I think Toni Morrison and Jamaica Kincaid are ALREADY canon, but I might be on crack. I did read them quite regularly in classes in college. I personally prefer The Color Purple to Beloved because during Beloved I spent a lot of time trying to figure out WTF was going on.

The overwhelming image from Beloved that sticks with me a so profoundly disturbing is the image of a black man in a bit (like a horses bit). I am not sure I can ever read that again. (this is a criticicm I actually think that the disturbing images are what makes the book great).

I think I approach 'literary criticm' in an odd way-- I was an undergraduate Literature major, and about 1/2 way through I really discovered that what I loved about literature was not necessarily the language-- but what the literature of a time told me about it's people and how that compared to today's worldview. I guess that is part of literary criticism but a smaller one than language, I wager. My favorite literature class was "personal narrative" where we read journals and essay rangind from Sei Shonagan to Virginia Woolf to Frederick Douglass to Susan B. Anthony, to teens holocaust diaries.

I probably should have been a history major...

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And what does "an emphasis on language" mean except that more care and attention are paid to being well-written?

In this case, I meant a particular kind of language, although it's hard to define what. I don't mean style vs. content (which I agree is a division that falls apart after a while); I mean particular kind of style.

I do also think each era produces its own kind of generic High Literary Prose Style.

Like that.

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I'd also say genres like sf and mainstream are harder to define than things like romance, mystery, or Western, because the former are not as closely tied to specific conventions of plot or environment as the latter -- even though they may develop some typical tropes over time.

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I fucking loved "Beloved." I re-read it every year -- the writing style, and the characterization is just so perfect to me. i don't feel that way about any other of Morrison's books, although I like several of them, but "Beloved" I adore.

Jilli, what about poetry? I'm thinking you need to read Christina Rossetti's "The Goblin Market."

I also agree about Atwood, and I love "Cat's Eye" for it's most accurate, unflinching look at the lives of girls that I have ever read. I would also say "Robber Bride" for the way that she looks at the way women have other relationships with women, both good and bad.

Neruda is already canon.

Allende? I love her, but I'm not sure about canon.

I propose Dorothy Allison, who gives wonderful looks at family relationships and all kinds of social commentary -- kind of modern Southern Gothic -- and in th most wonderful simple, elegant, evocative prose.

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Allende? I love her, but I'm not sure about canon.

She feels a little squishy around the edges to me. t /exacting literary critical language. Maybe a little too eager to please.

I bet Jilli has already read "Goblin's Market" and all those decadent, juicy, mordant pre-Raphaelite poets.

Fair point about Morrison and Kincaid, Sophia. I do think something like Beloved is likely to still be read fifty years from now. Whereas Walker's subordination of fiction to immediate political concerns is going to read like a very earnest, boring, preachy abolitionist novel from the 1850s.

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I agree about Walker. I like several of her earlier books, and they introduced several interesting and new topics for me to thnk about in college -- but as far as style, and longvegity, I don't think she really has the same impact or grace.

GM is such a creepy poem. I love to read it in the fall.

I read Neruda to myself, tucked into bed at night. I read it in the Spanish first (which I totally don't understand) just for the rythem, and then in the English, for the images and different rythem.

Besides, the guy wrote an ode to a lemon. How can I not love him?!

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Whereas Walker's subordination of fiction to immediate political concerns is going to read like a very earnest, boring, preachy abolitionist novel from the 1850s.

OK-- I am starting to agree with you. I just tend to have a fondness for things that don't age well-- in what they can tell us about then. The Jungle or Maggie, Girl of the Streets or Daisy Miller come off in the same ay to me but I still think it has a place.

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However, Jilli reminds me I want to dig out SWTWC again. It's a shame the movie wasn't better, because the casting was impeccable, IMO.

The movie could have been better if they had decided not to go for cheap scare tactics by changing the Dust Witch into Queen of the Spiders. Gaaaah!

I bet Jilli has already read "Goblin's Market" and all those decadent, juicy, mordant pre-Raphaelite poets.

Luuuuuurve "Goblin's Market". In fact, I saw a kick-ass stage production based on it. However, I will admit that I haven't read a *lot* of poetry; most of my teachers picked not very interesting-to-me poems and then proceeded to do a horrible hack & slash job of explaining why we should admire it.

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Quick little notes:

• Just started rereading

Moby Dick. So far, up to Father Mapple's sermon ("Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah" -- heee!). Very, very happy so far.

• P-C has inspired me to give Faulkner another go, which is something that up until two days ago I would've sworn on a stack of the collected sacred texts of every culture on the planet I'd never, never do. Hec promises he'll find me something less impenetrable than "The Bear," and possibly a mid-50s edition of something with a nice pulp fiction cover, to make it less frightening.

• Jilli, FWIW, this is one of my favorite poems on the planet, by Elizabeth Bishop, a dark and gorgeous snapshot of Ezra Pound in the madhouse. And here is the poem I got my current tagline from. As I said in Bitches a while back, Elizabeth Bishop is the motherfucking man (I'm fairly sure Jen will back me up on this).

• Canon? Like others here, I'm not so sure about Walker, but quite sure about Toni Morrison; I'm ashamed to admit that

Handmaid's Tale is the only Atwood I've ever read, and now I feel very urgently that I need more; and I think Gloria Naylor has a shot at canon, possibly, depending on what she puts out over the next few years. Mama Day is the one of hers that I'd lovingly and urgently pimp to anyone, anytime, ever. So lovely and intelligent and deeply felt, and such a rich and marvelous job of worldbuilding.

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I tend to put Surfacing in because of the way it deals with gender and identity. In some respects, I feel it is the most "Canadian" of her novels

To me that's why Surfacing will not be the canonical Atwood book; because she was consciously trying to write the Great Canadian Novel it's not universal enough. I'd plump for Cat's Eye along with everyone else, although Alias Grace might come close.

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