Okay, English professors, I’m calling you out

Here’s the thing. I know you think that Moby Dick is a seminal work of American literature that’s influenced everything that has come after it with a mighty influential power, but, see, it’s actually not. You know why? Because nobody wants to read it. You know why? Because it’s so ungodly boring. It may be the epitome of American romanticism, but that doesn’t speak very well of American romanticism, now does it? Why don’t you do this: Get rid of Moby Dick, because nobody will read it and the people who do read it won’t love it and then they won’t love you, and put in Emily Dickinson instead. Think how much friendlier that will be. Emily Dickinson is a major poet that you have unreasonably left off the syllabus, and she is from the same time period as Herman Melville, and she is much more quintessential, so actually you wouldn’t lose anything because she is better in every way.

Moby Dick may be a great novel on epic themes (it is, obviously), but that doesn’t make it okay. You know why? Because Melville was careless and he combined his great novel on epic themes with his definitive treatise on whaling, and it didn’t really come out all that well. You can pretend that this was just part of his genius, but I think actually it was more like a literary experiment gone horribly, horribly awry. Herman Melville was a good writer. He’s just not as genius brilliant as you think he is. And you should delete Moby Dick from your syllabus posthaste, or at least tell the students which parts to steer clear of so they won’t end up bashing their heads against the wall as they try to wade through four hundred pages of whaling information.

And while I’m on the subject, can I ask you a question? Why are we reading Ernest Hemingway when he’s total rubbish? You know you only like him because of the bullfighting and manliness. Well, I’ve had enough manliness and I am ready for something about a woman, so can we please hit up Kate Chopin instead? I know you mean well, but every single thing that we are reading from now until December is about white men and I am not a man and I would have a lot more fun if we hit up, you know, ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD.

And speaking of Southern novels, I am grateful that you added Zora Neale Hurston, but can we please please please eighty-six Faulkner and insert Harper Lee? And can we get rid of dreadful Toni Morrison and replace her with Alice Walker who is lovely? And if you really really want to spoil me, you might consider deleting Richard Wright and inserting Langston Hughes or Ralph Ellison (by the way, do you have any explanation for Langston Hughes’ exclusion from our syllabus? What about Emily Dickinson?).

Thank you for adding Ezra Pound and Sylvia Plath and E. E. Cummings (but I’m not going to spell it the retarded way because it’s retarded) and Eugene O’Neill. I am grateful for all of these things. But can I just say that if you’re not going to put T.S. Eliot on our syllabus because you’ve included him on your British lit syllabus, then it is only fair to admit that Nabokov is an American writer and give us the gorgeous treat of Lolita or Pale Fire. We do not try to pretend that Salman Rushdie is an Indian writer. I do not even try to pretend that T.S. Eliot is an American writer (although I would like to).

No more Moby Dick. Remember that. Here is a mantra for you: Moby Dick is bad and Emily Dickinson is good.

(You can alter this in lots of different ways. See above for suggestions.)

This is my syllabus by weeks, and it is the amazingly vastly improved version although it still does not have any of my favorite American authors on it:

Moby Horrible Dick
Wallace Stevens poems
Walden
Death of an Extremely Depressing Salesman, which you all read in high school already and I don’t like as much as The Crucible so let’s read The Crucible because it is a much cooler play and also then you would have an opportunity to hate on Joseph McCarthy, which is an opportunity never to be wasted
The Grapes of Wrath
Robert Frost poems
A Streetcar Named Desire (just to let you know, if you wanted to do something with someone not straight, Alice Walker is bisexual. And female! And black! Don’t you SEE the POSSIBILITIES?)
The Sun Also Rises (yes, yes, the guy has a malfunctioning willy, and it’s ruining his life. Please do not make me read this again.)
William Carlos Williams poems

and then in the spring:

The Member of the Wedding (looking forward to reading this!)
Ezra Pound poems
Their Eyes Were Watching God (yay!)
E.E. Cummings (you really aren’t going to brainwash me into spelling it the retarded way. IT IS JUST DUMB) poems
Beloved (Please can we have The Color Purple instead? Pretty please? I will give you ten pounds if we can have The Color Purple instead)
Marianne Moore poems
Native Son (nooooooo)
Sylvia Plath poems (to cheer us up!)
Light in August (Faulkner is No Good. Let’s read To Kill a Mockingbird instead. Or Ernest Gaines? Or oh! if you really want to have mercy on us, what about gorgeous gorgeous Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil? Or Flannery O’Connor, or Robert Penn Warren if you must have a white dude! Or, hell, I’d even rather read Confederacy of Dunces, and please appreciate how much I really don’t like that book.)
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
I should really invent my own syllabus and offer it to the American literature people as a favor. Then they would not have to torture their students but instead would give them a lovely syllabus. My syllabus would be more like this:

Emily Dickinson
Huckleberry Finn
one or two O. Henry stories, for joy
Civil Disobedience and, because I do not hate you, The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail
The Great Gatsby
The Awakening
Ezra Pound
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Langston Hughes
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
Dorothy Parker (pomes and reviews because her reviews kicked ass)
E.E. Cummings
The Crucible
Catch-22
The Color Purple
To Kill a Mockingbird and/or Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Lolita
The Poisonwood Bible
Angels in America
The Time Traveler’s Wife

My syllabus makes me much happier than your rubbish syllabus. I might toss in some H.L. Mencken as well, and Chaim Potok (because lucky everyone who gets to read The Chosen). They should put me in charge of inventing the canon. I would get rid of everything that sucked and only include things that were cool. You may notice that this syllabus consists of everything I like, and that is quite true, but since my taste is obviously perfect, there is no point in complaining, and anyway I have not chosen things at random but given some thought to my selection. Imagine what a delightful paper could be written on oppression in The Color Purple and Lolita.

If you are an teacher of American lit, feel free to steal this syllabus and inflict it on your students. They will grumble at having to read lots of novels but ultimately they will appreciate it.

Now I must stop procrastinating and do actual work.