Washington novels are terrible, as you maybe noticed if you’ve ever mistakenly picked up a novel about Washington. Christopher Hitchens has some theories:
Can one imagine a Dickens without London or a Zola or Flaubert without Paris? The radix malorum can probably be found in the famous bargain between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, made when New York was still the capital of these United States. In exchange for an agreement to build the constitutionally mandated new Federal City on the border of Jefferson’s beloved Virginia, Hamilton could have his coveted national bank. Thus, and allowing for certain Philadelphian interludes, it was decided early on that the cultural capital of America would be separated from its political one. Other countries that have made similar two-headed arrangements include Australia, Brazil, Burma, and Canada: we yet await the Brasilia or Canberra novel.
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Washing-ton, Washing-ton
6 foot 20 fucking killing for fun
Hitch is so, so, so erudite with his Latino quotations.
Is he trying to play George Will before the end comes?
I don't know about Washington novels, but if you want a good Washington play, commission Vaclav Havel.
True dat, for New York we would need a whole bunch: House of Mirth, Call it Sleep, and Catcher in the Rye are the first three that come to mind, but it's late and I'm bushed. Last Exit to Brooklyn? I dunno. But at least those are all very good-to-great books. Has there been even one very good Washington novel?
Burr?
Absolutely, followed by Vidal's Lincoln.
You're right — and I'm lazy. I should've at least remembered Catcher in the Rye.
Age of Innocence comes to mind whenever I think of New York in the 19th century.
Indeed! That Edith W. knew a thing or two about the human soul. House of Mirth is my favorite of hers, but Age of Innocence is not far behind.
The Basketball Diaries–THAT is New York.
What. I'll give you Philly, but there are dozens of great novels written with New York as a leading character. I'm reading a newer one right now: Netherland. Just a few others: Great Gatsby, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Catcher in the Rye, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Last Exit to Brooklyn, The Chosen… haven't even made it into the 1970s with that list…
What about 'Advise and Consent'?
My Pet Goat.
The Warren Report.
Fiction does not count, sorry bumfug.
A Washington novel pretty much would be fiction.
Zing!
"Philadelphian Interludes" ?, sounds saucy, someone write a book about that.
Franklin: "I say, Madison, where's Jefferson this evening? It's finally cool enough to get some work done."
Madison: "He's off making the two-backed beast with that high yellow of his, Sally Hemings."
Paine: "Well tell him to get in here with his draft of the letter to King George!"
"You can't impersonate those guys–nobody knows what they sounded like!" (Too obscure?)
A thousand clowns say not.
"You didn't miss the funny part, Leo!"
Bonfire of the Vanities? American Psycho? Winter's Tale?
“[The consensus is that] the great Washington novel is something of an oxymoron,” says Jeffrey Charis-Carlson, the opinion page editor of the Iowa City Press-Citizen and a scholar of District literature. For the past four years he’s devoured more than 200 novels for his University of Iowa dissertation on D.C. fiction.
And yet: Primary Colors
Not really about DC, though, as opposed to politics. Perhaps that's the real problem – the "real" Washington that would make a good character is so distinct from its "official" character that everyone learns in grade school that it doesn't work.
I'm thinking of the Washington of the turn of the 20th century, by the way, when guys like Hays and Adams were the unofficial lords of the city regardless of what happened in politics.
The harDCore scene seems idiosyncratic enough it could produce a story or three worthy of novel.
Haven't read him yet (I should, since I live in DC), but George Pelecanos has written a number of well-received detective fiction set not in politics but in the neighborhoods of DC. Also wrote for the Wire, which I'm finally getting around to watching.
Long, long ago, when I attended a pretentious liberal arts college, I took a class about the history of NYC as depicted in film. There is no shortage of films (going, of course, back to the days of the silent movie) in which New York City itself is an important "character". Of course, if you want to go that argument, there are tons of movies about Washington DC (political movies, that is) that do it justice quite nicely.
Don't all of Gincrich's novels take place in DC?
I think Peter Blakely's "The Exorcist" is the epic Washington novel–it reeks of the horror, filth, and vomit that so typifies our capital.
Hitchens is still alive? I was hoping he'd been re-incarnated as an Iraqi dog!
Again and again and again…
Unnecessarily mean. Whatever he has said or written since, Hitchens at one time and to his everlasting credit was famous for accusing Kissinger of being a war criminal.
Well, what's he done lately, besides slobber on the Deciderer's codpiece? His early jeremiad against Kissinger makes his shilling for the neocon Insane Clown Posse all the more inexplicable.
The Overton Window, of course. The definitive novel of, like, everything. Along with Atlas Shrugged (needless to say).
Damn, my brain exploded after writing that.
The Manchurian Candidate? Seven Days in May? The Overton Window?
The Pogo Poop Book.
I love the classics.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Boom. Game, set, match. You lose, Hitchens. Too Easy.
Has everybody forgotten Henry Adams? Well. The Education was better than the novels. But still.
to be fair, no great lit has come out of ottawa.
well, as far as i know. i'm only half canadian.
And re Philly, Fight Club gets my vote.
I thought Fight Club was set in Wilmington, b/c of the plethora of credit card companies that were HQ's there (thanks Delaware's lax biz laws!)
Good old Hitch, never letting data interfere with a clever premise!
Ah, good ole Hitchens. Starring death in the face, and hasn't lost a bit of his bitchy disposition.
Yesterday I youtubed a debate about religion between him and Tony Blair that happened last weekend in Toronto; Hitchens absolutely skewered (albeit with polite, withering wit). Tony was very often conceding points that Hitch hadn't even brought up yet. Fine entertainment.
The premise deserves the same response as does the man putting forth the premise: who gives a fuck, really?
Jessica Cutler, people! How soon we forget. http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/ana_marie-wonkett…
many years ago GORE VIDAL wrote a novel about Washington, DC.
doesn't anybody here remember that book? or are you all too young?
it probably captured the essence of DC in those pristine days…
maybe it's the best of the lot, concerning books about our nation's capital.
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