The New Canon

I'm not a huge proponent of the traditional "canon," though I can see the reasons why traditionally canonical books are so celebrated. I suppose it depends on what you want to use canonical texts for.

Should we . . .

Put on them on a pedestal, above reproach?
                      
     No.
                      
Use them to understand literary heritage and see progression of ideas through time?
                      
     Sure.
                      
Require 8th grade students and/or struggling readers to read them?
                      
     No.
                      
Use them to build a strong foundation for those who study literature and/or teach english?
                      
     Yes.

I am, despite my tolerance for the "canon," keenly aware of the "dead white guy" syndrome when I select texts for my classroom, and though I tend to side with the NYT in the recent "Franzen debacle," I sympathize with and think about the question of women's place in the literary tradition.

Beloved, clearly, blows this entire debate out of the water. The much-maligned NYT chose it in 2006 as the best book of the last quarter century. Every time I read it, I'm inclined to agree. There's too much to talk about or even think about with this novel. (My brain is in the process of digesting and note-taking now, so more on my thoughts about the book later.)

But to get back to the point of canon: while doing some web-surfing about Beloved today, I discovered a website with a provocative idea: The New Canon. The idea is to take books written in the past 25 years and "canonize" them - books by crotchety guys like Franzen, but also multi-cultural authors, women authors, etc. I'm not quite sure what the criteria is (Harry Potter is included, along with Special Topics in Calamity Physics), but it seems clear that the website creators celebrate these books for canonical reasons, calling them "the new classics" and "widely recognized as fine literature" - though the write-up for Beloved acknowledges the irony of its being traditionally anti-canonical, being post-Colonial, post-patriarchal, and post-Eurocentric. At any rate, this site will be a rich source for finding new reads, and a decent place to begin the sticky process of unraveling what determines a canon, anyway. (Fun fact: I've read nine of the books they list on the sidebar and already have at least five of the others on my "to-read" list.)


Books from the "New Canon" I've read:
Beloved
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Handmaid's Tale
The Corrections
American Pastoral
The Secret History
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Empire Falls
Old School


Additional authors from the "New Canon" I've read (but not the book listed):
Haruki Murakami
Ann Patchett
Cormac McCarthy
Michael Chabon (not only read him, but met him!)
Zadie Smith


Books I Will Read from the "New Canon" hopefully sooner than later:
Infinite Jest (my brother just read it)
Bel Canto (on my amazon.com wish list)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (already on my bookshelf)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time


Books I Think They Should Add:
The Life of Pi
The Historian
Straight Man
Kissing in Manhattan
The Kitchen God's Wife and/or The Joy Luck Club (How can there be no Amy Tan in a "new" canon?)