I have been a voracious reader since young childhood. My parents were happy to encourage me…especially if it kept me quiet. (With five kids, who could blame them?) They did make me go outside during the summer, but when it was cold, they allowed me all the time I wanted. So for hours, I escaped into the pages of somewhere I had never been, meeting some people I did not know. No one ever told me such-and-such book was too difficult for me to read. I think they just assumed I would get bored with something beyond my grasp and move on to something else. And they were correct. So I learned a lexicon of new vocabulary, new ideas, new styles without pressure to ‘achieve’ something with it all. Well, one person tried to suggest that a book on the shelf I couldn’t reach was ‘too old’ for me. (I had climbed the shelves to retrieve it. No lie.) Luckily, I had a tiger for a second grade teacher. She took the librarian into the library office—and (metaphorically) bit off all her limbs. The bleeding woman came out to me, apologized (!) but told me to ask for help if the shelf was too high. And I did.
So I’ve been reading every imaginable kind of book since I could read. Both fiction and non-fiction. Biographies, autobiographies, histories, self-help were all on my list. I read the entire Bible, which led to being called in front of the Elders of my church to tell me to stop preaching heresy. (Like: who are the other people that Cain was worried about?) I spent a year reading the entire set of the World Book Encyclopedia. I didn’t understand or remember 99% of it, but I gave it a shot. I still remember some things like your Eustachian tubes. The two Brownings. (I’m not sure why they stuck in my head. But when I saw The Barretts of Wimpole Street some years later, I made the connection.) Opera and its history. (When I saw Don Giovanni on television years later, I remembered the picture.) The parts of the body. (There were these wonderful transparencies where you could lift one to find a lower level of parts: skin, then musculature, then the digestive system, then circulatory system, then the skeletal structure.) Terms like zephyr. (How could you forget a weird word like that?) Influenza as the name of the real disease. Quite a bit about cancer. (I’m still scared to death of it.) The Coliseum. Ballet. And a million other little things buried somewhere in my brain to be pulled out later. So, no surprise, I have encyclopedic books on my shelves, some of which I have read from cover to cover. Getting lost in short articles of numberless items, thoughts, opinions is a joy. (Well, it’s a joy for me.) Of course, I have read fiction of every stripe, especially plays. I have loved reading plays. Any play. I still do. Maybe that is why I have continued to write them. I still have a few books from my childhood: most of them have been lost through numerous moves through colleges, cities, housing. Still, I have some books I have kept for decades. I will keep them for decades longer.
I have a bad habit of keeping books I have enjoyed just to be collecting them. Especially popular fiction. But am I really going to re-read that murder mystery? Or The Godfather? Best Short Stories of 1989? Or non-fiction book on baseball that is twenty years out of date? Topical essays by Gore Vidal? (Actually, the answer is ‘yes’ to that one. He’s a complete ass, but an interesting one. Nothing like them.) Every novel I own by Saul Bellow? (No, but I’ve kept my favorites.) I used to look to these as a personal history of times and places of my life. But I have begun to forget where and when I have read them. And I know I will not read them again. So this year, before I turn fifty, I have decided to let them go. I have taken them from place to place. My shelves are two and three books deep. Time to whittle them down to two books deep. On some shelves, one book. I took down over two hundred things.
But what have I kept? The three types: fiction, non-fiction…and plays. (Yes, I consider it a form all its own.) Every book about a composer, like, say, The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz which is roaringly funny…and heartbreaking. And as perfect companions: his book on orchestration and David Cairn’s two-volume biography. Auto- (and just) biographies from Hildegard von Bingen to Hans Werner Henze. George Perle’s books on Wozzeck and Lulu, respectively, which are not to be missed by serious musicians—they are so detailed and brilliant (certainly, if you love those works as I do.) Some of those encyclopedia works. I have a book of operas, Kobbé’s Opera Book, that I know I have read three times through, at the very least, and certain entries, ten times or more. I love the collected articles of the music critic Andrew Porter. They comprise five books of reviews he had written for The New Yorker, from 1973 to 1986. I have discovered dozens of composers of every age from reading his take on their music. I return to them over and over again. Howard Pollack’s biography : George Gershwin—His Life and Work…also detailed and brilliant, treating him as a major composer of the Twentieth Century, which he was. (Don’t even try to argue with me. You will end up like that librarian.) Benjamin Britten’s Collected Letters. Catherine Cessac’s major exploration of the life and works of Marc-Antione Charpentier. Rimsky-Korsakov’s book on orchestration. (Great to compare the many other books on orchestration I own, not just the Berlioz, which is my favorite.) Plus dozens and dozens more. A giant bookcase filled to overflow.
Every important biography or autobiography of people in the theater or politics or movies or history I have managed to buy (as opposed to the numerous one’s I’ve checked out of the library.) A tiny smapling: Half a big shelf of books by or about Stephen Sondheim, whose music I worship as much as any ‘Classical’ composer’s. His latest books, Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat—which are not just a compilation of his lyrics—are wonderful. And probably not what you think he would be like. I re-read a treasurable seven-volume set of the history of the Broadway musical by Ethan Mordden. I disagree with him on some major works, but he is always informative…and funny. Galina Vishnevskaya’s harrowing autobiography. Believe me: no matter how bad you think your life is, unless you’re dead, your life is not that bad. The autobiography of the dancer / choreographer Paul Taylor called Private Domain. Uta Hagen’s ubiquitous (though sometimes risible) book on acting: Respect for Actors. (And disrespect for everyone else.) If she had been in one of my plays, I would have slapped her silly. There were probably more good reasons than she admitted why she taught much more than she acted. The New Book of Forms, no longer ‘new’, which is a useful, fascinating book about the myriad forms of poetry, from the first examples to ‘automatic writing’. Three books by Gore Vidal. (The question above was a trick question.) John Boswell’s pioneering book Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. (It’s still controversial. I have heard many, admittedly straight, people discredit it. All the more reason for me to keep it.) A lovely book about the director Jean Renoir—yes, son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir—by André Bazin. A gift from my college days. A biography of the last year of an ‘non-famous’ man who dies of AIDS, told by his lover, the writer Paul Monette: On Borrowed Time. It celebrates life, though it chronicles death. An essential book on the subject. The two books by the writers of The Daily Show: America, the Book, and Earth, the Book. I can open them to just about any page and get a good laugh. I have collections of The Far Side cartoons. Same as the aforementioned books. Laugh and laugh. A book on NASA. Two on Titanic. A shelf of travel books on all the places I want to go. I have no books on television (though I watch it.) And hundreds of others. I should get more on dance.
A shelf of poetry, with Shelley and Byron and Whitman next to Ginsburg and Eliot and James Merrill. (Go read him, if you don’t know who he is.) Plus collections from the far past to the nearer past to a few years ago past. Two shelves of art books: Greek and Roman, Renaissance, Romantic, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Expressionists, Post-Expressionists, whatever-the-fuck-you-want-ists, many historical (sometimes hysterical) books detailing centuries of people, places, works…like: a book bigger than many shelves can hold: The Great Book of French Impressionism. A gift from my great friend, Dana Pitts. Believe it or not, I have read all 400 plus pages, but since it’s three times bigger than most books, that averages out to be about 800 or more. The Illiad and The Odyssey. The Divine Comedy. But not The Aeneid. I need to get that.
Fiction? Well, if the expected action of growing older is to become more conservative, more prone to watch fewer movies, listen to fewer composers, read fewer books by fewer authors—I do not fit the mold. I have found more writers I want to explore every year that passes by. (I’ll talk about music later.) My books of fiction are as varied as the songs on most young people’s IPhones. I have so many, I have not made my way through many of them, though I know I will. Most are anything but ‘popular’ fiction. A monster-book called Women and Men by James McElroy has sat on my shelves for many, many years. It’s an undertaking akin to reading Ulysses…but longer. I will read it, though. Even if I re-read Ulysses first. (I was far too young the first time.) And JR by William Gaddis, though I have read A Frolic of His Own. It has to do with litigations of several kinds, including one over a terrible script…which is written for you in the middle of the book! Gaddis makes great demands on the reader, true, but they pay off. Besides, someone who treasures James Patterson will never try to read them. I have read much of Don DeLillo, but I still have an armful, like Mao II. He’s written a lot. I will never give up my copy of Underworld, one of the greatest novels ever written. Truly. I may not ever read its 800 pages again, but I am proud to own it, happy I have read this masterpiece. And by some miracle, it was a bestseller! I wonder how many of the people who bought it actually read it? I have read the novels of John Cheever, but not all of his short stories. I have read many, but not all. The collection of them sits in an honored place. No, he isn’t ‘difficult’ like Gaddis, just skilled. And probably forgotten by most people. I have two novels by Umberto Eco that I have not opened, since his work is also a major undertaking, one that is (usually) pleasurably mind-boggling in discursive details. These are just interesting (to me) representatives of the hundreds I have kept. And just to be odd, I have to mention two books I bought on a whim because they seemed intriguing, by two people no one seems to know: The Feast of Fools, by John David Morley and The Pope’s Rhinoceros by Lawrence Norfolk. I have read some pages from each. I’ll get back to them. Who wouldn’t want to read a book called The Pope’s Rhinoceros?
The bulk of the shelves hold “Classics” ranging from Candide to Schiller to Tolstoy to Faulkner and Steinbeck. I have many books by great ‘established’ writers of more recent vintage, besides those already mentioned, such as Saul Bellow, Walker Percy, William Kennedy, Toni Morrison, Nadine Gordimer, Pat Barker (she wrote a thoughtful, tragic trilogy of ‘non-fiction’ fiction about World War I, with real characters and events from their histories ‘imagined’ as well as told), Wally Lamb, Margaret Atwood, who has a library-worth of titles to her name, even Ken Follett who writes good strong historical novels between pop thrillers. If I name any more, I’ll get hate mail. I have finally divested myself of all the ‘popular’ books I have read, even enjoyed, but will not come back to read again. No mysteries left. No Agatha Christie. No Dick Francis. I can always go to a library if I want to read them.
But, oh no, you groan, the plays! Well, every kind of play, including much of what you’d think you would find. All of Shakespeare. All of Christopher Marlowe, his predecessor. Most of Eugene O’Neill. Many of Tennessee Williams, though I’ve read all of them, even some which were not printed until after his death. Multiple translations of the major Chekhov plays. (I’ve seen them performed. Translation affects them immensely.) Greek tragedies. Also multiple translations. Grab Robert Lowell’s version of The Oresteia. Marvelous. Go on. I’ll wait. Faust. She Stoops To Conquer. The Duchess of Malfi. (I loved the gruesomeness, in sixth grade. Alas, I have never seen it live.) Some Neil Simon (I say with no shame. They aren’t masterworks, but they can be very funny.) Added later: Tom Stoppard (I think I have read everything he has printed.) Arcadia breaks my heart. Another of the most original voices of the Late Twentieth Century: Peter Barnes. I discovered him in graduate school when a friend put on one of his shorter plays. Go read The Bewitched. I read it every five or six years. He’s a ‘love it or hate it’ kind of playwright. I’m one of the ‘love its’. It ends with a giant baby being born, breaking through the placenta (!) with a head shaped like an elephant. Many plays by Edward Albee. Seascape has to be the oddest stage work in the American lexicon. Not the most avant-garde…just the oddest. I’ve seen it done. I love it, but it isn’t for all tastes. All the late works of August Strindberg, like A Dream Play, a favorite since junior high. (Yes, I was a weird child.) Pieces by Noel Coward, whose plays have a bite to them people don’t always notice. He wrote about the lazy, selfish, shallow people he knew. He rarely sugar-coated them. The characters think highly of themselves, over-emote, ‘break down’. We are not always meant to. All of George Bernard Shaw. But he wrote soooo many plays, I haven’t made it through the book. Lots of them, but I still have a treasure-trove to explore. And I am never bored when I choose one. Never. Everything by Tony Kushner, our greatest living American playwright. Yes, he is. (See note about librarian.) The Collected Works of Arthur Miller. The ‘books’ to a hundred or so musicals. (Not counting the ones that come with recordings.) The plays of Shelley. Yes, he wrote plays. They aren’t particularly good. Like I said, every kind of play.
I left out several hundred playwrights. I have one whole giant bookshelf and half another filled with single and collected plays. Many, many collections. They represent the history of writing for the theater, Greeks onward, including Asian works like No plays. I have the entire series of Best American Plays, which has the full scripts of hundreds of works from about 1900 to 1985. They represent every major American playwright…and some who were just popular. Yes, I’ve read all the later ones and most of the earlier ones. I have affection for a completely forgotten writer of the 20’s through the 50’s, Maxwell Anderson. He wrote verse plays. One of them has a dump truck as a major set piece. Weird kid, remember?
So I’ve bombarded you with a sampling of what I’ve kept. Why? Because these have changed how I think, how I view the world, how I live in it. Why I laugh. Why I cry. Why I act how I do. Sure, I have read the ‘lower brow’ mysteries, historical novels, thrillers, and other pulp things—and enjoyed them. But I come back to the ones still taking space on my shelves. The ones with ideas people don’t always like. The ones that keep you on your toes. The tough ones. The ones with poetry, even the novels. The Grapes of Wrath is poetry disguised as fiction. Works that are beautiful, crushing, hopeful, wise, foolish. That is what life is to me. That is what my life has been for me. I am often too difficult for my own good. I don’t always think like others. My world has sadness and glory. Yet I find myself, idealized, in these pages. They evoke so much feeling, even the works you would not think that about. And I hope you’re intrigued enough to pick one or two up to read it. I know that all the words ever written could never capture every aspect of life, all the details, all the emotions. Yet people will continue to try. And I’ll keep reading. And as my lighter but still bowing shelves prove, at least to me, great works can hit on a fucking lot of it. Now go read The Bewitched. Or at the very least, Robert Lowell’s Oresteia. I’ve become subversive in my ‘advanced’ age. I’m converting the world to play readers, one play at a time. And if you get through Women and Men before I do…don’t tell me what happens.
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