In a class discussion last night, we sat around debating the merits of the traditional "canon" of writers one should study in college, because for one thing Shakespeare has been done to death and also because the canon seems to lean disproportionately towards "dead white guys," mostly pre-WWII (so you got your Homer, your Hemingway, and your whatever anonymous asshole who wrote Beowulf). I was thinking afterwards about how we could update the canon not just to include more multicultural aspects (Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, just to name three that I encountered in undergrad classes not strictly devoted to the "Western literary canon") but also more relevant Dead White Guys, because if I have to hear one more time about Grendel I'll jump off a castle parapet (though it did inspire John Gardner's Grendel, which is fucking excellent by the way). So let's start with my picks for the Recently Dead (i.e. post-1945) White Guys, and then I'll throw in some Still-Alive (or Not-Dead) White Guys for balance (because I want to avoid the suggestion that we English majors are necrophiliacs).
Recently Dead White Guys
Vonnegut springs to mind immediately, you could have an entire class devoted to him (and should; I've only read about six or seven of his books but my god, what books!). Never dull, always engaging, and really challenging your perceptions (but not in quite the same shrill way as a contemporary, Gore Vidal).
David Foster Wallace, whose non-fiction I'm more familiar with (though I swear, I'll get around to Infinite Jest eventually).
Walker Percy is one of my personal favorites, I'm sure he's covered in Southern Lit classes but I think it's time to add him to the "essential reads" list.
Hunter S. Thompson and George Plimpton - whoa there, I can hear you saying, weren't those two journalists? Well, yes (though HST's flights of drug-induced fancy could be said to straddle the border between fiction and non-fiction), but they showed that "literature" needn't be confined to such distinctions. Plus, they're really fucking good at what they do (I'd throw in Tom Wolfe, except that he's very much alive, and responsible for some doorstop-length novels that, like his namesake from earlier in the twentieth century, I've personally found unreadable).
It pains me to include Kerouac, but if you're going to have Burroughs and Ginsberg (especially in a Beats-heavy course), you gotta have him and his On the Road. Read it when you're in your twenties, you'll love it. Thirties? Not so much.
Not-Dead White Guys
Now, the fun part for me is in leading with Jonathan Lethem, who is currently my "author that I bore people by telling them how good he is." But really, he's that good: The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn will be required reading for college courses in fifty years, assuming a massive asteroid hasn't destroyed us all.
Thomas Pynchon, since the death of J.D. Salinger, has become the "reclusive writer in residence" for American letters, and he's still churning out interesting, dynamic material. Like Vonnegut, I think a course could be devoted to him alone. I'd like to teach that course, come to think of it (though I still need to tackle Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, Vineland, and Slow Learner).
Charles Portis is a fucking master of the written word, I read True Grit in one sitting. Some of his other books aren't quite up to that level, but The Dog of the South is closest. Do yourself a favor and read either of those, now.
Jonathan Franzen I respect more than I like, I read The Corrections with some "professional jealousy" (back then I was still thinking about tackling the Great American Novel), but Freedom was quite beautiful. He's pretentious as hell and an asshole to boot, but you don't have to like your authors on a personal level in order to read their work.
Chuck Klosterman has written some fiction, yes, but I'm more interested in his non-fiction. Again, a guy primarily known for non-fiction should get in because he's that fucking good. In my imaginary canon, it's a tie between him and Greil Marcus in the "writing about music" wing, and if I had to choose one...sorry, Greil.
Michael Chabon is big in my book, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is one of the books that restored my faith in fiction. A must-read, even if he doesn't make it in for covering comic books and music in his novels.
Those are the Dead White Guys (and Not-Dead White Guys) I came up with, they don't have to elbow out the Even Deader White Guys or any Non-White Guys already in the canon (though I think we can all agree that Lord of the Flies should be put out of its misery). I'm not in charge and I don't get to pick, but I do get to daydream when I should be working on actual grad-school stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment