Here’s a little secret:
Over the years, the things we were forced to read in high school have gotten better.
It was punishing to read great literature at a young age. Personally, I was not only incapable of appreciating it; I didn’t want to appreciate it.
Aside from things like “Catcher in the Rye” and maybe those THE FUTURE IS GOING TO BE TOTALITARIAN books, there was no desire to spend time with genius writers. The time was for living; not so much for reading.
After the edge is worn off life experiences, literature has more of a place. Yes, you can jump out of an airplane if that’s your idea of excitement, but it’s not like going to a Friday night football game and expecting a fight; it’s not like kissing a girl that you cannot stop thinking about; it doesn’t compare to that first road trip with five guys in a rusty car and a total of $100 between you.
Certainly none of this can compete with Melville or Ezra Pound. Those two can’t even compete with the understated magic of hanging around a parking lot complaining that there is nothing to do – but hoping that soon there will be.
Those anticipatory adrenalin rushes fade for reasons both physical and metaphysical. When they are gone, great books becomes much sweeter.
Someone recently discarded an anthology of American Literature. I picked it up. The book is filled with writers rarely read outside of classrooms but there are in there because they are brilliant.
I reviewed the preface to Walt Whitman; learned how much time he spent on “Leaves of Grass,” basically rewriting it his entire life; thought he was just a human and that the person describing him was over stating his case.
Then I read Whitman, putting him in the context of his time (meaning no one ever wrote like this before), and quickly realized how deserving he is of the place he holds.
I remember from high school that Whitman was considered the ultimate optimist, the lover of everything.
“I am satisfied – I see, dance, laugh, sing.”
He would not allow bleakness and atrocity to wither his spirit.
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.
To Whitman, there is no death . . . as mortals understand it.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
Would I seem ridiculous if I gushed: This kind of stuff goes on and on for page after page after page.
The enormity of it overwhelmed me. Whitman’s ability to sustain his pace and prophetic message mystified me.
My advice then: A retreat to the refuge of beauty and truth, even if they are under appreciated, is recommended when you can no longer find the Heart of Saturday Night.
And so I end, from the anthology, with Emily D:
I died for Beauty – but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room –
He questioned softly, “Why I failed”?
“For Beauty,” I replied–
“And I – for Truth – Themselves are One—
We Bretheren, are,” He said—
And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night—
We talked between the rooms—
Until the Moss had reached our lips—
And covered up—our names—
–By Lanny Morgnanesi
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