I taught an undergraduate honors course in American Fiction since 1990 (why since 1990? Because I’m too much of a wuss to offer “Twenty-First Century American Literature” just yet, and because the 90s were, after all, a pretty damn good decade for American fiction), and the syllabus looked like this: Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy (1990); Paul Auster, Mr. Vertigo (1994); Don DeLillo, Underworld (1997); Toni Morrison, Paradise (1997); Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist (1999); Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections (2001); Philip Roth, The Plot Against America (2004); Cris Mazza, Disability (2005); Richard Powers, The Echo Maker (2006).
That's a heck of a good reading list, though I'm not sure I could keep up with Underworld within the demands of a classroom. I read slow enough as it is and that's a big fat book with lots to remember and think about. When I was in school you usually got a weekend to read a short novel, and a week to read something longer. Two weeks for big books. I could never keep up.
I do recall, however, that after I finished my Master's Thesis, I read Infinite Jest, Underworld, and Mason & Dixon back to back to back. It took many months but it was the happiest time I ever spent reading.
