Apr 10, 2008 3:47 PM
Many of those who know me attribute it to my legendary frugality. But I prefer to view it as just another example of my Spartan willpower. Whatever the theory, the truth is that for more than 50 years I’ve resisted the diabolical blandishments of every book club that’s ever come up with a once-in-a-lifetime offer — the complete Booth Tarkington for just $5 or Mrs. Gaskell in rhino binding with no further purchases necessary.
The only book club that I’ve ever joined doesn’t cost a cent. It’s the Discarded Book of the Month Club, and all you have to do to be a member is scout around for a public or school library that regularly throws away books that are over the hill.
I first joined back in the summer of 1946. My father worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where, right after the war ended, dozens, maybe hundreds, of ships were put into moth balls or chopped up for scrap. Every one had its own shipboard library and, when the ship was decommissioned, the books were cleaned out and dumped into one massive pile. Anyone could help himself.
So every night my father brought two or three volumes home. What did any of us know from classy literature? Dad just grabbed whatever was convenient or a bit cleaner than the rest. After all, the price was right. But the truth is that what we read in our earliest years makes the most lasting impression on us. I can barely remember what I read last year, but I still remember that in that summer of ’46 I read books by Vern Haugland, Elliot Chess and Geoffrey Household — not exactly the crowd you’d run into in a great books course. And if some addled Ph.D. candidate in the year 2020 wants to do a dissertation on the literary influences on my writings, take a tip and forget about George Orwell and E.B. White and check out instead the novels of Elliot Arnold and Guy Kilpatrick.
But probably the biggest treat of my first year in the Discarded Book Club was “Signed With Their Honour,” a forgotten novel — except by me — by James Aldridge, a heroic, romantic story of doomed British airmen in the World War II Greek campaign against the Fascists and Nazis. An extra bonus was that the book introduced me to one of the most beautiful modern English poems by Stephen Spender from which the book got its title: “Born of the Sun, they travelled a short while towards the Sun and left the vivid air signed with their honour.” The whole package was powerful stuff for a 15-year-old.
Years later, when I started teaching English at Bayside HS, one of the first places I staked out was the library. Irma, the head librarian, and her crew were constantly weeding out books that hadn’t been checked out since the year one. They all ended up on a “Help Yourself” table just inside the front door. In my 28 years at the school, I must have browsed there at least once a week as a regular Discarded Book Club member. Sometimes I would generously volunteer to join in the weeding. I once found that Ellen Terry’s “Memoirs,” part of the library’s original collection, had never been taken out. So, with a minimum of subtlety, I suggested that it be retired — to my basement bookcase, where it still is.
Some people might think that there’s a problem in belonging to the Discarded Book of the Month Club. After all, culturally, I’ve always been about 25 years behind everyone else. While friends and colleagues were reading Doris Lessing and entertaining happy hours with their insights into Erica Jong, I was just catching up on my discarded Fannie Hurst and Rose Wilder Lane. But there’s a heroic challenge in diverting the conversation at a party from the latest Philip Roth to the romances of Joseph Hergesheimer or Ernest Poole.
The truth is that we Discarded Book Club members are the true visionaries. We know that Jackie Collins, Judith Krantz and Danielle Steele can’t last. Our shelves are filled with Edna Ferber, Faith Baldwin and Josephine Herbst. And when the fickle drama of fame is played out and the cultural pendulum swings and they make their comeback along with the hula hoop and a balanced federal budget, we’ll be vindicated.
Ed Janko, retired, taught English at Bayside HS from 1957 to 1990.