A Twenty-First Century Twenty-First Century

I just read this in an interview with the writer Colm Tóibín:

"he banishes critical theory texts about texts from the seminar room, preferring, instead, to conduct his class through a line-by-line reading of the classics - Pride and Prejudice, Daniel Deronda, The Portrait of a Lady."

I think Modernities is making me more radical, less content with the mainstream cultural narrative. This quote made me snort with disgust. I don't want a twenty-first century nineteenth century! I want a twenty-first century twenty-first century!

I'm on dodgy ground here because I understand the need to know one's craft, to look back at good works from the past, to be able to learn from them. But a line-by-line reading of them? I'm not too sure about that. I'm not sure about the desire to add to the canon either. Or the canon at all to be honest. This is well-trodden ground of course - the usefulness (or not) of the canon, what and who it includes and excludes, who controls it, and so-on and so-forth. But really, "the classics" are the canon of a white, upper-class, Anglo-Saxon man. (I wonder how many of the students of Stanford and Princeton fit that description ;-).)

I think I want work that ignores the canon. No. I mean work that somehow manages to tread the fine line between learning from the past and disregarding it. And subverting it. I am worried by the stifling potential of the canon, of going through old books line by line, hoping to learn something that is relevant, measuring today's work against yesterday's.

This is not to say they are not good books (although I wouldn't know as I haven't read any of the three mentioned). But why can't they just be the good books of their time - all very well and good and nice to read and everything - whilst we have the good books of our time, that engage with our times and our lives, rather than the canon of past lives?

(I won't even get started on the other irritance from that sentence - "he banishes critical theory texts". That's a whole other blog-post).