A note on any ‘structured reading program’

 Robertson Davies, a man of letters who was the founding master of Massey College at the University of Toronto, once met a young fellow in a graduate class who didn’t know who Noah was.

Here’s what Michael Dirda, who writes about books for The Washington Post, makes of the tale:

What should a person know of the world’s literature? It has always seemed obvious to me that the great patterning works ought to be at the heart of any structured reading program. By “patterning works” I mean those that later authors regularly build on, allude to, work against. 

He gives a list of 21 works. Shakespeare (five plays) and Homer (two epic poems) making up a third of his version of the canon.

Know these well, and nearly all of the world literature will an open book to you.

Do you think that’s true?

Yes, I think so. If we all had a general knowledge of our shared literature, no one would be lost at the mention of Noah.

That’s a good thing — but it’s good in a peculiar way.

Of the books listed in the various versions of the canon, almost all interest me, but remarkably few excite passion.

In most cases, I have read the classics to find out what all the excitement was about, only to find me that it wasn’t all that exciting to me. Interesting, but not riveting.

Reading the books of the canon — however that’s conceived — is worthwhile. We need to find what others who share the planet are thinking and doing. We need to have some kind of understanding of what so many people before us liked and admired. Finding out is a kind of pleasure. It’s also a necessity, if we hope to live together.

But there is another kind of pleasure that is far more intense and wonderful. It’s the pleasure of finding kindred minds, voices that speak to you.

When others speak of Dante, Defoe, Swift and Austen — all writers on Dirda’s list — I can follow the conversation. But I don’t speak of those authors, at least not often.

Meanwhile, I weary my friends talking about things that people who were not on Dirda’s list have said. I can’t go long without thinking about Montaigne, Thoreau or Herodotus.

Also, I’m more likely to think of a remark that a contemporary has made — Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Roy Bedichek — than of something from the canon.

Respect for the common tradition: yes, or course. But it’s natural for individuals to like other voices better. And perhaps a bias for contemporary voices is excusable.

• Source: Michael Dirda, Book By Book; New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005, pp. 7-8.