I have been looking at specimens of some of the writers I admire, and I quietly decided that I will keep telling people about Roy Bedichek, a writer from Texas.
A specimen sounds like it belongs in a collection, doesn’t it?
Bedichek’s books have a place in my collection.
As a boy, I collected marbles, baseball cards, pocketknives, Prince Albert tins and other treasures. As a teenager, I listened to music and told friends about the good stuff. It seems to me that the same impulse is still at work. I find things that interest me and tell friends about them. The marbles are gone, but I still collect books.
I think our canons of literature might be formed like that. I like Virginia Woolf’s idea that the common reader has an influence on the canon.
This line of thinking started when I ran across this passage from Camille Paglia:
At this time of foreboding about the future of Western culture, it is crucial to identify and preserve our finest artifacts. Canons are always in flux, but canon formation is a critic’s obligation. What lasts, and why? Custodianship, not deconstruction, should be the mission and goal of the humanities.
I like collecting specimens of good literature, good writing, good thinking. I’d thought about being a good steward of the collection, an idea that includes some responsibility for telling people about the good stuff. I’d use the word stewardship, but I’m interested that Paglia used custodianship.
• Sources: Camille Paglia, Break, Blow, Burn; New York: Pantheon Books, 2005, p. xvii.
For those curious about Bedichek, this is the best I can do:
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