Sandra Newman - The Western Lit Survival Kit: An Irreverent Guide to the Classics, from Homer to Faulkner

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First printing, January 2012
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Copyright 2012 by Sandra Newman
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Newman, Sandra, 1965
The western lit survival kit : an irreverent guide to the classics, from Homer to Faulkner /
Sandra Newman.
p. cm.
EISBN: 9781101554081
1. Best books. 2. Literature. 3. Criticism. I. Title.
Z1035.9.N55 2012
011.73dc23 2011032730

Printed in the United States of America
Set in Adobe Caslon Pro
Designed by Elke Sigal

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This book might never have been written were it not for my sometime writing partner/sometime roommate Howard Mittelmark, who suggested the project and helped shape it from the start. I am grateful for his comments and contributions throughout, particularly in the medieval and American sections. Nonetheless, all errors remain mine. (Except one! If you think you know which error is Howards, send in your answer. If you win, youll receive a limited edition, leather-bound collection of all of our very best errors.)

I n the 1920s, educators like Mortimer Adler started the Great Books programs, while imprints like Everymans Library made the classics available to everyone at reasonable prices. It was an ambitious crusade to bring literature to the people, and was phenomenally successful in achieving one thing. From then on, not just English majors, but everybody else could feel guilty about not reading the Great Books. Meanwhile, universal education gave young people the opportunity to associate literature with suffering as early as high school. By the time they reached college, they already knew that Sister Carrie was impenetrable, turgid, and boring, and that whatever language Shakespeare spoke, it wasnt English. Tainted by association, literature had all the appeal of Bible studies.

Recently, publishers have turned to spoon-feeding (Ulysses for DummiesExtra-Dumb Edition); fear (1001 Books to Read or Youll Die!!!!); and quirk (How Proust Can Change Alain de Bottons Income) with some success. Even people who dont want to read the Great Books will read about the Great Books. In fact, reading about the Great Books is now a votive act, like buying a gym membership although you never go, or separating your recyclables before jumping in the SUV.

Theres just one thing wrong with this. Literature is a pleasure. It should be emotionally satisfying, intellectually thrilling, and just plain fun. And if it isnt, you shouldnt feel bad about not reading it.

This book treats Western lit like an amusement park. It offers a guide to the rides, suggesting which ones are fun for all ages, which are impossibly dull for all ages, and which might take a lot out of you but offer an experience you simply cant get anywhere else.

For readers who have already ingested a generous sampling from the Great Books, this book will offer a unifying perspective, fresh insights, and cheap jokes at the expense of your favorite and least favorite authors. For the reader approaching Western literature for the first time (or for the second time, having been badly burned in school), this book will help you judge which authors are really worth attempting.

Each individual work is assigned ratings from one to ten in the areas of Importance, Accessibility, and Fun. I have tried to make these as objective as possible. This means that they are subjective assessments of what the average reader will feel. Of course, you may be a person who ripped through Joyce effortlessly, or who thought The Scarlet Letter was a laugh riot. Please do not be upset if you stumble over anomalies. Instead, sit back and congratulate yourself: dude, you are no average reader.

A note: Fun does not mean Quality. Paradise Lost is a work of acknowledged genius. It is also about as much fun as being trapped in a freezer. In the Fun rating, Ive tried to incorporate various possible sources of fun, such as the loveliness of poetry and the page-turning quality of fiction. However, it all boils down to assessing the entertainment value of a worknot the deathless masterpieceness.

For the purposes of this book, Western literature is what you traditionally learn about when you go to college to study literature. This book will not redress imbalances or redefine the canon. It will concentrate on works considered important in the English-speaking world, passing by Bchner and Mickiewicz and every single Albanian who ever lived without a second glance. Or a first glance.

Among other matters, the present author, like almost everyone else, would be happier if Western literature were not quite as white and male as it is. Like almost everyone else, however, there is nothing I can do about it, except try not to let it bother me, and drink. Cest la vie, which as everyone knows, is not a bowl of cherries. And if it were, in past centuries, white men would have eaten all of them, while the rest of us would have had to wash the bowl. Still, when they were full of all that healthy cherry energy, those white guys wrote some pretty good books.