I tend to think of myself as a fairly progressive guy, someone who (within the part of the country in which I live) is liberal in my outlook on life and inclusive rather than exclusive. But looking at my bookshelf might not show that.
Much of my time lately has been spent thinking about grad school, and what I'd want to teach if I were able to teach in a college setting or elsewhere. My personal preference is something along the lines of "post-war American literature," "post-war" being "post-Second World War" because a lot of the books I love are post-1945 in origin. Also, I think it would be interesting to consider not just fiction in the wake of Hiroshima but also non-fiction, or "creative non-fiction," which allows for essays and other forms of journalistic endeavors. A lot of my favorite authors would fit under that banner of post-war writers, not just American, but I want to have a semblance of some boundaries as to what this prospective class would cover. And I'm of the opinion that, starting with J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher In the Rye" in 1951, American literature started to confront post-war complacency and challenge a lot of the assumptions that were prevalent and would be cast asunder by the Sixties, Watergate, and Women's Lib. And so on and so on...
This is a purely intellectual exercise, of course, because for the time being I have no class (har-har), and my idea is probably one that's been implemented on the college level already, albeit under a less unwieldy title. I took classes in the 20th-century novel, which introduced me to Don DeLillo, and world literature, where "Gilgamesh" reared its ugly head yet again but I got turned on to Haruki Murakami (both of whom I've finally gotten around to reading other books besides the two that I read in class back in the day). Surely someone has already hit upon the idea of teaching a class where Kerouac and Vonnegut share the limelight with Franzen, Chabon, and David Foster Wallace. But still, let's say no one has yet. I call dibs on it.
Anyway, my bookshelf might not reflect my inclusive hopes on what constitutes post-war American literature. I sure have a lot of old or dead white guys on my bookshelves. Much like how I fretted a few years ago that my record collection was whites-only, I could see where this is white-liberal-guilt navel-gazing. But guilty I do feel, because there are interesting works out there for sure that could be covered in my imaginative course.
A quick survey of my bookshelf: outside my idea of post-war American lit, I have thirteen books by Graham Greene (very English and very white, also very Catholic and very dead), two by John Lennon, two by Francois Truffaut, two by Jon Stewart (though I could make an argument for "America: The Book" for my imaginative course), and a bunch of sports biographies or memoirs. Of the books I'd want to cover, I have books by Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe (the cultural commentator, not the North Carolina novelist), Walker Percy, George Plimpton, Jonathan Lethem, and David Halberstam: all white guys.
Charles Portis is one of my favorite authors, as is Thomas Pynchon. I have "A Fan's Notes" by Frederick Exley, a masterpiece, and "A Confederacy of Dunces," by John Kennedy Toole. Greil Marcus has two spots in my book collection, and A.J. Jacobs' non-fiction is well-represented. A;; men from varying backgrounds and differing lives. But white guys nonetheless.
I do have four Jane Austen books, as well as a Flannery O'Conner work, and four or five Sarah Vowell books. But they're white women. When I went to New Orleans, I found a great book to take back with me, Tom Sancton's "Song For My Fathers," in which he discussed learning how to play jazz from African-American and Creole musicians. Sancton is white, by the way.
It's not that I've never read black or minority authors, or that my collection is white-washed to the extreme. I have two Gabriel Garcia Marquez books, Frederick Douglass' memoir, and "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," bought when I was a curious thirteen-year-old and the movie "X" was in theaters (my mom was a little bewildered, but she bought it for me at Wal-Mart anyway). I read Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" in that 20th-century novel course and damn near cried when I finished. It starts with a black girl who has blue eyes and goes downhill from there. I've always meant to go back and read more black authors. But a lot of dead or old white guys got in the way.
I know this is a bit ridiculous, berating myself for my bookshelves when it's not a crime to have a lack of diversity on them. But I feel like, if I'm going to do justice with my post-war American lit course (which exists solely in my head, I must point out yet again), I should do a little more extensive reading. I feel like I don't know the Beats well enough to teach them (apart from steering kids clear of "On the Road," one of the most over-rated pieces of crap I've ever read), I really want to read "Naked Lunch" sometime this summer. And Thomas Berger's "Little Big Man" mocks me; the movie is so good I want to go back to the book and read it, but I've never gotten around to it. I have read a lot of the acknowledged classics of the postwar period, and I think Charles Portis should be required reading no matter what class I figuratively end up teaching. But I just worry that I might not have the right amount of background for such a class if I don't introduce more women and minorities to my bookshelf.
Leave it to me to think my bookshelf (or record collection) isn't diverse enough...
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