you're fired! (from the western canon)

[virginia_bell]

By way of Andrew Sullivan, a list of ten books that should be stricken from the Western canon. Not being an English major and having only read, uh, one and a half books on this list -- A Tale of Two Cities (yes, in an eleventh grade English class) and Absalom, Absalom! (currently reading and over which I have fallen head over heels, mind) -- I

Comments

[lareinenoire]

Heh. Of all those books, the only one I've read is A Tale of Two Cities, which I actually liked, though I read it when I was nine, and probably missed a lot. I've been meaning to reread it for a long time, though, so I'll see what I think this time round.

So, for what it's worth, having come to the end of four years of undergraduate study and four years of graduate study in literature, I have only read one of the books on that list. Then again, with the exception of Dickens, all of them date from the twentieth century, which I have assiduously avoided ever since my encounter with Joyce's Ulysses.

[wanderlight]

I actually LOVED The Road -- read it! read it! ;) -- buuut I have Issues with the idea of the canon in the first place. I mean, what comprises the canon anyway, right? Everyone debates this (what is, what should be, etc.) all the time. Case in point, Sullivan seems to be going with a more contemporary version than I use. & beyond that, the more I learn about literary crit and how it's structured is that the canon kind of seems to be a way for those in uni circles to hold onto their cultural custodianship. Aaand ... and oh god, I need to shut up now! :D I'm sorry for jumping on your question. ♥

Essentially, I would strike down the entire canon and remind people that a) if you want transformative works, scifi is good for that too; b) Shakespeare is overrated! Depending on who I'm talking to this is an unpopular opinion so I shall cower in wait now. ;)

How are you doing? ♥