... The best American novel of World War II?
What we need is a thorough second look at a number of writers whose work is not only better than their reputations suggest, but possibly better than others who continue to be praised. Cozzens is one, so is Marquand, and so is Willa Cather (who has a certain stature, to be sure, but who is still, I think, vastly underrated).
Cozzens' novella S.S. San Pedro is also very good. I agree with you about Cather: along with Chekhov, she is the writer I re-read most often. My own list of favorite neglected writers includes Jean Stafford and Caroline Gordon. Among contemporaries, some very good writers, including William Gay and Tom Franklin, are ignored in lit culture's general dismissal of Southern writing. My guess is that their writing is too "garish" for the etiolated sensibilities of the New York/Boston tastemakers.
ReplyDeleteGuard of Honor is unforgettable, its characters so well drawn that there are moments when you simply ache for them, watching them as they consider taking actions that you and they both know are wrong--yet you and they both know they're going to take. Like From Here to Eternity, it's a war novel far away from the war, and I'd rank it up there with that book (and Irwin Shaw's The Young Lions as the best I know on the war.
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