The American Literary Canon- The View Of The Late Norman Mailer

Click On Title To Link To Norman Mailer "New York Review Of Books" article mentioned in commentary.

Commentary

Regular readers of this space know that over the past year or so I have done more than my fair share of book reviews of the journalistic and literary works of the late Norman Mailer. It is hardly a secret that in my youth (and later, as well) I devoured anything of his that I could get my hands even as we parted political company in the late 1960’s. With that in mind, I took full note of a recent three-part series concerning Mailer’s correspondence with fellow writers, editors, erstwhile critics and an occasional literary lumpen proletarian in the New York Review of Book. In the third part (dated March 12, 2009, page 28) there is a letter by Mailer to and editor of “The Reader’s Catalogue”, Helen Morris, listing his ten choices for inclusion into a project whose aim seemingly was to provide a who’s who of the Western literary canon. I list those choices below:

“U.S.A.” John Dos Passos; “Huckleberry Finn” Mark Twain; “Studs Lonigan” James T. Farrell; “Look, Homeward, Angel; Thomas Wolfe; “The Grapes Of Wrath John Steinbeck; “The Great Gatsby” F. Scott Fitzgerald; “The Sun Also Rise” Ernest Hemingway; “Appointment At Samarra; John O’Hara; “The Postman Always Rings Twice” James M. Cain; and “Moby Dick” Herman Melville.

Now Mailer, when all is said and done, is a man of the Great Depression/ World War II generation, the so-called ‘greatest generation’ so that his choices reflect an earlier literary tradition that stressed his beloved male muscularity in writing, and much else in that pre-woman’s liberation world. Here is the twist though, with the exception of “Huckleberry Finn” that I would replace with Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” reflecting a generational shift on the search for the meaning of America story, Mailer’s list is the same that I would give if asked. This from a man of the “Generation of ‘68”. Go figure.

The ‘go figure’ part is actually very easy. His list or mine, these works are very strongly representative of the best in the American literary tradition. The literary canon, if you will. They DESERVE to be read, and re-read. Where the late Mr. Mailer and I would, perhaps, part company is on the questions of who else should be included, under what criteria and how expansive the canon should be. Not inconsequential questions if, however, they are really beyond the scope of what I want to say here. If one pays careful attention to his list (or mine for that matter) it is filled with the names of dreaded dead white males so feared by the literary political correctness squads. So here is a list, by no means extensive or exclusive, of a few of the ones that I would add to that list today and that I wished I had read earlier in life. Hell, though, read them all:

Richard Wright("Native Son" and "Black Boy" are a must); Langston Hughes (if you love the blues you need to read his poetry; Willa Cather; Edith Wharton (ya, I know that old Algonquin Roundtable crowd); Russell Banks; Allen Ginsberg Is there a better modern, modern poem than "Howl"); William Burroughs; Toni Morrison; William Styron; August Wilson; Joan Didion; Flannery O’Connor (she is starting to get some well deserved attention from the academy, please read her "Wise Blood"; Jimmy Breslin; Harper Lee (a million kudos for "To Kill A Mockingbird"), Lorraine Hansberry; Gertrude Stein; Eudora Welty; and, Tennessee Williams (read every play you can get your hands on starting with "Street Car Named Desire").

What no now departed John Updike? And no John Cheevers? No, but that is what makes the literary name game so much fun. Who makes your literary pantheon?

*The Confessions Of Nat Turner- Novelist William Styron's View

On The Anniversary Of The Nat Turner-Led Slave Insurrection-The Confessions Of Nat Turner- Novelist William Styron's View

BOOK REVIEW/COMMENTARY

FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Directly below is a review (January 29,2007)of William Styron's book (originally written in 1967) "The Confessions Of Nat Turner", an imaginative literary treatment (for the most part) of the justly famous 1831 slave rebellion led by the heroic Turner and his band of fellow slaves. The fall-out from that event (Turner's revolt) had not been the subject (to my knowledge) of such a literary treatment previously and the fall out from that latter event(the subsequent all-around open season furor over Styron's take on the matter from black nationalist, pro-segregationist and other sources)was not, I believe, anticipated by him at the time. I am reposting the original review because in essentials I continue to stand by the main political (and literary) points made there. I have added a few other points below that repost as I have thought about this book recently.



From The Archives: January 29, 2007

"THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER, WILLIAM STYRON,VINTAGE PRESS, NEW YORK, 2004

I came of political age during the civil rights struggle here in America in the early 1960's. Part and parcel with that awakening struggle came an increased interest in the roots of the black struggle, especially in slavery times. Such intellectuals as Herbert Apteker, the Genoveses, the Foners, Harold Cruise, James Baldwin, John Hope Franklin and others, black and white, were very interested in exploring or discovering a black resistance to the conditions of slavery not apparent on any then general reading of the black experience in America. This is the place where the recently deceased William Styron and his novelistic interpretation of one aspect of that struggle- Nat Turner's Virginia slave rebellion enters the fray.

No Styron is not politically correct in his appreciation of Turner or his followers. Nor are latter day Southern whites and their sympathizers who have recoiled in horror at what expansion of Turner's rebellion might have meant for the `peculiar institution'. But being politically correct, etc. now or historically is beside the point. Slavery was brutal. Slavery brutalized whole generations of black people for a very long time. If one expected nature's noblemen and women to come out of such a process, one would certainly be very sadly mistaken. That the white beneficiaries of this system were brutalized is a given. Human progress has come about through fits and starts, not a seamless curve onward and upward. Nevertheless all our sympathies are with Nat and his fellow rebels.

Moreover, here are some things to think about if you are not worried about your political correctness status. Outside of John Brown at Harper's Ferry Turner's rebellion represented the highest achievement of resistance to the white slaveholders in the early 19th century. Although the fight was not pretty on either side every progressive today should stand in historical solidarity with that fight. Then one will understand not only that oppression oppresses but also that the military conditions for a successful rebellion for isolated blacks in pre- Civil War American were slim. The later incorporation of 200,000 black soldiers and sailors among the Northern forces in the Civil War are a very, very profound argument that once off the plantation blacks were as capable of bravery, courage and honor as any other American. As difficult as it is, if you do not have access to the original chronicles of the Turner uprising, read this book to get a flavor of how hard the struggle for the abolition of slavery in this country was going to be."

February 4, 2009

In rereading the above review I feel that although I made the right political points that one can take from this essentially literary treatment of the person of the black preacher/ craftsman and intellectual Nat Turner by a seemingly sympathetic white writer writing over a century later in the heat of the turmoil over what direction the previously integrationist civil rights movement of the early 1960’s was headed I think I failed to give enough weight to the particulars of Turner’s leadership qualities. Although most of Stryon’s dialogue and descriptive narrative is, as he stated in his introduction, purely literary conjecture the portrait that emerges of a revolutionary black leader does not seem to be that far from some “truth”. As the careers of the later black liberation fighters John Brown and Frederick Douglass (and I might add what we know about the earlier slave general, Spartacus) also demonstrated, in the matter of revolutionary leadership the ‘norms’ of political acumen are of a different magnitude. That is a point I wish to expand on here.

Styron has done credible job of setting the framework for Nat Turner’s emergence as a leader of a slave rebellion. Precocious as a child, Turner strived to learn to read and write, by hook or by crook, in a culture that enacted laws (the infamous Black Codes) to prevent such an occurrence. In fact, even among sympathetic whites there was a feeling that Turner was unusual and that his ability to read and write was an exceptional experience. In short, as W.E.B. Dubois later put it in another context, Turner was one of the “talented tenth”. Moreover, Turner’s personal existence as a trained craftsman, self-taught preacher and one with time and opportunity to become a budding slave general would seem to conform to a historical pattern about the way plebeian leaderships are formed. Contrary to intuitive reasoning the most oppressed are not necessarily the most revolutionary (proven here by the betrayal by fellow slaves and by history a million times in a million ways). Some can be lead to see their plight. But they, initially at least must be led by the Nat Turners of the world. That, my friends, is where the ‘lessons’ of Styron’s book apply today. We better get busy.