The Western Canon of Literature
Excerpt from the unpublished book Lenses.
When Harold Bloom in The Western Canon detailed his selection of the best books of all time, he wrote with love for the works themselves and with sorrow that they are no longer getting the attention they deserve. His act of defining the canon was a rearguard action. The battle was lost. He was in full retreat.
That sorrow resonates with me in several ways.
One of the main purposes of my fiction writing has been to try to take part in the dialogue across the centuries that the canon represents. I wanted to be someone inspired by the past and involved in the present, and someone who would be read and who would inspire others in the future.
No such luck. I’ve always been a spectator on the sidelines, cheering the team on, but having no effect on the present, much less the future.
So now I write and brainstorm and speculate and converse simply for the pleasure of it. I try to sort out what matters to me and why, and what sense it might make, with no expectation that anyone else will care; but because it matters to me, because I’d like to learn to ask better questions, even if I can’t find answers.
My amateur status lets me see connections where an expert would see only differences. And when, in my ignorance, pieces seem to fit together in unexpected ways, I get a manic high that feels great. I guess I’m addicted to the process of trying to make sense of life.
Yes, like Harold Bloom, I’m sorry that schools have lost the concept of a literary canon, and I lament the end of the two-and-a-half-millennium cultural dialogue that the canon represents. But on the other hand, I’m encouraged by all the writing and reading that is happening outside of schools, and the growth of a global audience now has easy access to many works that previously were hard-to-find and expensive.
The internet is having an effect on the world of literature like the fall of Constantinople had in triggering the Renaissance. Works that had been locked away are being spread worldwide, and are being read voraciously by people who have no sense of a previously established canon. They are reading and enjoying and establishing their own sense of what they should value and what they want to share with friends and pass on to future generations.
I tend to be a literary anarchist. I have faith that if books are readily available, people will read them and will tell friends about the ones that matter most to them. I believe that it can be good that there is no institutionalized canon.
