Simple Living Isn’t Always

A friend and I have talked frequently about the “Southern canon.” What constitutes the best Southern literature? (It’s Faulkner, right?) What are the quintessential books produced in the American South? These questions have driven me to Google more than once. Interestingly, I’ve just now turned up a stab at codifying such a canon.

The list at Agee Films is the work of “book editors, publishers, scholars and reviewers.” The candidates were limited to the past century, so much seminal Southern literature is excluded. And since it lists the top 25 Southern books, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry alike make the list. Following that is an unordered list of the next 100 books—the also-rans. I’d love to hear what the reviewers actually had to say about each book, how they justified their selections.

As much as folks like me love to make lists, I think we like to argue about lists even more. I certainly do. When the Modern Library’s list of the top 100 novels of the 20th century, I spent days on the bulletin boards arguing with people about the selection of books like A Clockwork Orange. The reason, I think, is simple. Aesthetics as a discipline has fallen on hard times, thanks to the critical schools that have come along since the 1950s. Consequently, value judgments are awfully hard to make in the early 21st century.

Naturally, then, I have some quibbles with this list. For example, I think some of the top nonfiction books are inferior to some of the novels below them. Same with the fiction. And what exactly constitutes Southern fiction, anyway? While not completely sufficient, Wikipedia’s list of Southern lit’s criteria isn’t all that bad:

a focus on a common Southern history, the significance of family, a sense of community and one’s role within it, the region’s dominant religion (Christianity, See Protestantism) and the burdens/rewards religion often brings, issues of racial tension, land and the promise it brings, a sense of social class and place, and the use of the Southern dialect.

I started to write a quick response to each book, but I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t read half of them. So suffice it to say that I think Ellison’s top spot makes little sense to me. While it is a fine novel, I find it difficult to understand how this could be the best Southern novel of the twentieth century. It depends, I guess, on what themes you think are central to Southern fiction. Racial tension is certainly on the list, but I find it much more compelling in a novel like Absalom, Absalom! or Light in August. All that said, here’s the top 25. (The ones I’ve read are in bold.)

1. Invisible Man Ralph Ellison

2. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men James Agee

3. The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner

4. The Mind of the South Wilbur Cash

5. Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe

6. To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee

7. The Color Purple Alice Walker

8. Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston

9. Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner

10. Lanterns on the Levee William Alexander Percy

11. All the King’s Men Robert Penn Warren

12. The Collected Short Stories Eudora Welty

13. The Civil War: A Narrative Shelby Foote

14. The Moviegoer Walker Percy

15. Tobacco Road Erskine Caldwell

16. Black Boy Richard Wright

17. Cane Jean Toomer

18. Native Son Richard Wright

19. As I Lay Dying William Faulkner

20. Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell

21. Up from Slavery Booker T. Washington

22. The Last Gentleman Walker Percy

23. The Complete Stories Flannery O’Connor

24. The Collected Stories Katherine Anne Porter

25. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Ernest Gaines

Correcting Corinthian believers, the apostle Paul wrote, “‘All things are lawful [the NIV interprets as ‘permissible’] for me,’” but not all things are helpful. “‘All things are lawful for me,’” but I will not be enslaved by anything. (1 Corinthians 6:12, ESV). I’ll ride to the next station on the apostle’s train of thought: Setting goals is a good thing. Allowing a goal, any goal, to dominate your expectations of success is not.

In April of this year, my friend Cameron and I decided to embark on an ambitious reading project, thinking we’d enjoy it and improve ourselves along the way. We carefully constructed a list of 101 books, both accepted classics and a few of our own. We committed to reading them in 1001 days, almost 3 years. I still think the project was a good idea. It’s helped me to renew reading in my own life, when kids and other endeavors had crowded it out.

That said, a lot of things have changed since April. Since we made our list and set out on this journey, I’ve changed jobs, taking on the role of headmaster at a classical Christian academy. Though I miss the daily interaction with Cameron, we’ve kept up via Google Talk and the occasional lunch. We rarely talk about our list.

I confess, my list has come to influence my life in two negative ways. First, it’s fed my pride. A number of people have commented on the list or the project, most admiringly. That kind of feedback on something you’ve done is a tasty morsel for the flesh. When I’m complimented, it’s easy to say, “Aw, shucks, ‘t’ain’t nothin’,” while I think, “Why, yes, it is impressive, isn’t it?” The same sort of thing can happen with my “Now Reading” list (visible in the right sidebar called “On the Bookshelf”).

Second, it’s been an instrument of guilt. I look at the list, and the things that remain to be crossed off, and I feel guilty about picking up a book that’s not on the list–even if I have a good reason to be reading what I’m reading. In addition, I’ve felt a lot more tempted to read a book rather than the Bible, simply because I realize I’m trudging toward that deadline.

For both these reasons, and some others, I’ve been reviewing my 101 list. And I’ve decided I’m going to make some changes and begin again. First, I’ll preserve the original list, and maybe return to it someday, but I’m going to remove some books and add some different ones. Second, I’ll organize the books primarily according to their genre or purpose, then situate them historically. I hope the changes will reflect both a more careful approach to the “great books” and a more balanced approach to reading. Third, I want to immerse myself in one author’s work each year, so the list will reflect that in my selection of one author with a manageable “canon” (10-15 books) for each of the remaining two years.

With those goals in mind, I’ve defined the following categories:

History/Biography / Great Literature / Great Children’s Literature (for family reading) / Devotional / Theology (my “hobby”) / Education (my professional interest) / Author 1 / Author 2

One final guideline, taken from C.S. Lewis’s essay, “On the Reading of Old Books”:

“It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should read at least one old one to every three new ones.”

For the purposes of my project, a “new book” is one published in the last hundred years. So I’ll do my best to alternate old with new, probably splitting the difference and reading one old book for every two new ones.

So if you’re interested, check back next week sometime for the new list. If you’d like to nominate books or authors, please comment below.

Reader,
If thou intendest to go any farther, I would entreat thee to stay here a little. If thou art, as many in this pretending age, a sign or title gazer, and comest into books as Cato into the theatre, to go out again, — thou hast had thy entertainment; farewell!

(from “To the Reader” in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ)

A few years ago, I had the singularly good fortune to work with a writer named Chris Walley. The first two of a planned four books had appeared in the UK, and I was working at a US publisher who had some interest. Thankfully, we did the books, though since the publisher didn’t “do” speculative fiction (SF), they appeared under the young adult imprint.

The Lamb Among the Stars, as the series was called, is an engaging story so far. I only worked on the first two books, and two more have since appeared. But I commend them. Since I also worked on the most influential Christian fantasy series of all time, it was nice to work on a series that stands on firm theological ground.

I also commend Walley’s explanation of the theology behind them, if for no other reason, then for the title: “Puritans in Space.”

Over on National Review Online, Garin K. Hovannisian has postedhis engaging review of How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. My favorite passage is near the end:

[M]odern readers neither understand nor deserve the texts they read (let alone those they don’t). Instead of scooping for symbols, seeking poetry, and being at least receptive to majestic truths, they prefer to rewind their petty postmodern formula for one more deconstruction. If hegemony and racism and social constructs are what they seek, then reading is excessive indeed.

But for those in the rising generation who still believe in art, Bayard’s prescription should be read, mused over, laughed through, and surrendered to memory’s fade. Instead of learning to talk about books we haven’t read, we must relearn to talk about books we have read.

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