A few months ago a Facebook meme was passed around endlessly. I got it from a few of my reader friends, and if you’re reading this blog, chances are that you did too.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The premise of the meme is said to have come from a BBC campaign “The Big Read” in which they asked citizens how many books they had read from a list of 100 great works. Legend has it that the BBC supposed that most Britons would have only read a mere six of the titles (which means that American would have read two). No sources are able to confirm that this list was circulated or substantiated by the BBC, nor what their criteria may have been for inclusion on the list. It was not surprising to see that a high majority of my friends had read many of the books on the list.
Flash-forward to yesterday when a friend of mine sends me a 2008 article from The Art of Manliness called “100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man Library.” (A preface: I actually adore The Art of Manliness for their pointed articles that aim to educate and intellectualize the man of the digital age. We all spend devoted time on the computer, why not have it be in worthwhile pursuits? To their credit, while they may have gotten it wrong here, they did get it right here.)
I scanned their list, glad to see such classic titles as Atlas Shrugged, The Republic by Plato, and Walden by Henry David Thoreau. What I couldn’t find among the titles, however, was even one book that glanced in the direction of a female heroine or protagonist.* In fact, the books were largely supportive of traditional American masculine gender roles. No queer literature, no fem lit, no African American authors**, few books with religious undertones.
Does the art of being manly not include the perspective of these groups who have all been marginalized by man at some point in history?
If I could suggest a few reads for the authors of this list, I might ask them to consider Virginia Woolf’s, A Room of One’s Own, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Willa Cather’s My Antonia. If we have to stick to male protagonists, why not consider the modern, post-digital male in Dave Egger’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, or Jonathan Safran Foer’s post-9/11 Oskar in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close?
As my friend pointed out, the issue with the “Top 100″ lists is that we can rarely fit all of the truly worthy titles into such a narrow list. If you had to suggest additions to the Art of Manliness, what would you add?
*Ok, I lied, there is one mention of a book with a female lead: The Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry by Christine De Pizan. I am not familiar with this suggestion, but their explanation places the female character as the mother who teaches her sons about chivalry. Unfortunately, this goes back to the virgin or the whore characterization existent in much male-focused literature.
