The American writer has a few companions in the world's literatures. Our closest cousins are Russians and Japanese. American literature is far closer in spirit to the literatures of those nations than to English or European literatures. There are probably dozens of reasons why this is true, but one dominates.
American, Russian, and Japanese literatures are, in a broad and general sense, religious. Most literatures are--but what is different about these is: they are unforgiving. Other literatures gladly take on the clash between good and evil (as do American, Japanese, and Russian literatures), but few take on the specter of sin. I use the term sin not in a preacherly sense, but in the intimate sense of the writer in close communion with his or her characters, discovering how those characters feel about their actions.
Pick up a book by an American, Russian, or Japanese, and this question will likely appear: "In a world containing good and evil, what is the proper behavior for a man or woman in a given situation?"
This is not an overwhelming question in French literature. When it appears in English literature, it is usually asked in the context of nationality, not religion. The Spanish are not riddled with the question. Although there are plenty of exceptions, most European literatures see characters as pressed by outside forces. This is why Europe has produced some fine existential writing in the manner of the gloomy French, while America (with the exception of a few Hemingway stories and such) has not. Even our Beat Generation, back in the 1950s when praise of existentialism was at its height, produced little existential silliness, although it did produce an extremely unbeat Allen Ginsberg.
(Cady, 21-22)
