Promised Land
Despite its relatively short history, the variety and abundance of American literature can be troublesome to would-be canon-makers. What best represents the essence of American letters?
The national mythologizing of James Fenimore Cooper? Or perhaps the song-struck polyamory of Walt Whitman or the haunted lyrics of Emily Dickinson?
What about Ernest Hemingway鈥檚 astringency? Or the eloquence of Ralph Waldo Emerson?
Is the righteous muckraking of Upton Sinclair most quintessentially American 鈥� or is that surpassed by the profound critiques of America鈥檚 race culture offered by Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison?
How about none of the above?
For none of the authors hinted at here appear on the list of transformative works that Jay Parini elucidates in Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America.
To point this out is not to criticize Parini鈥檚 project, but only to indicate the extent to which concocting a list of exalted books is a Sisyphean task, even for a poet, novelist, and critic of Parini鈥檚 accomplishments.
It鈥檚 a task Parini has nonetheless shouldered, and the results are bracing, if sometimes curious. For each of his 13 selections, Parini offers an essay explaining that work鈥檚 significance to US culture.
Wisely, Parini sets aside literary excellence as the chief criterion for the works he chooses; instead, he fixes on social significance 鈥� 鈥渞epresentative, not definitive works,鈥� as he puts it, 鈥渘odal points, places where vast areas of thought are gathered and dispersed.鈥�
The books he chooses fit the bill: Together, they chart the course of four centuries鈥� worth of American ambitions, desires, and fears.
The American Gilgamesh
鈥淧romised Land鈥� begins with 鈥淥f Plymouth Plantation,鈥� William Bradford鈥檚 account of the Pilgrims鈥� experience in the colony he helped to lead. In a sense, Bradford鈥檚 tale is America鈥檚 Gilgamesh: The manuscript disappeared until the mid-19th century when it was rediscovered and published to electric effect. (It鈥檚 to the rejuvenation of the myth, and not the designs of the original Pilgrims, that we owe the good fortune of the Thanksgiving holiday.)
But Parini shows that our debt to the Pilgrims is also more comprehensive and more salutary. Plymouth鈥檚 leaders and residents strove together to advance the commonweal. As Bradford鈥檚 modest, humane account makes clear, the Pilgrims in their idealism were truly the first Americans.
The balance of Parini鈥檚 list focuses on a socio-historical sense of significance.
鈥淭丑别 Federalist Papers鈥� gave clear public voice to ideals of the US Constitution; 鈥淭丑别 Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin鈥� chartered a uniquely American character out of ideas about thrift and self-reliance 鈥� notions given contrapuntal piquancy and charge in Henry David Thoreau鈥檚 鈥淲alden.鈥�
Harriet Beecher Stowe鈥檚 鈥淯ncle Tom鈥檚 Cabin鈥� galvanized America鈥檚 conscience with respect to slavery; Mark Twain鈥檚 鈥�Huckleberry Finn鈥� illustrated the deformations of character and experience caused by that peculiar institution, while W.E.B. Dubois鈥檚 鈥淭丑别 Souls of Black Folk鈥� offered a glimpse of intellectual emancipation, and the spiritual exercises we would need to achieve it.
Lewis and Clark鈥檚 鈥淛ournals鈥� mapped not only American territory, but the peculiar mix of ambition and poker-faced empiricism with which we relate to the wider world, while Mary Antin鈥檚 鈥淭丑别 Promised Land,鈥� nearly forgotten today, shaped the narrative of immigrants drawn to the power, wealth, and freedom America seems to offer.
Later, as our immigrant tendencies estranged us from one another, authors like Dale Carnegie and Benjamin Spock offered substitutes for the community and attention of bygone days.
Carnegie鈥檚 鈥淗ow to Win Friends and Influence People鈥� expressed America鈥檚 brutal utilitarianism, a vision of people as means rather than ends; Spock鈥檚 鈥淐ommon Sense Book of Baby and Child Care鈥� offered consolation to parents who lacked the pan-generational wisdom of their grandparents.
Parini concludes with Jack Kerouac鈥檚 鈥�On the Road,鈥� which charted the long-burning fallout of all this alienation and materialism, and Betty Friedan鈥檚 鈥淔eminine Mystique,鈥� a fierce and brittle lens that focused the righteous resentment of the excluded and lit the way for change.
Finding a collective destiny in books
Admitting that American history offers a catalog of delusion and error, Parini nonetheless concludes that we have a 鈥渃ollective destiny, which our forebears have consciously shaped鈥� 鈥� a destiny charted and documented in these books. While gently learned and gracefully composed, Parini鈥檚 essays come dangerously close to the too-satisfying sensation that everything has worked out as it should, that history has a meaning that reveals itself, however capriciously or haphazardly, in the fullness of time.
But this is no more true of books than it is of history. Books are often understood in very different lights in different times; the ecocritical force that 鈥淲alden鈥� has for us today, for instance, would have mystified its first readers.
Perhaps chief among the capacities of great books is a quality shared by America itself: a tricky talent for self-reinvention.
Matthew Battles is a freelance writer in Jamaica Plain, Mass.
