Sandra Newman, "The Western Lit Survival Kit"

An irreverent guide to the classics, from Homer to Faulkner - e-book

Read from 10^th to 27^th of September 2019

My rating:

My, my, this Sandra Newman, what a cheeky, irreverent hussy, to pleonastically put it! Daring to desecrate the Cathedral of Literature by entering it with an impertinent whistle only to deliver her Western Lit Survival Kit with no respect whatsoever for the holy names inside. How all its saints must have shuddered, including the Shakespeare God. Obviously, nothing is sacred anymore. Think of all those authors you have always tiptoed around, whose oeuvres you did not run the risk to open out of awe and/ or fear of not being the ideal reader they expected you to be, becoming the laughingstock of this brazen, sparkling American who sanctions mercilessly all books that don’t provide enough fun in reading.

Moreover, forcing me to take a walk down memory lane, to remember myself from the age of seven, from that moment when I took a book in my hand and discovered I could read in my mind, since then not to let one single day pass without reading at least ten pages, but usually much, much more. Why? Obviously, because I was having fun. When has this changed? I suppose when I decided to build a career on them books, by studying Letters. In a moment, to read what I liked irreversibly changed into reading what I had to. This habit is so ingrained now, that when I like a book too much, I look at it suspiciously, subconsciously considering its accessibility a fault. It took Sandra Newman’s essay to figure out that I am nothing more than a literary snob. And to finally admit that, yes, people, reading should be having fun. Even if it is about masterpieces, especially if it is about masterpieces. And this essay is a funny, although never superficial guide into oeuvres so great everybody knows about, but nobody reads anymore because they are not credited with fun. And many of them have it in loads. If you know where to look, that is.

Judging by its diachronic structure, you could consider The Western Lit Survival Kit a sort of History of Literature, devoid (youpi!) of its stiff academic approach. In my profession, I happen to have read many of these Histories, always prepared to endure those slightly boring incursions in the Fiction Timeline. Sandra Newman’s book has been an appropriate revenge for all those long and funless hours of study. Indeed, the author encourages us in the Introduction to enter Western literature “like an amusement park”. However, if you think that her book is a mere rejection of designed masterpieces you are sorely mistaken. Very often she points out why you should read them despite their apparent imperviousness, which makes the three (once four) columns of rating (Importance, Accessibility, Fun, once Evil) an interesting and accurate sum-up of the almost every (sub)chapter.

I cannot help but give an example of the original way the essay approaches literature that I picked in the chapter about the Antiquity, in which I found (and how proudly my heart was pounding!) the mention of “fucking Romania” (I chose, of course, to consider the epithet rather endearing than insulting). While describing the consequences the exile had on Ovid and on my country, the contrast between his most precious desire – to leave it forever, and our most precious desire, to keep him forever, is smartly highlighted:

… the thick-skinned Romanians have adopted Ovid as “The First Romanian Poet.” Ovidiu is a common first name for Romanian boys. This seems more reasonable when you consider that, while Ovid hated Romanians, he probably also fathered a slew of them.

The entire book consists of this kind of observations that go through various ranges of irony (from light to Socratic and even cosmic) to show us that any work, any subject can be subjected to the humoristic or ironic approach without falling into superficiality and triviality. Let me outline some examples that made my day, in the hope they will make yours too.

Ø  The Europe’s stepping out from Antiquity into the medieval period is imagined accompanied by a huge, unanimous sigh of relief from all those who were afraid to “be plunged directly into the Renaissance, forced to rediscover the Greeks before they had managed to forget them.”

Ø  The recent attempt of the literary historians to change the name of the Renaissance period into “Early Modern Era” in order to deny that its main trait were the rebirth of classical knowledge, is poorly received by the author, who stubbornly sticks to the old name, either because it has a classy, French resonance and because the second one reminds her of modern furniture, inviting the gruesome image of Cervantes in an Eames chair.

Ø  The progressive replacement of the historical characters with magical creatures in the chansons de geste naturally led to a progressive replacement of the reality with fiction “a process familiar to people who watch Fox News”.

Ø  The information that in Paradise Dante is guided by Beatrice, for Virgil not being a Christian cannot enter it, is accompanied by the heartfelt exclamation “Virgil doesn’t know how lucky he is”, followed by the explanation that because of the usual heaven activities (souls forming crosses or roses, spelling out words and singing) he would have thought he assisted at “the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics”.

Ø  The mystery plays, the first forms of drama in England, took scenes from the Bible, clumsily written, but with some “bawdy humor and slapstick alongside a bloodthirsty religiosity. In short, they are much like Greek drama, if Greek drama had been written by stupid people”.

Ø  Stendhal’s claim that The Princess of Cleves was the first French novel, is received with mocking incredulity: “This might have surprised Madame de Lafayette, since it was her third”.

Ø  Irving’s work (Rip van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) is so monotone and unassuming that it “reads like Valium” (I strongly and totally and irrefutably agreed with this one).

Ø  The praise from the heart regarding the style full of deadpan humor of Jane Austen’s masterpiece, is followed by the somehow diminishing hypothesis that all her other novels were “a way of consoling yourself for having finished Pride and Prejudice.”

Ø  Finally, the author, taking pity on your struggling with the 20^th century poetry, gives you the following useful advice: “If the poem made sense to you, in fact, you’re not getting it. You should get some cool person to explain it to you, so the poetry stops making sense to you too”. 

Apart all these smart reading notes, flippant reviews and unexpected reading keys, you will found many inspiring quotes, perfect to make reading even more appealing, like these ones:

Paradoxically, the most interesting works of literature are often also the most boring.

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For modern readers, Milton’s masterpiece might more aptly be named Consciousness Lost.

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Sade writes like the Ayn Rand of sexual violence.

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Short poems are always a gift to modern people, who typically have no attention span and do have cable.

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Transcendentalism is Romanticism as preached in a Massachusetts church.

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Anne was the pretty one. This, sadly, is her main contribution as a Brontë.

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The great grandfather of depressing Scandinavians was the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen.

And the cherry on the top of the cake:

Basically, so many lines from Hamlet have become part of the language that the only fresh material is in lines like “He’s coming!” and “Ha ha!” There’s nothing to be done about this, just as we can’t change the fact that some symphonies now evoke ads for insurance products.

This book left me with contradictory feelings. On one hand, I stopped feeling guilty for not having read some famous works – for it provided me with some strong arguments to defend my ignorance, on the other hand it lengthened my to-read list with the name of others – for it made impossible to me to ignore them anymore. Therefore, I think it is only right she pass through the same evaluation she so nonchalantly gave, following the same criteria she used. I hereby decide:

	Importance	Accessibility	Fun	Evil
The Western Lit Survival Kit	7	9	10	10

P.S. From all the works credited with 10 importance (and there are over 60 of them) only two received the perfect, all around ten: Pride and Prejudice and Anna Karenina. The fourth column is not to be taken into account, for it was reserved only for If. Consequently becoming my returning gift to the author.