Me, I'm an original vintage type of guy. I like stumbling across old books complete with original (if torn) dust covers, enjoy flipping through rows of LPs with fabulously dated album art, prefer my music delivered in album format rather than greatest hits collections. But I also have a fatal weakness for special editions, re-releases, touched-up masterpieces, rebound volumes. Package something in an attractive felt cover or roughly-recycled wood pulp, and I'm more likely to give it a second glance than if it were merely offered in mass-market paperback format (for many dollars less, it must be said). I enjoy seeing works put into historical context, fall hard for copious notes, delight in the hemming and hawing over translations, thrill to secondary works, the whole nine yards.
Having said all this, it might be surprising how much I admire - nay, adore - the project undertaken by the Library of America to select specific authors and works of American origin for publication and (here's the real kicker) eternal "in print" status. Perhaps you've seen these simple yet attractive volumes in better bookstores or on the shelves of university libraries (where they are often sadly stripped of their equally simple yet attractive black dust covers). This independent nonprofit, founded almost thirty years ago with National Endowment for the Humanities funds, is a self-conscious offshoot of the famed French series, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, a 1930s era project designed to make French classics available in pocket format. There have been "portable" versions of American authors and literary movements in the past, but none were exactly pocketsized, unless one favored large, heavy raincoats, while the selection process and editing often seemed a bit arbitrary. Critic Edmund Wilson helped create the idea of an American version of La Pléiade, and, since 1982, the series has released new volumes every year. I feel that the past ten years has seen the project moving beyond mere collections of writings and has entered the realm of creating new canons, of re-contextualizing works, and of highlighting forgotten or overlooked authors. And they've accomplished this with grace and charm, without a whiff of political correctness or the identity politics guff that has transformed so much of contemporary literary studies into a kind of armchair flagellant society.
The reason I might not be suspected of being such a fan of the Library of America is that they bring neither the thrill of original-dust-cover archaeology or the rush of newly-discovered-and-contextualized editorializing. Novels are collected in groups of three or four and clumped together in one large 1,000+ page volume, short stories are collected into single offerings, poems grouped between one binding. Notes are nearly nonexistent - no long introductions by literary fans or esteemed biographers, few footnotes, only a time chart or two at the end of each volume offering sparse biographical detail. What these volumes offer up is nothing more nor less than the entirety of a given author's output. And they do this is pleasingly small volumes that often run to 1,200 pages yet are surprisingly light, can indeed fit into one's jacket pocket or be easily carried beneath the crook of one's arm, boast excellent binding, and are printed on some of the wispiest yet most delightful acid-free paper around. True bibliophiles may find themselves caressing the covers and flipping the sheets back and forth in sheer delight.
And this is saying nothing of the actual printed words included inside these volumes, which, taken as a whole, constitute one of the most impressive collections of national literature undertaken in any form. Early volumes concentrated on presidential writings, the complete works of Mark Twain, Henry James, Nathanial Hawthorne, and poetry compilations. Yet among such welcome if unsurprising choices were wonderful left-field ideas such as anthologies of American sermons, collections of wartime journalism (the two-volume Vietnam War series made my top ten of last years reading experiences, and is a priceless investment) and a mammoth two-book release of the entire seven volumes of nineteenth century historian Francis Parkman's France and England in North America. The 3,120 pages of this collection help keep my bookshelf sagging properly, and while I can't promise I'll ever get around to reading every word inside, the history buff in me knows that someday I'll find the time to immerse myself in the wondrous details.
In recent years. the Library of America has kept admirably aware of the times and has released more and more volumes from more recent and even contemporary authors. They have made brave arguments of inclusion for many gifted writers previously deemed unworthy of the mantle of national literature, releasing the works of John James Audubon and crime writer Dashiell Hammit alongside masters like Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Edith Wharton. With the unveiling of Philip Roth's collected early novels, they began honoring the work of a handful of living writers (even more importantly, of working living writers), a practice which has continued with the recent release of the first volume in a planned series of John Ashbery's collected poems. I recently picked up this volume (it still smells new), and by placing between a single binding the entirety of Ashbery's work between 1956 and 1987, the Library offers the hope that mere mortals such as myself will have a one-stop source to explore the depths of America's greatest living (and, at times, most confusing and experimental) poet.
New releases continue to astound. Last year saw the introduction of the great A. J. Liebling into the collection, first with a grouping of his World War II writings, and later a broader look at his journalism, including "The Sweet Science" - a truly welcome high-profile release which will hopefully introduce this amazing writer to many more readers. I've been losing myself in the collected stories of John Cheever since the volume was released early last spring, and while I'm not sure I'll pick up the companion volume of his collected novels (I've heard his writing skills were most clearly demonstrated in the short story format), I'm quite abashed that it took me so long to recognize his genius.
Slowly and subtly, I suspect that the Library of America, now totalling nearly 200 volumes, is rewriting the history and scope of our national literature in a much surer and informed manner than the hapless inclusionists over at Norton Anthologies. I look forward to being surprised and pleased at their choice of releases in the years to come, as they begin to mine the rich depths of 1950s-1970s American literature. I have a few dream choices and suggestions, as befits my book-nerd background - all selections that would in some way expand our conception of what it means to be an American and offer richer portraits of our cultural literary heritage.
- a multi-volume set of the complete writings of Pauline Kael, to augment the now out of print For Keeps collection and her individual volumes of criticism
- volumes devoted to the complete writings of the recently departed journalist and master writer George Plimpton, especially a collection of his peerless sports writing
- the nature writings of Rick Bass, still easily available but in puny (and overpriced) softcover editions
- a collection devoted to the "California writings" of Joan Didion, which would automatically become the greatest literary compilation of the state in existence
-the complete plays of Wallace Shawn, unfairly overlooked due to his secondary career as a character actor
- collected criticism and writings of Robert Christgau (the eternal nerd in me sees an entire volume of the complete and individual Consumer Guides, beginning in 1969 at the then-radical Village Voice)
These are my demands. I respect the intelligence and thoughtfulness of the good folks at the Library of America enough to suspect that at least one of these is already in the planning stages. I can only wish them Godspeed.
Having said all this, it might be surprising how much I admire - nay, adore - the project undertaken by the Library of America to select specific authors and works of American origin for publication and (here's the real kicker) eternal "in print" status. Perhaps you've seen these simple yet attractive volumes in better bookstores or on the shelves of university libraries (where they are often sadly stripped of their equally simple yet attractive black dust covers). This independent nonprofit, founded almost thirty years ago with National Endowment for the Humanities funds, is a self-conscious offshoot of the famed French series, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, a 1930s era project designed to make French classics available in pocket format. There have been "portable" versions of American authors and literary movements in the past, but none were exactly pocketsized, unless one favored large, heavy raincoats, while the selection process and editing often seemed a bit arbitrary. Critic Edmund Wilson helped create the idea of an American version of La Pléiade, and, since 1982, the series has released new volumes every year. I feel that the past ten years has seen the project moving beyond mere collections of writings and has entered the realm of creating new canons, of re-contextualizing works, and of highlighting forgotten or overlooked authors. And they've accomplished this with grace and charm, without a whiff of political correctness or the identity politics guff that has transformed so much of contemporary literary studies into a kind of armchair flagellant society.
The reason I might not be suspected of being such a fan of the Library of America is that they bring neither the thrill of original-dust-cover archaeology or the rush of newly-discovered-and-contextualized editorializing. Novels are collected in groups of three or four and clumped together in one large 1,000+ page volume, short stories are collected into single offerings, poems grouped between one binding. Notes are nearly nonexistent - no long introductions by literary fans or esteemed biographers, few footnotes, only a time chart or two at the end of each volume offering sparse biographical detail. What these volumes offer up is nothing more nor less than the entirety of a given author's output. And they do this is pleasingly small volumes that often run to 1,200 pages yet are surprisingly light, can indeed fit into one's jacket pocket or be easily carried beneath the crook of one's arm, boast excellent binding, and are printed on some of the wispiest yet most delightful acid-free paper around. True bibliophiles may find themselves caressing the covers and flipping the sheets back and forth in sheer delight.
And this is saying nothing of the actual printed words included inside these volumes, which, taken as a whole, constitute one of the most impressive collections of national literature undertaken in any form. Early volumes concentrated on presidential writings, the complete works of Mark Twain, Henry James, Nathanial Hawthorne, and poetry compilations. Yet among such welcome if unsurprising choices were wonderful left-field ideas such as anthologies of American sermons, collections of wartime journalism (the two-volume Vietnam War series made my top ten of last years reading experiences, and is a priceless investment) and a mammoth two-book release of the entire seven volumes of nineteenth century historian Francis Parkman's France and England in North America. The 3,120 pages of this collection help keep my bookshelf sagging properly, and while I can't promise I'll ever get around to reading every word inside, the history buff in me knows that someday I'll find the time to immerse myself in the wondrous details.
In recent years. the Library of America has kept admirably aware of the times and has released more and more volumes from more recent and even contemporary authors. They have made brave arguments of inclusion for many gifted writers previously deemed unworthy of the mantle of national literature, releasing the works of John James Audubon and crime writer Dashiell Hammit alongside masters like Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Edith Wharton. With the unveiling of Philip Roth's collected early novels, they began honoring the work of a handful of living writers (even more importantly, of working living writers), a practice which has continued with the recent release of the first volume in a planned series of John Ashbery's collected poems. I recently picked up this volume (it still smells new), and by placing between a single binding the entirety of Ashbery's work between 1956 and 1987, the Library offers the hope that mere mortals such as myself will have a one-stop source to explore the depths of America's greatest living (and, at times, most confusing and experimental) poet.
New releases continue to astound. Last year saw the introduction of the great A. J. Liebling into the collection, first with a grouping of his World War II writings, and later a broader look at his journalism, including "The Sweet Science" - a truly welcome high-profile release which will hopefully introduce this amazing writer to many more readers. I've been losing myself in the collected stories of John Cheever since the volume was released early last spring, and while I'm not sure I'll pick up the companion volume of his collected novels (I've heard his writing skills were most clearly demonstrated in the short story format), I'm quite abashed that it took me so long to recognize his genius.
Slowly and subtly, I suspect that the Library of America, now totalling nearly 200 volumes, is rewriting the history and scope of our national literature in a much surer and informed manner than the hapless inclusionists over at Norton Anthologies. I look forward to being surprised and pleased at their choice of releases in the years to come, as they begin to mine the rich depths of 1950s-1970s American literature. I have a few dream choices and suggestions, as befits my book-nerd background - all selections that would in some way expand our conception of what it means to be an American and offer richer portraits of our cultural literary heritage.
- a multi-volume set of the complete writings of Pauline Kael, to augment the now out of print For Keeps collection and her individual volumes of criticism
- volumes devoted to the complete writings of the recently departed journalist and master writer George Plimpton, especially a collection of his peerless sports writing
- the nature writings of Rick Bass, still easily available but in puny (and overpriced) softcover editions
- a collection devoted to the "California writings" of Joan Didion, which would automatically become the greatest literary compilation of the state in existence
-the complete plays of Wallace Shawn, unfairly overlooked due to his secondary career as a character actor
- collected criticism and writings of Robert Christgau (the eternal nerd in me sees an entire volume of the complete and individual Consumer Guides, beginning in 1969 at the then-radical Village Voice)
These are my demands. I respect the intelligence and thoughtfulness of the good folks at the Library of America enough to suspect that at least one of these is already in the planning stages. I can only wish them Godspeed.
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