About the New Canon

About 50 years ago, a group of scholarly blokes at the most acclaimed universities in the United States sat down and decided what books were to be considered literature and what books were just . . . well books. They didn't have any literary value and were not even considered "literature". The books in this Canon are said to be those literary works which have defined American culture and thus are the only ones fit to be taught. This blog is a rebellion against this old-fashioned idea. We are trying to express that these books are incredibly limited. They are essentially a list of books written by dead Eurpopean men. Women authors, minority authors and books that fall into categories other than so-called realistic fiction are few and far between on this list, but nonetheless they were judged to be ideal books against which all other books are to be measured. We want to create here a list of great reads that aren't necessarily written by someone who could not imagine what life would be like for our generation. The value of the books included on the Canon cannot be ignored, but by limiting ourselves to a strict list of valuable books, we eliminate the voices of our current generation.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

By the Shore by Galaxy Craze


Title

By the Shore


Author

Galaxy Craze


Copyright

1999



So, its safe to say that I haven't posted anything up here recently and that's for a very good reason. With all the reading I had been doing to finish up college, I didn't have time to read for myself. I'm sorry about that, but research papers took over my life for a brief period of time.


Anyway, so here's a neat book by a newer author (is 9 years ago new?) and it is her first book. It is a story about a young girl named May who is dealing with that troubled time between child and teenager. She lives with her mother and little brother Eden in a somewhat unsuccessful bed and breakfast by the shore in England. The story takes place (according to the back cover) in the sixties, but really the themes and troubles in it transcend any real time place. I would argue that the story could take place anywhere from 1960 to 1980 without there being any real problems. It is a story that has a feeling of removal from the rest of the world. It is written with simple vocabulary that make sense coming from our young narrator. The complexity is clear on the page, though.


When a new boarder named Rufus (an American writer) comes to stay at the bed and breakfast, it becomes clear that there is a romance between he and May's mother developing. This story deals with a lot of themes that I'm fond of reading about. Most notable would be the parent/child relationship since May's mother is a terrible failure as a parent. A great theme in this book is women and how they look at each other. There are very few male characters in this story, the only notable ones being Rufus and Eden. Eden is a child and and Rufus is often quiet and withdrawn from the other characters making this clearly a story about the female characters. This books asks, what is it to be a woman, and what kind of woman should May become?


Read this story, you won't regret it.
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