• Home
  • About
    • About Last Night
    • Terry Teachout
    • Contact
  • AJBlogCentral
  • ArtsJournal

About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

Pop go the highbrows

October 10, 2014 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I take a look at the Library of America, and speculate on how some (if not all) of its recent volumes reflect a growing trend in American culture. Here’s an excerpt.

* * *

THOMSON LOAVirgil Thomson’s “Music Chronicles 1940-1954,” one of the latest titles from the Library of America, is an indispensable collection, perfectly edited by Tim Page, of the journalistic writings of the most important American music critic of the 20th century. Thomson was one of the few members of his much-maligned profession to have also had success as a creative artist, though his brilliantly witty reviews were, if anything, even more consequential than his musical compositions….

The Library of America, it seems, is on a roll. In September, for instance, it brought out a long-overdue omnibus edition of “Happy Days,” “Newspaper Days” and “Heathen Days,” H.L. Mencken’s three volumes of autobiographical essays, and it has just published “Art in America 1945-1970: Writings from the Age of Abstract Expression, Pop Art and Minimalism,” an immaculately well-chosen anthology put together by Jed Perl. All three volumes live up to the mission statement printed on their dust jackets, in which the LOA declares itself to be “dedicated to preserving America’s best and most significant writing.”

That’s why I’ve boggled at certain other authors who have received the Library of America imprimatur in recent years. First it was Philip K. Dick, a science-fiction writer of moderate renown (he wrote the novel on which the film “Blade Runner” was based) who specialized in paranoid fantasies about parallel universes. Then came Kurt Vonnegut, author of the best-selling “Slaughterhouse-Five,” which was beloved of baby-boom sophomores who fancied themselves countercultural but is not, so far as I know, taken very seriously by anyone else nowadays. Most recently, the popular crime novelist Elmore Leonard got the nod.

Not being privy to the decision-making processes of the LOA’s executives, I can’t say what they were thinking when they implicitly declared the aforementioned gentlemen to be worthy of the company of (to pick at random) Willa Cather, Robert Frost, Henry James, Herman Melville, Flannery O’Connor, Philip Roth and Thornton Wilder, all of whom figure prominently on their backlist. II think it likely, however, that multiple factors were in play, among them the desire to keep up with the current literary fashion for “inclusivity” and a healthy respect for the bottom line. (The LOA brags in its latest mailing that one of its three Vonnegut volumes was the best-selling title on its backlist last year.) All of which makes you wonder who else might be under consideration these days. Woody Allen? Stephen King? Mickey Spillane?

On the other hand, the inclusion of Messrs. Dick, Leonard and Vonnegut is surely as reflective of the same cultural sea change that is no less clearly evident in the evolution—or, rather, devolution—of the Kennedy Center Honors. In 1978, the first five recipients of that once-prestigious award were Marian Anderson, Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Richard Rodgers and Arthur Rubinstein. This year’s honorees will be Al Green, Tom Hanks, Lily Tomlin and Sting, with the peerless ballerina Patricia McBride thrown in to humor the highbrows….

* * *

Read the whole thing here.

Filed Under: main

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

@Terryteachout1

Tweets by TerryTeachout1

Archives

October 2014
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Sep   Nov »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Snapshot: FDR’s 1933 inauguration
  • Almanac: Ralph Ellison on power
  • Lookback: “Call me Bartleby”
  • Almanac: Thomas Fuller on memory
  • Just because: Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli plays Ravel

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in