Getting Rid of Western Canonical Values

The literary canon -- essentially a list of books considered the most worthy of consideration -- has long been a pillar of Western culture even if there has been disagreement over exactly which works should be included.  But most have been written by white males and as diversity increases in the U.S. as a result of large-scale non-white immigration in the post-WWII period, that seems to be a growing problem: part of the "culture wars" I have increasingly been writing about.





To one critic, Vietnamese-born American poet Ocean Vuong, not just the books themselves, but the literary values that underlie them is a source of oppression.

In a "Literary Hub" interview, Vuong was asked what he was currently working on.

"I’m writing a novel composed of woven inter-genre fragments," he replied. "To me, a book made entirely out of unbridged fractures feels most faithful to the physical and psychological displacement I experience as a human being. I’m interested in a novel that consciously rejects the notion that something has to be whole in order to tell a complete story."

In doing so, Vuong said he also wants "to interrogate the arbitrary measurements of a 'successful' literary work, particularly as it relates to canonical Western values. For example, we traditionally privilege congruency and balance in fiction, we want our themes linked, our conflicts 'resolved,' and our plots 'ironed out.' But when one arrives at the page through colonized, plundered, and erased histories and diasporas [which is to say the despoilage of the world by major Western nations], to write a smooth and cohesive novel is to ultimately write a lie."

"This resistance to dominant convention is not only the isolated concern of marginalized writers—but all writers—and perhaps especially white writers, who can gain so much by questioning how the ways we value art can replicate the very oppressive legacies we strive to end," Vuong said.

Thus the Western literary tradition and the literary values that underpin it need to be dumped.

For a related post, see We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Not "US."