The American ideal, in 13 volumes
The watershed moment of Nov. 4, 2008, has made a perfect clearing on the bookshelf for Jay Parini's latest book, Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America. In the aftermath of a presidential election, and its attendant battle between disillusionment and hope, Parini's book seeks to restore our faith in the American character, especially that of the everyday radicals who, throughout this country's history, have pushed toward realization of the American ideal.
By Jay Parini.
Doubleday. 385 pp. $24.95
Reviewed by Catherine Prewitt
The watershed moment of Nov. 4, 2008, has made a perfect clearing on the bookshelf for Jay Parini's latest book,
Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America
. In the aftermath of a presidential election, and its attendant battle between disillusionment and hope, Parini's book seeks to restore our faith in the American character, especially that of the everyday radicals who, throughout this country's history, have pushed toward realization of the American ideal.
In
Promised Land
, Parini, a poet, biographer, critic, and professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, catalogs a baker's dozen books that have "helped to create the intellectual and emotional contours of this country." Each occupies one chapter, in which Parini explains the book's historical and cultural context, summarizes the book, and analyzes its impact on the American character.
The books are, in order, William Bradford's
Of Plymouth Plantation
; Madison, Hamilton and Jay's
The Federalist Papers
;
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
;
The Journals of Lewis and Clark
; Henry David Thoreau's
Walden
; Harriet Beecher Stowe's
Uncle Tom's Cabin
; Mark Twain's
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
; W.E.B. Du Bois'
The Souls of Black Folk
; Nicholas Lemann's
The Promised Land
; Dale Carnegie's
How to Win Friends and Influence People
; Benjamin Spock's
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care
; Jack Kerouac's
On the Road
; and Betty Friedan's
The Feminine Mystique
. Franklin and Twain rub shoulders with Carnegie and Spock - a signal that this collection is less a Great Books tour and more a search for the American essence.
Quotation-heavy summaries let each book speak for itself. Parini doesn't seek to replace the experience of reading but to compel the reader back to the works. So the trouble with adding this book to your list is that you'll want to add 13 more.
A cross-generational cohesiveness emerges as Parini discovers patterns and shared themes: self-creation and self-improvement (in the
Autobiography
,
Walden
, and
How to Win Friends
), the fight for political and social equality (
Uncle Tom's Cabin
,
Huck Finn
,
Souls of Black Folk
,
Feminine Mystique
), and longing to escape an unsatisfying mainstream culture (
Of Plymouth Plantation
,
Walden
,
Huck Finn
,
On the Road
), to name a few. These works converse with one another, and in exploring their conversation, Parini hopes to discovers the concrete and transcendent qualities of the American character.
In his chapter on
Huckleberry Finn
, Parini writes, "These adventures are not located definitely in space and time. . . . They have always been with us, and always will be: shaping the American voice and character, refining morality at every bend in the river, which is still breaking before us - so long as we continue to live." This excerpt, in which Parini bestows an epic quality to Twain's writing that touches every work in
Promised Land
, demonstrates the urgency with which Parini writes. His stacked clauses tumble down the page, creating a thrilling momentum, a fluid prose energized with poetic accents.
Parini admires each work, to be sure, but he does not restrict his analysis to praise. There's a tough refusal of blind adulation: These works may have helped set forth the American ideal, but those ideals have been undermined throughout our history at least as often as they have been achieved. The ideals set forth in these books grate against the reality of an imperfect nation.
For instance, in his discussion of
The Journals of Lewis and Clark
, Parini writes about their relations with natives: "A model of interdependence between invader and invaded was thus established (not dissimilar to that seen in the Plymouth Colony nearly two centuries before), although others would sadly destroy this model in the decades to come. The appalling violence that later marked our westward expansion continues to boil up and disfigure our emotional landscape."
Unlike "national greatness" writers, who engage in a sadly toxic sentimentality, Parini resists the illusion of a flawless American character; rather, he mournfully articulates its shortcomings. Yet he is hopeful, poignantly so, pointing to the resilience with which the American character fights injustice.
Parini's most striking theme may be that of the everyday radical. Each of these works was written by a person with deeply American and deeply radical aspirations; fiction and nonfiction alike, these works tell tales of everyday radicalism and encourage it to continue. Parini writes of
The Souls of Black Folk
: "Racism is hardly defunct, and Du Bois still calls to us, readers of all racial backgrounds, to understand the violence of prejudice and to seek equality for everyone. This is the American promise, and we shall never give up on its fullest realization."
Promised Land
is about the promise, then, not the fulfillment, the process of working toward ideals that are not here but are crucial to our communal life. Jay Parini reminds us that we too are part of a long legacy of radical thinkers and doers. We are of a lineage of everyday revolutionaries who constantly challenge the status quo, and are thus called to continue our quest to animate our ideals into a national reality.