Plea for the vulgar to sublimate

Dear diary,

I wanna address the big problem that’s on everyone’s mind — the fact that modern people aren’t reading the classics…

And yet, who am I to tell anyone what to do? Even if we the people of futurity all agree that the people of the present don’t read the best books of the people of the past, by what authority can we scold those who’re beyond our time zone? If the present-folk want to squander their moment on lousy fads that have no nutritional worth and won’t even be remembered after one single century, then that’s their prerogative. We control-freaks who wish to denounce modernity’s behavior can settle for complaining about it in our private journals, and our words will ascend like a fragrance into heaven: God will inhale deeply of our complaint, and it will affect him the way that the aromas from a butcher shop affect a passing tyger.

(Pluck is an archaic term denoting “the heart, liver, lungs, & trachea of a slaughtered food animal.”)

But why wouldn’t God prefer to smell the news of modern people reading Shakespeare and the Bible? Average people, not specialists. If scholars in academia or teachers of literature read Homer and Archilochus, Hesiod, Herakleitos and Diogenes, plus Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes (etc.), it’s all well and good, but we sorta expect these professionals to be reading this type of stuff, because that’s their job: that’s what they’re paid to do. It’s like, when you visit a church, it’s not surprising to find the priest or pastor pretending to study the Bible — in fact, it’s almost boring: you’d be much more intrigued if the sermon quoted heavily from Kafka and Whitman. As Emerson says (in his essay “Self-Reliance”):

If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word? Do I not know that, with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution, he will do no such thing? Do I not know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side, — the permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister?

So I wish that the so-called regular folk would take back the classics from the specialists, and the Bibles from the preachers, and start reading them obsessively for themselves. It’s so thrilling to hear a first-time reader of Don Quixote react to that adventure. I love when every person I pass on the street is versed in Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons.

But I hate when a “normal” (non-professional) reader whines “This text is too difficult for me,” when attempting, say, Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, or the brief epics of William Blake, or the King James rendition of the Bible. Don’t say “difficult”: say “spellbinding” — you should see the unknown and all blinding perplexity as an allure, as a loving taunt from an alien intellect, summoning you to higher realms of fancy. Remember, you can’t actually learn anything from anyone; all anyone can do is provoke you to be more fully and truly yourself.

Whilst the doors of the temple stand open, night and day, before every man, and the oracles of this truth cease never, it is guarded by one stern condition — this, namely: it is an intuition. It cannot be received at second hand. Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or wholly reject.

That’s Emerson again, this time from his “Divinity School Address”. (No, the humor is not lost on me that I keep urging everyone to be her own gal, and yet I keep citing this other fine gal as my heroine.)

& tho I could talk all day about this subject, I’ll stop here arbitrarily. My closing statement is this:

CLOSING STATEMENT

Average folk, start reading the classics: they’re there for the taking!!! (don’t let the boring scholars have all the fun)—put forth your hand, open up the scriptures, have a look: consider that they provide good food for thot; and that, when voiced aloud, they are pleasant to the ear; moreover they are able to make one wise: they meld your reading mind with the authorial genius, so that you can live for ever before you die (that is: before you transmogrify).

But not all scriptures can do this: only the classics; and, among new writings, only the ones that I myself approve.

And some of the "classics" suck too… But how will you know unless you wrestle them to death?

P.S.
(a bonus retelling of Genesis 32:24-31)

Once upon a time, there was a clean-shaven wolfman. And his codename was Jacob. Now this wolfman Jacob was all alone in the world; and he stood in a medium-shot looking forlorn upon a causeway, for he was at a crossing point in his life.

Then, suddenly, BAM! out of nowhere there appears this mysterious man, very pale looking, with a long violet cape; & this man ambushed Jacob, & they wrestled till daybreak.

But when this Mystery Man saw that he wasn’t prevailing against our shaven werewolf, and that the fight seemed to be at a stalemate, rather than risk losing the match, he decided to cheat: so he used his fangs and bit Jacob right in the thigh — and by “thigh”, I may or may not mean “loins”, a euphemism for “family jewels” (authorial intention ever remains as unknowable as our aggressor); thus wolfman Jacob’s thigh was either hollowed or hallowed (one might call it “out of joint”), as the caped man wrestled him.

And after committing his low blow, the pale Mystery Man cried, “Let me go! for the day is breaking: look, the sun is coming up! I can’t remain out here in the middle of nowhere, above sea level, in plain sight of everything, on well-lit ground with some strange werewolf, even if he is cleanly shaven.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you out of this carnal embrace until you bless me — come now: redistribute your luck.”

And the pale one answered, “Tell me your codename.”

And the wolfman answered, “Jacob.”

And that pale aggressor lifted up his voice and made an official declaration, accompanied by a signed legal document certifying the fact: “No longer will the Agency refer to you as Jacob. Henceforward shall thy codename be ISRAEL. That’s (i-)SARAH plus EL, as you know the former means ‘to contend with, have power or prevail over’ & the latter term signifies ‘divinity’ — therefore I’m basically rechristening you GOD-FIGHTER. For not since Lucifer the Prince of Light have I seen a being so willing to challenge the establishment. You surely have power over mortals AND immortals: You have prevailed over the Deific Scientist who created you.”

And Werewolf Jacob asked the Pale Mysterious Vampire: “Why must I reveal my secret codename while you keep your secret a secret? What’s the deal; is your codename unpronounceable? If so, then tell me, I pray thee, what it is — just whisper it to me. I wanna learn how to say it, so that I can summon you anytime I please. For I would like to be able to sic you on mine enemies.”

And the Mystery Man cried, “How DARE you inquire after my true identity! Unlike you, I cannot subsist outside of tall tales: my codename is pretty much all that I am. Thus, from him who owns nothing, will you actually steal the only thing that he owns!? (Matthew 25:29) OK, fine: you are now my new handler — here: I bequeath you the rest of my luck.” And he blessed him there.

& Jacob called the name of the place Skyfuckt: for I have known God in the biblical sense and lived to boast of it; yet I trust that someone will someday tell my story properly.

& while he was thanking his stars for thus allowing him to pass over the exterminating angel, Jacob was startled by the creeping rays of daybreak: & as he hastened offscreen, he limped like a gelding upon his hoof, and grew fangs and turned pale.