What works of fiction are most firmly embedded in the American cultural consciousness?

January 30, 2007 11:41 AM

What works of fiction are most firmly embedded in the American cultural consciousness? That is, what books are most frequently alluded to or drawn from in popular culture and daily life?

I suspect they need not be books that everyone has read but probably are ones that many (to use a contentious term) culturally literate people are familiar with.

Some that spring to mind are Catcher in the Rye, the Hitchhiker's series, Catch-22, Lord of the Flies. A Christmas Carol? The Odyssey? (The Bible clearly fits my definition, but I don't wanna get into whether it's fiction or whatnot.) Lots of children's books too: Charlotte's Web, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan. What else?

While I'm asking from an American point of view, it would also be interesting to see how this varies in other countries.

posted by zadermatermorts to society & culture (74 comments total)

Why limit yourself to books?

We probably share a lot more mass-comm distributed fictional consciousness than book distributed fictional consciousness.

So. Star Wars? Seinfeld? The Simpsons!
posted by notyou at 11:46 AM on January 30, 2007

I almost think you are just asking for a cultural canon. Tom Sawyer is on one end, modern ones like Cujo (an easy shorthand reference for any mean-looking dog these days) are on the other.
posted by GaelFC at 11:47 AM on January 30, 2007

Shakespeare.
posted by Leon at 11:49 AM on January 30, 2007

The Bible?
posted by ga$money at 11:49 AM on January 30, 2007

The Right Stuff
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Invisible Man
Walden
McTeague
Winesburg, Ohio
A Farewell to Arms
The Sound and the Fury
posted by tr33hggr at 11:50 AM on January 30, 2007

To Kill a Mockingbird.
posted by phoenixc at 11:51 AM on January 30, 2007

Don Quixote, though the popular notion of the story is quite different from the story itself.
posted by MrMoonPie at 11:52 AM on January 30, 2007

Gulliver's Travels; many satirical shows and movies has alluded to the scene where the Lilliputians lash the sailor to the beach with tiny ropes.
posted by JeremiahBritt at 11:55 AM on January 30, 2007

Grimms' Fairy Tales
posted by amro at 11:55 AM on January 30, 2007

Moby Dick
posted by OmieWise at 11:56 AM on January 30, 2007

man i can't believe i'm the first person to say moby dick.
also henry IV, part 1.
posted by alkupe at 11:56 AM on January 30, 2007

damn you omiewise
posted by alkupe at 11:56 AM on January 30, 2007

Yeah, agreeing with GaelFC: this would be a pretty huge list. Just glancing over at my bookshelf reveals Moby Dick, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, The Prince by Machiavelli, Don Quixote, Brave New World, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Dracula, The Republic, The Stranger, Ulysses, Johnny Got His Gun, Alice in Wonderland, The Great Gatsby...

Maybe check out something like Modern Library's 100 Best Novels list for some ideas.
posted by good in a vacuum at 11:57 AM on January 30, 2007

Walden, which is an interesting case precisely because of the tension between fiction and truth, but the claim to truth.

The Leatherstocking Tales (for a lot of general Indian stereotypes).
posted by OmieWise at 11:58 AM on January 30, 2007

Since you are looking from an American perspective, a couple distinctly American playwrights come to mind: Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman, The Crucible) and Tennesee Williams (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Streetcar Named Desire).

But honestly, "American Cultural Consciousness"? I agree with the very first poster that you shouldn't limit to books, as nobody much reads any more...Seinfeld and Simpsons plot lines are imminently more recognizable to those around me than even someone as notable as Willy Loman.
posted by mcstayinskool at 12:01 PM on January 30, 2007

How is Johnny Got His Gun "firmly embedded in the American consciousness"?

It's one thing for a book to be a classic, or well-regarded, or much read, and another for it to be a cultural touchstone. The former are sometimes limited in their appeal and range, while the latter are referenced again and again, even by people who do not realize what they're referencing.

Catch-22 or Moby Dick are great examples, many, many more people talk about those books (and concepts they think those books contain) than read those books.

(Of course, I'm not the Asker.)
posted by OmieWise at 12:02 PM on January 30, 2007

Seconding Shakespeare, and, if you dig deep enough, the Classics like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and definitely Oedipus Rex
posted by lekvar at 12:04 PM on January 30, 2007

Yeah, the ML list isn't quite what I'm thinking of, i.e., a canon of the Great Books. I mean, I don't think the average American can really toss off Ulysses references, you know?

Also, clearly culture is shaped by many forces, but at the moment I'm interested in examining books. There are some good ones here so far that I hadn't thought of.
posted by zadermatermorts at 12:04 PM on January 30, 2007

1984
catch-22
posted by chrisamiller at 12:08 PM on January 30, 2007

Well, with regards to my suggestions of Johnny Got His Gun and Ulysses, I thought they fit the asker's criteria of "they need not be books that everyone has read but probably are ones that many (to use a contentious term) culturally literate people are familiar with." I suspect your average has at least heard of these books, and anyone who's seen the music video for Metallica's song One is familiar with the premise for Johnny.
posted by good in a vacuum at 12:09 PM on January 30, 2007

Oops, meant to type "your average Mefite has at least heard of these..."
posted by good in a vacuum at 12:10 PM on January 30, 2007

Maybe some of the Raymond Chandler/Dashiell Hammett detective stories? Well, and of course Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. (I would go on to say Fleming's Bond novels, but those are seemingly very poorly known except as sources of titles for the movies.)

Perhaps some Steinbeck or Hemingway?
posted by Midnight Creeper at 12:25 PM on January 30, 2007

Well, to go in a bit of a different direction, I would imagine people reference various parts of Stephen King fiction, probably sometimes without realizing it - The Shining, Carrie, and It are likely the most common points of reference. The difficulty with King would be that lots of his books are also movies, so people are thinking of both...

Also, I have a cranky theory that many conservative voters are middle-age middle-management males who read too much Tom Clancy and think it's real. I've never read any Tom Clancy (and again some of his books are also movies), but I think people probably have some messed up foreign policy ideas based on Tom Clancy books they've read.

Flowers in the Attic was the book to read when I was younger but who knows with today's kids. I didn't read FITA, anyway... There are probably always salacious semi-horror, semi-romance books floating around being devoured by a young audience.

Oh, and that makes me think of Which-Way or Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books. My generation (X, natch) generally remembers these books.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance makes me think of how many people read popular philosophy or self-help-like books. You probably have pretty wide coverage for things like What Color Is Your Parachute? (if that's the right title) and I remember The Celestine Prophecy being quite big around certain circles for awhile.

Lastly, I think the holy trinity of comic heroes (Superman, Batman and Spider-man) are firmly embedded in the cultural consciousness although again more likely for their television and movie forms than their original book forms.

PS - I do read quite a bit, but I've never met anyone who tosses off references to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles or The Crying of Lot 49.
posted by Slothrop at 12:26 PM on January 30, 2007

Uncle Tom's Cabin
Cinderella
Seconding 1984
posted by textilephile at 12:32 PM on January 30, 2007

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "embedded in the American cultural conscience". You could mean "the books' names are embedded in the conscience", or you could mean "the ideas in the books are embedded in the conscience".

For the first I'd think of things like 1984, The Da Vinci Code, and the Joy of Cooking. The second is much more tricky, and would include Foxe's Book of Martyrs (an enormous influence on American evangelical Christianity), Noah Webster's first dictionary*, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Feminine Mystique, Common Sense, and even genre fiction such as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Stranger in a Strange Land.

*Although Webster stole most of his definitions outright from Samuel Johnson, whom he also attacked mercilessly for his anti-American stance. Johnson's the one who said, "Why do the loudest yelps for liberty come from the drivers of slaves?"
posted by watsondog at 12:32 PM on January 30, 2007

Gone With The Wind, although more the movie than the book.
posted by amro at 12:32 PM on January 30, 2007

I think a lot of the books to which people allude tend to be books that a lot of people read in school. So To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984 (or sometimes Animal Farm), The Crucible, Romeo and Juliet.


Children's books, I think, are pretty gendered. For women, Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret (maybe that's women of a certain age, which is to say my age), the Little House books, Little Women. I don't know what the similar books are for boys. The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew qualify, I think.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn work, for sure.
posted by craichead at 12:39 PM on January 30, 2007

If you really want frequent references, you might do well to watch "The Simpsons" or "Mystery Science Theater 3000" reruns. You're looking for books, I know, but those shows appeal to large American crowds and both are jam-packed with literary references. Some, especially in MST3K, are more obscure, but many are just what you're looking for.
posted by GaelFC at 12:40 PM on January 30, 2007

Catcher in the Rye
posted by laura763 at 12:42 PM on January 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

What about Harry Potter?
posted by CrazyLemonade at 12:42 PM on January 30, 2007

Sophie's Choice
posted by decathecting at 12:44 PM on January 30, 2007

I suspect they need not be books that everyone has read but probably are ones that many (to use a contentious term) culturally literate people are familiar with.

I'm actually not sure that's true. I think there's a real question about what you mean by "American cultural consciousness." Are you talking about the man on the street (and if so you'd have to ask, I think, whether Americans actually share a cultural consciousness), or are you talking about the conversations that go on in the media?

I definitely agree about Harry Potter. (On knitting message boards, non-knitters are referred to as "muggles.") What about Bridget Jones's Diary?
posted by craichead at 12:48 PM on January 30, 2007

I do read quite a bit, but I've never met anyone who tosses off references to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles

Clearly you don't spend enough time at the bottom of dried-up wells. That's where we meet when we're not throwing unicorn-themed parties in subterranean science facilities.

----

Most of the ones that sprung immediately to mind have been mentioned. I did think of Richard Matheson, however; although I'm not sure how many people have read his novels, the ideas contained in them laid the groundwork for modern horror storytelling: I Am Legend is arguably the contemporary construct for American vampire mythology, and Hell House does something similar for the haunted house mythology.

Dickens also sprung to mind, but I doubt all that many people read Dickens regularly. If that works for you, I'd submit Great Expectations above even A Tale of Two Cities.

My nomination for cultural misappropriation is Nabokov's Lolita.

As for Shakespeare, I have to go with Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet as being the three most-read works.

For the most part, what you're looking at here are the "classics" that everyone was forced to read in highschool. These seem to be the only novels that really reach the level you're looking at, with few notable exceptions (the notable exceptions being, for the most part those novels that have had their ideas extracted for cultural consumption, like the Matheson novels I mentioned).

To that end, I would imagine Hemmingway is something just about everyone has read--or, depending on perspective, endured--at some time or another. I remember loving Old Man and the Sea in grade 11, but that certainly wasn't consensus in my classroom. Nevertheless, I bet most of them remember reading it. Interestingly, in American culture I would submit that the mythology surrounding Hemmingway himself (the alcholism and suicide) is far more widespread than any of his actual works.

I could spend all day doing this, but I think I'll go read now ;)
posted by The God Complex at 12:48 PM on January 30, 2007

Oh, oh and: Cat in the Hat and most Dr Seuss' books.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 12:49 PM on January 30, 2007

What no Jaws yet? Yes it was a book before it was a movie. However how many times have you heard the Jaws theme music in day to day use. Or the phrase 'I think we need a bigger boat'. I guess the same could be said for a lot of books that are better known by their film adaptations. i.e. The Godfather, and Goodfellas, and for some; Reservoir Dogs.
posted by Gungho at 1:00 PM on January 30, 2007

Wow! No On The Road? I thought Jack Kerouac would be right there! As someone from Ireland, it makes me think of all the cool things about the states. Maybe its different looking from the other side of the pond...and clearly not in your consciousness.
posted by Joe Rocket at 1:03 PM on January 30, 2007

man some of you people are not answering the question. The poster asked for books (specifically works of fiction) and your response is :you must also mean movies and tv shows, right?
posted by alkupe at 1:05 PM on January 30, 2007

I think there's a real question about what you mean by "American cultural consciousness." Are you talking about the man on the street (and if so you'd have to ask, I think, whether Americans actually share a cultural consciousness), or are you talking about the conversations that go on in the media?

Probably more the latter, but not just the most well-read 0.5%. You're right that the people who participate in the media are not a representative sample of Americans, and it's also a good point that in this country there are surely many subcultures or cultures that have nothing to do with what we're talking about.

The suggestion to watch the Simpsons and MST3K for references is a great one because I'm largely interested in what literature shows up in other art forms (my asking this question is a bit of a shortcut to detailed study of such media).
posted by zadermatermorts at 1:07 PM on January 30, 2007

Poems (in case "books" includes poetry) that might fit your criteria:

- various Robert Frost, including "Road Not Taken," "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening," and "Mending Wall"
- Longfellow's Ballad of Hiawatha
- Poe's "The Raven" (and don't forget his stories)
- Ernest Thayer's Casey at the Bat
- Carl Sandburg's "Chicago"
- Sylvia Plath, particularly "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus"
- Coleridge's "Xanadu"
- Blake's "The Tyger"
- Ginsberg's "Howl" and "America"

Other texts - speeches of M.L. King, Frederick Douglass, and presidents Lincoln, FDR, and JFK. The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack.

Plays by Tennessee Williams, Thornton Wilder, Eugene O'neill, and Arthur Miller.

Surely someone has mentioned Mark Twain (his political quotes and attitude as much as the Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer novels). Jack London novels, esp. Call of the Wild.

Also, don't forget The Bible as an influential "book" for Americans in general; and Thoreau's Walden and Civil Disobedience just occurred to me.

Sherlock Holmes stories of A.C. Doyle.
Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) and On the Road (Jack Kerouac).
Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking tales (like Last of the Mohicans).
J.D. Salinger's A Catcher in the Rye.

Okay, that's it from this former English major.
posted by aught at 1:09 PM on January 30, 2007

Tom Sawyer
Huck Finn
posted by k8t at 1:22 PM on January 30, 2007

Not fiction, but when I read Lewis Henry Morgan's Ancient Society I was amazed to find how much currency some of his ideas have in modern society. He had a big impact on Engles, and therefore on Marx and lots of marxist stuff. But his influence is much broader. For instance, the computer game Civilization (Sid Meyer's) basically use the theories of social evolution laid out in Ancient Society.

A caveat, if you go and read any of it: the theory is basically crap, and the information is sketchy-at-best for most of the societies he discusses. (He believed in Lemarkian evolution rather than Darwinian, and he believed that all societies passed through the same series of stages based on "discoveries" of technology and social institutions.) Its interest lies in the profound impact it had on thinkers of its time, and in the continued but unconcious ways in which the ideas still permeate American (and Canadian) "common sense" notions.

on preview: not sure if this fits your expanded criteria at all, but I'll post it anyway, if only for the Civ. connection.
posted by carmen at 1:24 PM on January 30, 2007

The Wizard of Oz
posted by amro at 1:27 PM on January 30, 2007

Oh, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
posted by amro at 1:27 PM on January 30, 2007

The Call of Cthulhu and other stories by H.P. Lovecraft are popular among nerds.
posted by Human Flesh at 1:52 PM on January 30, 2007

Maybe some of the Raymond Chandler/Dashiell Hammett detective stories?

The Continental Op: definitely not¹
The Thin Man: probably not
Sam Spade: probably (most likely from the movie)<sup>2

1</sup> Although Red Harvest inspired Yojimbo, which inspired A Fistful of Dollars, and so on.
² Although, along with Philip Marlowe, probably only in a vague, "movie private eye" sense.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:03 PM on January 30, 2007

Aesop's Fables

Okay, I'll stop now.
posted by amro at 2:27 PM on January 30, 2007

Agreeing with those who mentioned "To Kill a Mockingbird," (the name Atticus is everywhere, including a bookstore in New Haven), "1984," and "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Especially these days, 1984 references seem to show up everywhere (e.g., in other movies, in tv shows like "Big Brother," etc.)

I also can't believe noone mentioned Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." The BBC series in the 1990s was one of the most watched BBC programs ever, it's been remade into movies countless times, and it's plot has been re-remade into movies even more times (Bridget Jones, plus modern remake for Mormons, etc.).

I'd also nominate "The Great Gatsby" for the theme of working class guy pulling himself up by his bootstraps only to not be accepted into the new class he's struggled to be a part of.
posted by onlyconnect at 3:38 PM on January 30, 2007

The Grapes of Wrath and/or Of Mice and Men.
posted by Joe Invisible at 4:30 PM on January 30, 2007

Well if we are talking about bootstraps, then the Horatio Alger stories really resonated with Americans at the turn of the century so that today "The American Dream" is really shorthand for "Poor boy works hard and makes a fortune and earns respect."

I haven't seen any Westerns mentioned. Beginning with the dime novels that mythologized the exploits of Wild Bill Hickock and Bat Masterson and Buffalo Bill Cody, this particularily American form of literature romanticized the lone gunman/cowboy. Shane is the perfect example of this.

Don't forget the Dick and Jane Books when talking about children's literature.

It used to be that Americans were more familiar with Pilgrim's Progress, though not so much any more. I may be the only person I know who refers to "The Slough of Despair."

As for Shakespeare, it is astonishing how many of his works are referenced daily by all of us-- everybody knows what you mean by "Pound of Flesh" even though they may not know this comes from a Shakespearian play..
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 4:45 PM on January 30, 2007

I guess part of this question should be whether or not people recognize that they're aware of something that was originally a book. Surely most people are familiar with Frankenstein and Dracula, but many have never read the book. People would know redrum as a reference to The Shining, but that reference so permeates our culture that I bet people know it who haven't read the book or watched the movie. I think a lot of the poems that aught mentions should be included.

I'd probably add Heart of Darkness. Probably more myth than has been included so far. Maybe the Orpheus myth in as much as that vision of hell seems pretty familiar in the American consciousness. Daedalus and Icarus, Prometheus.
posted by hue at 4:50 PM on January 30, 2007

Perhaps, in order to refrain from sounding condescending, you wanted to include "Lowest Common Denominator" somewhere in your question. I see a lot of great books on people's lists, but they haven't been homogenized and given the Reader's Digest treatment that makes them oh so digestible. So, look no further than Disney's appropriated commodities, such as:
- Peter Pan
- Pinocchio
- Hunchback of Notre Dame
- Any fairytales, such as Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc.

Also, don't forget some horror classics:
- Dracula
- Frankenstein
posted by krippledkonscious at 4:59 PM on January 30, 2007

I heard someone mention Tennessee Williams; don't forget The Glass Menagerie. God, I love that play.

And what about Roald Dahl? Both his adult and children's stuff.
posted by theiconoclast31 at 5:59 PM on January 30, 2007

Hmmm......if I were to pick a recent book which seems to fit your criteria, I'd say Fight Club.

Of course, once again you run into the problem of "Oh, but only because of the movie...."
posted by Windigo at 6:08 PM on January 30, 2007

Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five"
posted by Burhanistan at 6:11 PM on January 30, 2007

Bradbury's "Farenheit 451".
posted by Burhanistan at 6:15 PM on January 30, 2007

Proust. To indicate braininess or education.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 6:18 PM on January 30, 2007

The Hobbit
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
Canterbury Tales
Naked Lunch
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Where the Wild Things Are
Atlas Shrugged
posted by 23skidoo at 6:38 PM on January 30, 2007

Not books, but... Phantom of the Opera and Cats are two musicals that jump to mind. Probably also West Side Story.
posted by sbutler at 6:40 PM on January 30, 2007

Quintessentially American?

Last of the Mohicans
The Scarlet Letter
Huckleberry Finn [it's unbelievable how many foreign writers read this book and fell in love with American because of it]
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Invisible Man
Walden
Great Gatsby
Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
To Kill a Mockingbird
In Cold Blood

oh, there are lots.
posted by thinkingwoman at 6:47 PM on January 30, 2007

psst, Secret Life of Gravy: that's because it's the slough of despond.

- the Anne of Green Gables series
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
- The Jungle
- The Color Purple
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- something by Toni Morrison (The Bluest Eye? Sula?)
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (was a best-selling book first)
posted by booksandlibretti at 8:27 PM on January 30, 2007

That is, what books are most frequently alluded to or drawn from in popular culture and daily life?

A lot of people are not reading the question.

I'd say,

Catcher in the Rye, probably #1 with a bullet
To Kill a Mockingbird
Moby Dick
1984 & Animal Farm
East of Eden
The Scarlett Letter
The Old Man and the Sea
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Huckleberry Finn / Tom Sawyer
I Robot
posted by Rumple at 8:36 PM on January 30, 2007

Gone with the Wind
posted by brujita at 9:05 PM on January 30, 2007

There's a Monster at the End of This Book.
posted by simonemarie at 9:59 PM on January 30, 2007

I'm not an Asimov fan, but as I understand it, he wrote some stuff that involved robots and came up with a set of laws concerning them. One of these, I believe, involves robots not being permitted to harm humans. Certainly we can find human-robot tensions in a butt-load of movies and TV shows and, arguably, in our present day culture. It's possible that Asimov deserves a fair amount of credit for this.
posted by Clay201 at 11:45 PM on January 30, 2007

Generation X ? I think the book named the generation and not the other way around.

I would consider Freud's writings to be fiction and everyone knows what it means to be described as "anal"
posted by hilby at 6:24 AM on January 31, 2007

Well, there is an entire book devoted to what one man thinks every American needs to know .... You may also be interested in his reasoning as opposed to just the list, so you can read the first book as well.
posted by timepiece at 7:50 AM on January 31, 2007

psst, Secret Life of Gravy: that's because it's the slough of despond.

posted by booksandlibretti at 11:27 PM EST on January 30

Yeah, I caught that about 2 seconds after hitting post button but didn't bother writing a correction post because few people care.

(But don't mind me, I routinely refer to the TV show as "Everybody Loves Earl" and tell my husband I am going shopping at the "Lion King" grocery store.)

And I never should have mentioned it in the first place because while it was a hugely influential book in 19th century America, it is scarcely ever referenced now.

The Algonquin Round Table writers, while quickly fading still have some cultural influence, particularly the wit of Dorothy Parker.

James Thurber's Secret Life of Walter Mitty has remained firmly in the public's consciousness as have his bloodhound drawings.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:42 AM on January 31, 2007

99.9999% of the time when someone mentions an albatross, they are (probably unknowingly) referring to Coleridge poem, Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
posted by jaded at 8:43 AM on January 31, 2007

Or the Monty python sketch. Albatross!
posted by Gungho at 11:57 AM on January 31, 2007

Certainly we can find human-robot tensions in a butt-load of movies and TV shows and, arguably, in our present day culture. It's possible that Asimov deserves a fair amount of credit for this.

Definitely. Many shows/books/whatever even assume Asimov's Three Laws and/or use some of his terms. Mr. Data from Star Trek is a good example -- he is a "positronic" android (Asimov's robots were also described as such) who behaves much like Asimov's robots do, though not exactly. I believe his connection to Asimov was explicitly mentioned once or twice on the show.

In fact, we pretty much owe the entire "robots are helpful servants of mankind, rather than harmful things" idea to Asimov. Before I, Robot, robots were generally described as Frankenstein-type monsters.
posted by vorfeed at 2:42 PM on January 31, 2007

The Narnia Chronicles (especially The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) These books are often referred to in other novels.
An American Tragedy
several stories by O. Henry come to mind
anything by Edgar Allen Poe
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
I'm OK, You're OK
The Feminine Mystique
The Stepford Wives
Dr. Suess was already mentioned but I want to specifically point out Green Eggs and Ham.
Has anyone said The DaVinci Code yet?
posted by rcavett at 5:35 PM on January 31, 2007

Robinson Crusoe
A Clockwork Orange
Jane Eyre
Through the Looking Glass
Le Petit Prince/The Little Prince/El Principito
The Outsiders

The Morrison piece you're probably thinking of is Beloved, though I'm not entirely sure I'd put it on this list (there's much here I wouldn't include, based on the questioner's criteria, but I guess she can be the one to pare down this list now that she has it).

I would go further than onlyconnect to say that pretty much every single romantic comedy ever written or produced is in some sense based on Pride and Prejudice.

I do casually reference The Crying of Lot 49. Sad, I know. However, I work with really smart brilliant book people, and mostly they look at me blankly when I do, if that makes anyone feel better. In my heart of hearts, I'm looking for The Crying of Lot 49 for kids. Of course, I also didn't know One by Metallica referenced a book, though it stands in my memory as the first music video I ever saw, and I was pretty much traumatized by it. Although, I guess when I think about it, I always knew it was based on something, I just never thought to find out what it was. (Blah blah blah).
posted by lampoil at 7:17 PM on January 31, 2007

Oh, and Washington Irving--The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Rip Van Winkle.
posted by lampoil at 7:20 PM on January 31, 2007

Lolita.
posted by thebrokenmuse at 11:01 PM on February 25, 2007