cry from stereotypical notion of inner life of quiet contemplation, familial and communal obligation in the European or Chinese manner. You can look no further than in this forum where people talk about accumulating material wealth whether by pursuing a well-paid tech job at a BigTech company or raising money or bootstrapping as an "indie". And people here will have read great books and understand the notions that "money do not buy happiness" or that "family is everything", but put the same people under your so-called WandaVision test of illusions of two choices - they will, 9/10 times choose a morally compromising job BigCo, business pursuit AdTech or AI Slop that favors material accumulation at the expense of true self-actualization (Gatsby vs. Nick). IMHO the pursuit of "the green light" for the "orgasmic future" IS the American inner life, whether it be from the pioneers going West, to Italian immigrants in Brooklyn to Jersey Shore/Soprano's, to the rich Chinese Fu-Er-Dai shopping/clubbing fashion in Manhattan to the Indian immigrants going West again to switch job from WiPro to FAANG E6, the pursuit of accumulation and glamour is the inner life, dare I say "it's not even about the money" - but a spiritual pursuit of a lifetime of running to make one feel whole like Gatsby did . And that we can't help ourselves - like "boats against" rolling bubbles and crashes of the American stock markets or TikTok trends, thinking "but this time it's different", but "borne back ceaselessly" into our past selves of emptiness that we were trying to fill up with wealth and social status in the 1st place.
- Sprotch 10mo ago
  I think there’s a nuance. Chasing the low millions, and therefore financial security and comfort, is not the same as chasing billions, which would be Gatsby territory
anal_reactor 10mo ago
> Because you feel as if they lack nothing, yet they seem like empty shells: their lives are filled with commodities, and all their actions seem stripped of a spiritual dimension. This is exactly the situation I am in. I really really don't know what to do.
- yanhangyhy 10mo ago
  For me, I often have similar feelings. However, I have enjoyed reading since I was a child, so I usually know how to pass the time. There are countless excellent works, both novels and nonfiction, that one could never finish reading.
- lababidi 10mo ago
  Figure out what is important to you. Just listen and don't force it. Don't feel guilty or shameful of where you are; it's ok. Be present in your feelings including the difficult ones.
  - anal_reactor 10mo ago
    I want to be not fucking lonely.
- ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago
  I am always a strong advocate of doing volunteer/nonprofit work. Folks on HN have some truly valuable skills that could make a huge difference. NPO work also brings together passionate, like-minded people. It’s an automatic community.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago
    > -1 points Well, that was quite a surprising reaction. I guess it makes a statement. I'm just not sure what the statement is, though.
petrocrat 10mo ago
Also that the "spiritual world" (i.e. religion) in America has been colonized by money, consumption and commodities as well, which has drained all the spirituality from it. Religion in America is as desolate of meaning and sustenance as the American Western Frontier. You have to be a heretic to find spirituality that's worth anything here.
idoubtit 10mo ago
I've read thousands of books. There are good novels everywhere, and no country has the exclusivity of any theme. > One is the depiction of desolation and human loneliness before the American continent was developed into a prosperous land. Of course, classical European literature didn't focus on the American wilderness. Though the most famous book on this theme is probably Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. And I enjoyed T.E. Lawrence' Seven Pillars of Wisdom which most people know through the film; the Arabian desert was a good place for loneliness in the wilderness. > Another is the pursuit of the American Dream, where people achieve success through relentless struggle. Like wise, the American Dream is an American myth, which is rarely the focus outside of the USA. But searching success through relentless struggle is a frequent theme. For instance, Stendhal's Le rouge et le noir or Maupassant's Bel-ami. These are from two of the most famous classical French authors, but there are many novels about hard-working people that reach success. > The third is what this novel expresses: what happens after success? Money and career cannot solve all problems; people need more to fill an entire life. As you like Russian literature, I suppose you've read Goncharov's Oblomov and Chekov's theater, especially Uncle Vania. That theme is central in one of the most famous French novel, Flaubert's Madame Bovary. The excellent Italian writer Alberto Moravia also has many novels about this, the most famous being Il disprezzo and my favourite being Gli indifferenti. I also like D'Annunzio's Il piacere much more than The Great Gatsby. I would argue that variations of this theme are universal, with old writings like the Bibles's Qohelet and even more Sumer's Gilgamesh.
- yanhangyhy 10mo ago
  I think what you said makes a lot of sense, and my earlier comment wasn’t very rigorous. More accurately, the most interesting thing about the United States is that it has almost stripped away all other influencing factors—no deep history, no influence from classical literature. If we set aside the atrocities committed against the Native Americans, it’s as if the country started from an untouched, resource-rich continent and rapidly evolved into the most advanced capitalist society. This makes the contrast between material wealth and the spiritual world especially stark and easy to observe.
- JCattheATM 10mo ago
  > Like wise, the American Dream is an American myth, It's not a myth, it's just vastly overstated in its accessibility and chance of being able to achieve it.
corimaith 10mo ago
From the perspective of an otaku, that's an ironic conclusion. The confusion regarding the neglected interiority was a conscious decision by the mainstream in the beginning was it not? That's perhaps not to say that the otaku lifestyle as is today is preferable, but it always more about the transcendent experiences they were reaching for, an activity labelled childish by their peers. Meaning was never an issue, just actualization.
Balgair 10mo ago
I'd add in a 4th category: Slavery. Though no longer pertinent explicitly, the original sin of America is a potent literary force. We still feel it's sting in our African American literature nearly axiomatically. Almost by definition, any southern gothic literature will revolve around the effects of slavery, which includes some of our greatest novels. Per the Great Gatsby, the story itself is one of the most powerful arcs out there: The Hero arc with a disillusionment ending. It's not exactly a negative change arc for the protagonist (Nick), but it's meant to feel like one. Nick is physically better off than he starts out, but his opinions and feelings about the world at large are negative. He has grown up, fought the dragon, healed the sick king, beaten the bully, encouraged the coward, and gotten the damsel. But Fitzgerald adeptly makes them all hollow. It's a great and quick read. A really tight plot and good prose.
- yanhangyhy 10mo ago
  Yes. I’ve probably only read Gone with the Wind and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Still, it feels like a fair share of American novels touch on this theme to varying degrees.
scoofy 10mo ago
There are some subtleties in Gatsby that most people miss, and isn't even addressed in the article. Jay Gatsby (James Gatz) is probably Jewish. Nick Carraway is probably gay, but at least bisexual. Both of these traits forced people into lower castes this era in high-status society. To me the lens of the book is repeatedly the failure of "if only I can win them over" slowly becoming the unsatisfying "these people were always assholes." Whether it's parties, a potential spouse, or important friends, the entire concept of class structure is poison. If people are good people, it shouldn't matter how they present themselves... that's just what I've always taken away from it. It seems like a theme that someone with Fitzgerald's background would want to convey, especially someone with that background who enjoined the company of people like Hemingway. And I think that's been a theme of American culture since reconstruction.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

Exoristos 10mo ago

Ancestral Americans really do not have a "spiritual world," in my opinion, as acquisitiveness and power games suffuse even our churches, spiritual movements, and fraternal societies. The emptiness you delineate is very integral to the long-term American experience. As a reaction, addictive and manic personalities are endemic.

yanhangyhy 10mo ago
You reminded me of that experiment a social media influencer did earlier. American Christian churches refused to provide her with help, but other religions did.
- lostlogin 10mo ago
  It almost makes you wonder who religion is for. https://julieroys.com/tiktok-experiment-most-churches-give-milk-starving-baby-probably-not/ https://julieroys.com/tiktok-experiment-most-churches-give-m...
  - Fnoord 10mo ago
    > It almost makes you wonder who religion is for. Roleplayers. People who want to LARP they're Christians, while in practice they don't behave like them when the situation arises.
- brightball 10mo ago
  Those churches referred her to food pantries that were funded and operated by donations and volunteers from multiple churches. They help people so often that there are entire subsets of organizations dedicated to different areas of need. Food, housing, disaster relief, clothing, rehab, women’s shelters. One church in North Carolina that wasn’t involved with a local food pantry did just help her directly. In order to ignore all that you’d almost have to think that the social media influencer was just trying to get attention…
  - ZeroSolstice 10mo ago
    I think the saying is "missing the forest for the trees.[1]" Referring someone to another food bank or resource is not addressing or owning the immediate problem, which is what the experiment showed. Those organizations failed at their primary objective and instead of re-evaluating why they failed they hid behind process and procedure and how they were being tricked since it wasn't a "real" problem. There was a proper way to handle this situation as anyone who has worked or called into customer service or tech support where their issue was addressed no matter what the internal structure of the organization was. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/miss%20the%20forest%20for%20the%20trees https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/miss%20the%20fore...

Sprotch 10mo ago

You are going to love Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola.

yanhangyhy 10mo ago
i definitely will give it a try
- librasteve 10mo ago
  La Bête Humane
  - yanhangyhy 10mo ago
    I know Zola, but I don't know why I haven't read his works yet. Just by reading the introduction, I know I would probably love all his works. Maybe it's because I've been reading more history and less fiction in recent years.
rkomorn 10mo ago
Balzac is quite fantastic. And also not great for you if you have too much empathy for the characters but decide to read 10 of his books/stories in a row.

normie3000 10mo ago

> My own understanding is that American literature has at least three themes that are very distinctive and different from Europe... Another is ... relentless struggle I feel like Russian literature touches on this.

yanhangyhy 10mo ago
I think there is, but not as stark as in the U.S.—the worldly success versus the spiritual “lack” is less contrasted.
- normie3000 10mo ago
  Sorry - I was messing around by selectively misquoting you. Giving more of your original context: > where people achieve success through relentless struggle In my limited experience of Russian literature, the struggle doesn't lead to success!
  - yanhangyhy 10mo ago
    > In my limited experience of Russian literature, the struggle doesn't lead to success! There is a meme comparing different countries’ literature: France: “I would die for love.” England: “I would die for honor.” America: “I would die for freedom.” Russia: “I will die.” The harsh climate and scarce resources in Russia prevent it from producing something like the American Dream. People there seem to be more pessimistic.
    - nosianu 10mo ago
      > scarce resources What now??? Russia is one of the most resource-rich countries on the planet! They are just very inefficient in doing anything with it. The country and all its people should all be among the wealthiest on the planet.
      - thaumasiotes 10mo ago
        > The country and all its people should all be among the wealthiest on the planet. ...because natural resources make a country wealthy? It hasn't worked anywhere else.

noname123 10mo ago

As a Chinese-American, in my humble opinion the Great Gatsby is the 1920's version of "On the Road", "American Psycho" and "Liar's Poker". In another words, it is about the American spirit to chase money/success/glamour in spite of the protagonist's preconceived understanding that doing so would end up ultimately futile and empty. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgasmic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther ... And one fine morning- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." IMHO, the green light is the dopamine rush of the American spirit. Your notion of the American inner life that it somehow does exists I agree with but it is imho a far cry from stereotypical notion of inner life of quiet contemplation, familial and communal obligation in the European or Chinese manner. You can look no further than in this forum where people talk about accumulating material wealth whether by pursuing a well-paid tech job at a BigTech company or raising money or bootstrapping as an "indie". And people here will have read great books and understand the notions that "money do not buy happiness" or that "family is everything", but put the same people under your so-called WandaVision test of illusions of two choices - they will, 9/10 times choose a morally compromising job BigCo, business pursuit AdTech or AI Slop that favors material accumulation at the expense of true self-actualization (Gatsby vs. Nick). IMHO the pursuit of "the green light" for the "orgasmic future" IS the American inner life, whether it be from the pioneers going West, to Italian immigrants in Brooklyn to Jersey Shore/Soprano's, to the rich Chinese Fu-Er-Dai shopping/clubbing fashion in Manhattan to the Indian immigrants going West again to switch job from WiPro to FAANG E6, the pursuit of accumulation and glamour is the inner life, dare I say "it's not even about the money" - but a spiritual pursuit of a lifetime of running to make one feel whole like Gatsby did . And that we can't help ourselves - like "boats against" rolling bubbles and crashes of the American stock markets or TikTok trends, thinking "but this time it's different", but "borne back ceaselessly" into our past selves of emptiness that we were trying to fill up with wealth and social status in the 1st place.

Sprotch 10mo ago
I think there’s a nuance. Chasing the low millions, and therefore financial security and comfort, is not the same as chasing billions, which would be Gatsby territory

anal_reactor 10mo ago

> Because you feel as if they lack nothing, yet they seem like empty shells: their lives are filled with commodities, and all their actions seem stripped of a spiritual dimension. This is exactly the situation I am in. I really really don't know what to do.

yanhangyhy 10mo ago
For me, I often have similar feelings. However, I have enjoyed reading since I was a child, so I usually know how to pass the time. There are countless excellent works, both novels and nonfiction, that one could never finish reading.
lababidi 10mo ago
Figure out what is important to you. Just listen and don't force it. Don't feel guilty or shameful of where you are; it's ok. Be present in your feelings including the difficult ones.
- anal_reactor 10mo ago
  I want to be not fucking lonely.
ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago
I am always a strong advocate of doing volunteer/nonprofit work. Folks on HN have some truly valuable skills that could make a huge difference. NPO work also brings together passionate, like-minded people. It’s an automatic community.
- ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago
  > -1 points Well, that was quite a surprising reaction. I guess it makes a statement. I'm just not sure what the statement is, though.

petrocrat 10mo ago

Also that the "spiritual world" (i.e. religion) in America has been colonized by money, consumption and commodities as well, which has drained all the spirituality from it. Religion in America is as desolate of meaning and sustenance as the American Western Frontier. You have to be a heretic to find spirituality that's worth anything here.

idoubtit 10mo ago

I've read thousands of books. There are good novels everywhere, and no country has the exclusivity of any theme. > One is the depiction of desolation and human loneliness before the American continent was developed into a prosperous land. Of course, classical European literature didn't focus on the American wilderness. Though the most famous book on this theme is probably Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. And I enjoyed T.E. Lawrence' Seven Pillars of Wisdom which most people know through the film; the Arabian desert was a good place for loneliness in the wilderness. > Another is the pursuit of the American Dream, where people achieve success through relentless struggle. Like wise, the American Dream is an American myth, which is rarely the focus outside of the USA. But searching success through relentless struggle is a frequent theme. For instance, Stendhal's Le rouge et le noir or Maupassant's Bel-ami. These are from two of the most famous classical French authors, but there are many novels about hard-working people that reach success. > The third is what this novel expresses: what happens after success? Money and career cannot solve all problems; people need more to fill an entire life. As you like Russian literature, I suppose you've read Goncharov's Oblomov and Chekov's theater, especially Uncle Vania. That theme is central in one of the most famous French novel, Flaubert's Madame Bovary. The excellent Italian writer Alberto Moravia also has many novels about this, the most famous being Il disprezzo and my favourite being Gli indifferenti. I also like D'Annunzio's Il piacere much more than The Great Gatsby. I would argue that variations of this theme are universal, with old writings like the Bibles's Qohelet and even more Sumer's Gilgamesh.

yanhangyhy 10mo ago
I think what you said makes a lot of sense, and my earlier comment wasn’t very rigorous. More accurately, the most interesting thing about the United States is that it has almost stripped away all other influencing factors—no deep history, no influence from classical literature. If we set aside the atrocities committed against the Native Americans, it’s as if the country started from an untouched, resource-rich continent and rapidly evolved into the most advanced capitalist society. This makes the contrast between material wealth and the spiritual world especially stark and easy to observe.
JCattheATM 10mo ago
> Like wise, the American Dream is an American myth, It's not a myth, it's just vastly overstated in its accessibility and chance of being able to achieve it.

corimaith 10mo ago

From the perspective of an otaku, that's an ironic conclusion. The confusion regarding the neglected interiority was a conscious decision by the mainstream in the beginning was it not? That's perhaps not to say that the otaku lifestyle as is today is preferable, but it always more about the transcendent experiences they were reaching for, an activity labelled childish by their peers. Meaning was never an issue, just actualization.

Balgair 10mo ago

I'd add in a 4th category: Slavery. Though no longer pertinent explicitly, the original sin of America is a potent literary force. We still feel it's sting in our African American literature nearly axiomatically. Almost by definition, any southern gothic literature will revolve around the effects of slavery, which includes some of our greatest novels. Per the Great Gatsby, the story itself is one of the most powerful arcs out there: The Hero arc with a disillusionment ending. It's not exactly a negative change arc for the protagonist (Nick), but it's meant to feel like one. Nick is physically better off than he starts out, but his opinions and feelings about the world at large are negative. He has grown up, fought the dragon, healed the sick king, beaten the bully, encouraged the coward, and gotten the damsel. But Fitzgerald adeptly makes them all hollow. It's a great and quick read. A really tight plot and good prose.

yanhangyhy 10mo ago
Yes. I’ve probably only read Gone with the Wind and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Still, it feels like a fair share of American novels touch on this theme to varying degrees.

scoofy 10mo ago

There are some subtleties in Gatsby that most people miss, and isn't even addressed in the article. Jay Gatsby (James Gatz) is probably Jewish. Nick Carraway is probably gay, but at least bisexual. Both of these traits forced people into lower castes this era in high-status society. To me the lens of the book is repeatedly the failure of "if only I can win them over" slowly becoming the unsatisfying "these people were always assholes." Whether it's parties, a potential spouse, or important friends, the entire concept of class structure is poison. If people are good people, it shouldn't matter how they present themselves... that's just what I've always taken away from it. It seems like a theme that someone with Fitzgerald's background would want to convey, especially someone with that background who enjoined the company of people like Hemingway. And I think that's been a theme of American culture since reconstruction.

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]