As I work on another time travel story, I find myself thinking deeply about what it would mean for the present to change the past. This is the kind of thing I ponder in my best thinking places — where running water or wind is involved. That’s why I dictate more and more poetry and prose on my phone. I think well in the shower, washing dishes, or walking my dog.
Today I found myself thinking about what the world and literature and women’s lives would be like if history had erased Jane Austen and her books. Suppose someone from the future could time travel to dissuade her from writing – or even to kill her? I write in the genre of women’s fiction, and I often wonder about our predecessors, the female authors who carved out a path for many of us to follow in writing our stories and poems. What if one of the towering figures in the history of women authors suddenly had never existed?
Authors I Couldn’t Have Done Without
Jane Austen had a huge influence on my writing, as did Dickens, Henry James, and Whitman. I know others who feel the same way about the Brontes, Emily Dickinson, and Elizabeth Bishop. Jane Austen is an author I couldn’t bear to be erased from history! Without Austen’s close and witty observations on human nature in daily life, I wouldn’t have developed a certain voice in my style that stands slightly askew. Her subtle humor grabbed me and penetrated my idea of narrative voice. Though I don’t use the exact same style, my subconscious is often asking, “What would Jane make of this person?” Reading her made me sensitive to absurdity in human behavior.
Reading Dickens did something similar, though his arc of absurdity is much longer in his stories. While Austen’s points toward a humorous detachment, Dickens’ sense of absurdity bends toward tragedy. I find both helpful in my own crafting of stories.
In poetry, so many are indispensable to my development. Dylan Thomas was my early education in the beauty of language, and the classic Japanese haiku poets instructed me in beauty of imagery.
If I had to do without an author, I have a list of candidates — you may or may not agree. These are authors I could personally do without having read, and whose influence on literature and the world seems unfortunate. Some of them were once my favorites! But if I could time travel to erase these authors, I would consider the following.
Authors I’d Erase from History (possibly — debate me)
Ayn Rand. For creating a philosophy, “Objectivism” based on selfishness and cruelty. In my time travel journey, she’d have to go.
Charles Bukowski. For sheer self-absorptive dumbing-down of poetry, he’s one of my favorite candidates to be erased. (Even though he was a fellow San Pedran.)
Jack Kerouac. While I once adored On the Road, I now find it a trivial piece of navel-gazing that received far too much attention and had too much effect on the Beat Poets and those who follow them. He wasn’t even a serious writer. He said it himself: “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”
William Thackeray. For villifying a woman for her ambition over the course of an entire series of books, I think the history of women’s rights and women’s literature could well do without him and his Becky Sharp. Talk about gaslighting.
Shakespeare. JUST KIDDING! Imagine the English language if he had never existed! Estimates are that he invented 1,700 words now used in English.
Discussion Question
Which authors would you erase from history — or do you think it wouldn’t change where we are now? And if you could erase them, why?