The Warlock Rewritten

In my college literature courses, most of my fellow students longed to write the Great American Novel.  Even the professors mentioned it occasionally, but usually in a manner that invited conjecture more than description.  In fact, I think some of them doubted that such a work could be written at all – but guessing as to what it would be, or even drawing up a list of its characteristics, was a good way to motivate students to develop their critical standards, and gave the creative writing majors a goal at which they could aim.

The fly in the ointment was, of course, that the Great American Novel might already have been written.  The top three nominees, as I remember it, were Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, and Dreiser's American Tragedy.  Each pinned down a value-structure that, even today, seems to be fundamental to the American psyche.  The fact that no one book had them all was incidental.

Or maybe it wasn't.  After all, if the novel is to be both great and American, shouldn't it include all of America?  Or is that asking too much?  America is, after all, a pretty large country, both geographically and demographically, and every immigrant wave has added its own culture and values to the mix.

There's a way to approach it, though.  If that Melting Pot has managed to produce a single substance that is whole and unified, perhaps we only need to identify one key value from which all the others developed a faithful alloy.  If we can identify a single such cultural root, then a novel drawn from it might apply to the whole nation.

But is it necessary for the value-set to apply to the whole culture?  For starters, let's try a list of American regions: New England, the East Coast (From New York to Maryland), the South, the Southwest, the Midwest, the West Coast, and because of its cultural influence, Appalachia.  We should really add that the big cities constitute a region of their own, for New York City and Chicago have more in common than either has with Hannibal, Missouri, and a large part of their cultures comes from the ethnic groups they have absorbed.

Okay, that makes nine regions.  What's important about each?  What makes its culture unique?

Let's start with Moby Dick for a clue to New England's primary value.  The most obvious root-value is Ahab's obsessive search for the White Whale and the way he attacks once he finds it.  Even in death his obsession rules him, for he beckons his crew.  Surely a modern analyst would classify him as having OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder).  The obsession of his investors, however, was profit, and their search for it led them all along the East Coast, then following the pioneers as they pushed relentlessly westward.  In the process, as they spread their values throughout the country.

How about current New Englanders?

So expand that search.  What was the root value that sea-merchants and land-merchants carried into the West as the United States expanded?  What was the goal they pursued with Puritanical zeal, the objective for which the White Whale is a symbol?  Perhaps the answer lies in the Prudential Ethic: "That which is right is also profitable."  In practice, though, the phrase can very easily be inverted: "That which is profitable is also right."  This explains how devout churchgoers with Bibles in their hands could be slave-owners, and how they could pollute China with opium (one opium captain made a note in his ship's log: "Employed delivering briskly—no time to read my Bible.").

The obsession of these early New Englanders, then, is profit, money.  We can't blame that on their descendants, though, for the worship of Mammon has spread throughout the country.

Okay, Moby Dick leads us to strike gold as one of our key virtues.  Why then do we have so many prodigals, so many people who take whatever comes their way?

The answer lies in Starbuck's reaction to Ahab's beckoning.  The happy-go-lucky first mate cries out to his crew, "We do not fear whales—we kill them," and leads the last suicidal assault on Moby Dick.  Those who are most prone to take life as it comes can very easily become fanatics in their own turn.

But wasn't that a long time ago?

It was, but the value endures.

Another professor told us that great literature must have the virtues of universality and timelessness—that people of today find just as much of value in the works of the ancient Greeks as did the Achaeans of their own time.  That made sense to me, because a book can't be famous and still selling well if it can only be understood in the country and decade of its writing.  I have read that Fiddler on the Roof was as popular in Japan as in New York, that the trials and lives of the people in a shtetl, a small Jewish village in the back country of Russia, can strike a chord that resonates with anyone caught between tradition and the modern world.  This, I submit, testifies to its universality.

So why isn't it considered great literature?  It's only a hundred years old, after all.  Give it a century or two more and see how its sales are holding up.

How about Huckleberry Finn, my own personal favorite candidate for The Great Novel Already Written.  It is timeless because it's still being read today.  The library in my home town just celebrated a Mark Twain month, and Huck was very much a part of it.  A musical based on the book did quite well on Broadway not so long ago, and it's interesting how much Huck resembles Starbuck.

But he doesn't represent all of America—only the Mississippi Valley and the antebellum South.  The culture he represents, however, is still very much alive and influencing the rest of America, through country music if nothing else.  Huck is a Noble Savage worthy of Rousseau, with an innate moral sense that makes him defy the teachings of the adults: that slaves are property and, consequently, that it is a sin for Huck to steal Jim out of slavery.  Indeed, throughout the whole journey, he holds himself apart from the adults he encounters, picking and choosing which of their beliefs are right and which wrong.

I think there are still some Huck Finns among us today, thank Heaven.  We need them sorely.

Don't agree with me?  Good!  Reply to me in this blog, and let's discuss it.  Next post: Can the Great American Novel be science fiction?  I'll start with Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle.