On Our Way

Everyone likes lists don’t they? It is part of what intrigued me about Jay Parini’s Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America (pub. 2008). Parini, a prolific writer and professor of English and Creative Writing at Middlebury College, decided not to write about America’s greatest literature, but rather, what books most influenced us as a people.

  

And by trying to cover the entire length of American history he has come up with quite an interesting history of American ideas. I’m not giving anything away by sharing the list, but obviously if you want to know why he chose these particular titles, you’ll have to read it. He does a good job of giving context to the books, the background of the writers themselves and the legacies the books have left behind. His baker’s dozen is:

Of Plymouth Plantation

The Federalist Papers

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

The Journals of Lewis and Clark

Walden

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Souls of Black Folk

The Promised Land

How to Win Friends and Influence People

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care

On the Road

The Feminine Mystique  

I was aware of all the books except the one Parini took for his title, The Promised Land, which is the memoir of Mary Antin, a Russian Jew, and her story of leaving the old country, coming to America and assimilating into a new society. Hers and similar stories were very popular at the beginning of the 20^th century.

And Antin’s theme is one that turns up in many of the books, the story of coming from somewhere else and finding or becoming something new and looking forward to something better. It is America’s story and character and Parini shows how this idea, in its differing forms, sweeps through our history.

Along the way he comes up with some insightful observations, “If Benjamin Franklin is our Founding Yuppie, as David Brooks once quipped, then Thoreau is our Founding Hippie”.  Stories about success and advice on how to be successful are as much a part of our heritage as anything and Parini recognizes Franklin as the first in a long line. Thoreau on the other hand tried to figure out how little he needed to survive at Walden Pond, both financially and in terms human interaction. Thoreau’s anti-materialism continues to have its own ideological strains in today’s society.

Three of the thirteen books deal with race and the place of its complex issues in American history and culture. And there’s no question that these books, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Souls of Black Folks continue to loom large in our American discussion about race.

The fact that two “how-to” or “self-improvement” books, How to Make Friends and Influence People and The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care also seems quite right. For four hundred years our ancestors have been leaving other places and trying to better their lives. We, as their descendants, are looking for new ways to do just the same thing.

In his appendix Parini offers another list, One Hundred More Books that Changed America, so if you don't like the list of thirteen, there's a lot more to chew on. This link has his interview from C-SPAN.