On the
once-popular author it’d be okay not to read, and why maybe we still should.
As is no doubt
obvious to any reader of this blog, and as I’ve
even overtly written in this space, I think there’s no reason, in our 21st
century digital moment, why we shouldn’t try to read and remember as much as
possible in our collective American consciousness. I know from personal experience
that discussions
of the canon still matter when it comes to choosing
what we teach and what we leave out of our unfortunately time-limited
syllabi—but I’m talking here about what we try to get into our public
conversations, what we all read
and engage with as a national community. Seen in that light, and again in
an era where so much of our literature and culture is available in part or even
in full digitally, I’d say almost without exception the more we include, the
better.
Having said all
that, you’ll understand that it’s not easy for me to say that it might not be
necessary or even a good thing for us to read and remember Thomas Nelson Page
(1853-1922). Page was very popular in his late 19th and early 20th
century moment as one of the chief proponents of the
plantation tradition, the nostalgic embrace of the slave south (and
accompanying rejection of the Civil War and everything that had followed it)
that became a
dominant national perspective by the turn of the century. In fact, Page
created the single story, “Marse Chan”
from his first collection In Ole Virginia
(1887), that sums up that perspective better than any other, in the moment when
the ex-slave Sam says, speaking of his life as a slave to the story’s Northern
narrator, “Dem wuz good ole times, marster—de bes’ Sam ever see! Dey wuz, in
fac’!” It was bad (and damaging) enough that such a-historical, propagandistic tripe
was hugely popular in its own moment—why on earth should we continue to read it
in ours?
Again, I don’t
know that we should—it might well be sufficient to read descriptions of Page’s
work like this one, and spend our time and energy on less objectionable texts.
But on the other hand, if I were to make the case for reading Page I would do
it in two distinct but equally valid ways. For one thing, the only way to truly
understand why and how such works became popular (and even dominant) in our
culture is to read them; since every moment certainly has its troubling or
objectionable popular works, that’s a particularly important thing to
investigate. And for another thing, I can’t be a hypocrite—I’ve long
advocated in this space for Walt Whitman’s idea of “filtering things from
yourself,” engaging with texts and facts, stories and histories, as fully as
possible so you can figure out your own take on them. Clearly I have a strong
take of my own on Page, and I would argue for it in any conversation about him
and his works—but I don’t know that anybody should get to decide who we do and
don’t read in any absolute sense, and I know for sure that I don’t want to play
that role. So read this Virginia voice—but prepare to hold your nose as you do.
Next voice
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Voices from your home you’d highlight?
No comments:
Post a Comment