The Only True Republic For Which We Stand is Our Imagination, or How to 'Read at Whim'
An excerpt from Michael Klein's new collection, 'Happiness Ruined Everything'
I occasionally liken reading to dreaming—the way John Gardner talks about entering the world of fiction as you would a dream.
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In Order
An excerpt from Happiness Ruined Everything
by Michael Klein
E.L. Doctorow once taught a course at NYU with only one book on the syllabus. The class read the book and decided then what they wanted to read next. If the book was Jane Eyre, for instance, someone might suggest The Wide Sargasso Sea, the prequel written by another writer at a completely different time. Perhaps reading both books would give a reader a rounder sense of the created world when seen through the eyes of different characters. Or one could, by extension, if they were in an architecture class, read something about Gaudi that would lead them to a book set in Barcelona—Colm Toibin’s Homage to Barcelona, for example.
I have no idea if Doctorow’s class was a literature course or a writing workshop or if this story is even true, but it doesn’t matter, it’s the idea that counts, and it’s a great one. What’s so right about the idea is that it mirrors the way a deep reader is curious. A lot of us read like this anyway—at least we do when away from the academy. We read books in the order of our lives, or, more precisely, in the order of where our interest takes us.
When the poets Jean Valentine and Adrienne Rich were students at Radcliffe, the Dean of the school suggested they both take General Studies because, even though they were there to write poetry, poetry wasn’t offered—not for credit, anyway. In a way, they lucked out; in General Studies, they had to read everything. Jean later told me how the course made her a better poet than if she had only read poetry. Randall Jarrell meant something similar when he said, “Read at whim.”
When my friend Beth (an extraordinary pianist) and I applied to Bennington College, I asked her what attracted her to the school. Bennington was famously hard to get into, and neither of us had done very well in the complicated hormonal tempest that is high school. Beth’s very matter-of-fact answer was, “I want to go there because I want to talk about Bach with an architecture major.” Architecture, of course, could be considered a back road to Bach. Beth didn’t necessarily want to talk about how the music made her feel (which is how we usually talk about music) but how the music was built—in the same way people talk about mathematics and music. My friend wanted to bring logic to something ephemeral.
Most writers I know are incredibly curious about how life is built — which brings them to so many subjects. This probably accounts for why I am always reading at least two or three books at once: a book or two of poetry and a book of non-fiction. And, if I’m feeling really adventurous, a novel as well. But a novel, for me, is the hardest thing to read. There’s usually structure to a novel, and I like looser structure than most fiction delivers. I occasionally liken reading to dreaming—the way John Gardner talks about entering the world of fiction as you would a dream. Because I go back and forth with books, they begin to read into each other and put me in a zone like Alpha but not quite Alpha. This crowding of subjects starts to sound dissonant, but I like dissonance in music and art.
I am more of a cataloging listener than I am a reader, though. I generally listen to all the music by one person and then go on to some next singer or composer. I don’t do that so much with books. I haven’t read — I don’t think — all the books by any living writer (principle before personality?) except all the books by certain poets. But even there, I’m particular, if I think a poet is just doing the same thing they did the last time and the time before that.
What to read next?
Maybe a book from any number of the stacks that surround me, which have always surrounded me—stacks arranged in the order of my curiosity. The newest books are usually on top. Even if I never get to all of them, the sight of those high-piled books is evidence of the only true republic for which we stand—our imagination.
Michael Klein has written five books of poetry, including, “The Early Minutes of Without: New & Selected Poems.” He is a five-time finalist and two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award in poetry, for his first book, “1990,” and for editing the seminal anthology, “Poets for Life: 76 Poets Respond to AIDS.” He is also the author of two books of autobiography, “Track Conditions,” a memoir about his time on the racetrack, and “The End of Being Known,” essays on sex and friendship. His work has appeared in POETRY, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Tin House, Bennington Review, FENCE, LA Review of Books, Poets & Writers and many other publications. He has taught writing at Sarah Lawrence College, Binghamton University, Hunter College, the Fine Arts Work Center Summer and for more than 20 years, as part of the MFA-in-Writing faculty at Goddard College. He currently works as a consultant and editor for people working on memoirs and poetry manuscripts.
This short essay, “In Order,” is from Michael’s new book, Happiness Ruined Everything, which has just been published by Galileo Press. The book is available at bookshop.org.
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