Dear "Ranjan",

You are asking me, in a day and a half, to prepare notes on a broad sweep of literary periods in America and Britain. You are asking for opinions and comparisons dealing with perhaps more than 20 authors who should be included in your comprehensive Master's oral exam preparation. Such a task would take weeks to accomplish.

You think that, because I am degreed in French Literature, and have a reasonably respectable knowledge of Canadian, African and 20th Century European Literature, I will be able to help you with analysis of authors from my own country. I can help you with the writings of psychologists and psychotherapists from my own country, because I also have a graduate degree in that area, but not necessarily with U.S. and BRITISH authors of the 19th or 20th Century.

The help that I generally give you is EMERGENCY help to try to complete assignments on time for you that you cannot complete yourself because of the "pressure" involved.

An oral comprehensive exam must be prepared carefully and from EXPERT sources. My ideas could result in your not being able to defend your position properly. Your professors know nothing else, perhaps, but they DO know their Literary Periods of Specialization. I cannot compete with them on their own territory.

However, here are a few ideas which I have about American Literature. They may not correspond to your professors' opinions at all. I know very little about 19th Century American Literature except what every schoolboy knows in this country. 20th Century is much richer for me. Here:

This body of literature concentrates less on RACE than you would think.

It deals with major social issues, political questions, the larger issues of human existence and the destinies of individuals.

Composed "off the top of my head", in less than an hour, the great names in Twentieth Century American Literature, I feel, are:

King, Steinbeck, Drury, Dreiser, Ludlum, Hemingway, Caldwell, Sinclair, Frost, Baldwin, Steele, Kissenger, Fitzgerald, Stein, London, Mitchner, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Capote.

They cover a vast range of topics and vary in emotion, tone and purpose. Here is a summary, in purely random order, of each one's contribution:

1. Steven King is an all-time best-selling "popular"author whose books have limited literary merit, but who is extremely widely read in this country. CUJO, the story of a rabid dog, won enormous praise, even though English professors denounced it.

2. John Steinbeck is probably the greatest American author of this century, surpassing even Hemingway. Cannery Row, Grapes of Wrath. He portrayed the poverty and misery of America's working class. His style is inspiring and his literary value enormous on a world scale.

3. Alan Drury wrote Advise and Consent , one of this century's greatest American political novels, reaching inside the SENATE of the United States and dealing with real-life issues and government scandal, mismanagement and inner-circle leadership decisions.

4. Theodore Dreiser wrote one of the greatest class-oriented novels of this century, An American Tragedy, in which he highlights the dichotomy between the rich and the poor in this country and shocked the nation with an inter-class murder committed by a rich boy against a poor factory worker girl.

5. Robert Ludlum is one of my all-time favorite American writers of this century. He writes espionage thrillers set in remote overseas locations and is a prolific writer: The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum and many others. He lives in Florida and is still writing. He is a best-selling author with considerable literary talent and merit...fast moving style with a flair for the exotic.

6. Ernest Hemingway, probably number two in this country after Steinbeck. Many consider him Number One, of course. His themes deal with masculinity, with adventure, with challenge, with war, with romance, with hunting, travel and literary circles. The Moveable Feast concerns Paris in the 1920s and 30s. Islands in the Stream - Cuba. The Snows of Kilamanjaro - Africa. Plus all of his books about the Spanish Civil War, and about his boyhood (The Nick Adams Stories). You know the rest...disillusionment, unrequited love, despair and depression characterize many of his works: The Old Man and the Sea.

7. Erskine Caldwell wrote Tobacco Road featuring a focus on emotion, poverty and rural America. Connecticut, I believe. One of our greatest writers, who goes unnoticed.

8. Upton Sinclair at the beginning of the century exposed the unethical practices of the Chicago Meat Industy and described the misery of our workers who toiled under inhuman conditions. The Jungle was his major novel describing the filth behind the scenes in American Industry.

9. Robert Frost, New England Poet. Probably our best poet of this century and on a par with any British Poet or any 19th Century American poet. He was our intellectual figure-head, or poet laureate, in this country during my boyhood.

10. James Baldwin, our most prolific and talented Black Writer of this century in my estimation. He defined the condition of Blackness, much like Leopold Sedar Senghor did for the French-speaking world. Movie: The Price of the Ticket. One of Many Books: Black Like Me. Died in France where he felt he was more readily tolerated than in the US.

11. Danielle Steele is a great female American writer of romantic prose. Her themes seem superficial to most English professors, but she is enormously popular and can't be ignored. She wrote the story that probably inspired the revival of the new film TITANIC. Her best selling book was a deeply moving story of a young couple on the Titanic: NO GREATER LOVE.

12. Henry Kissenger cannot be undersestimated as a writer, His autobiography is a work of literary expertise and reveals tremendous amounts of material about the White House during the Nixon years. We may not agree with him, of course, but his historical insights are professionally penned.

13. F. Scott Fitzgertald is probably the number three or four best writer of this century in the U.S. His The Great Gatsby put him on the literary map and his association with Hemingway and Stein in Paris made him a part of the "Lost Generation." His themes deal with ambition, wealth, tragic fate and hopelessness, uncertainty, relationships.

14. Gertrude Stein, an arch-feminist, actually a Lesbian, and modernist, schooled in Oakland, Califronia and at Radcliffe. She went to Paris and found a woman with whom to live (Alice B. Tolklas); she interacted with Fitzgerald & Hemingway. She toyed with "meaning", uttered nonsensical epithets and attempted to undercut the estasblished literary trends of her parents' generation. She wrote a famous biography of her girlfriend and some other modernist pieces, radical for her era. Some critics see her as a brilliant mind, dabbling in semantics and semiology. Most see her as totally "batty".

15. Jack London wrote famous adventure stories, traveled widely and made a name for himself in California, then the world. The Call of the Wild is assigned to every high school student in America now. Story of a sled-dog in the Arctic. He perfected certain literary techniques relating to "narration".

16. James Michener wrote Hawaii, Centennial, Caravans and dozens of other historical novels. An excellent writer with a tendency toward detail and expert research. Writes huge novels...about American historico-political themes.

17, 18, 19: Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg and William Burroughs - We discussed them the other day. The Beat Generation. Respectively: On the Road, Howl and Naked Lunch. Totally counter-culture themes. They should not be grouped together like this, of course. Each had distinct themes and styles. Kerouac: Recollections and Vagabondage. Ginsberg: Protest and Profanity. Burroughs: Drugs, Boys and Experimental Stylistics.

20. Truman Capote: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Other Rooms and Other Voices, In Cold Blood. Capote is a true gem of American literature. His documentary novel, In Cold Blood, put him on the literary map. His other novels were also quite popular. He dwells on boyhood themes, love, and relationships in most of his novels. In Cold Blood, however, was a thrilling look into the minds of two arch-criminals who were imprisoned on charges of homicide. Note: Other Rooms and Other Voices concerns Capote's boyhood in the American South, a "homey" portrayal of backwoods values.

No time left...it's 10AM. The 'contrast-compare' material you will have to work out for yourself, Ranjan. These are the 20 authors I know and love best in my country, this century. Nineteenth Century authors, we discussed at length last week and I gave you a dozen pages of material on the other aspects of your "request."