Emily Dickinson, "There is no Frigate like a Book"

I want to read Emily Dickinson's version of the Reading Rainbow theme song with you to address the supposed impracticality of any book from which cash doesn't spill when opened. First, we've got to deal with those who attack reading in general as useless in the face of technological advancement and expertise. The complaining that no one wants to do hard sciences or hard work is incessant, as are the stories of former English majors working at Starbucks. Second, we've got to deal with that attack from a new source. In a time of political crisis, with vulnerable populations set to suffer that much more, what sense do books and reading groups make? At best they may provide escapism, but not an actual escape.

So why read? A rough answer or two can indicate the nature of the discussion we need. Before we examine Dickinson's "There is no Frigate like a Book," it is worth going back to the Reading Rainbow theme song for two lines in particular. I can go anywhere and I can be anything are subversive messages in a world screaming at kids to make their own money as soon as possible. Dickinson, too, extols reading as singularly powerful, but her last two lines – "How frugal is the Chariot / That bears the Human Soul" – point to it as more of an existential necessity.

There is no Frigate like a Book (F 1286) (from Poetry)
Emily Dickinson
  
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul –

So how to respond to someone determined to tell you everything you're reading is worthless? That you should be focused on the prime lending rate or disruption in the agricultural industry? I'm struck by Dickinson's first two lines, "There is no Frigate like a Book / To take us Lands away," and how the theme of movement across a country, perhaps to other realms, goes on to fill the whole poem. "Coursers" are fast-moving horses; a "Traverse" without "oppress of Toll" for the "poorest" is significant freedom. I feel like Dickinson gives life to this proposition: you don't respond to bullies. You simply get on the frigate or horse and continue your journey. "Away," on this interpretation, does heavy lifting. It indicates those Dickinson must speak about, but never to.

Reading as independence of mind is obscenely practical and powerful. Still, those of us who read widely feel compelled to give some account of accomplishment to the skeptics. But this may best be done in a more private than public manner. A lot of my teaching is telling people to just write down something if they think it is special. When people push me on what reading really is–aren't audiobooks reading? What about carefully watching a YouTube video which talks through Albert Camus' The Plague?–the common thread entails a willingness to value memory. Whether your own or someone else's, it's the willingness to say "this should be revisited" which constitutes the heart of reading.

We note that Dickinson's language has militaristic overtones. "Frigate" usually means a warship; "Coursers" may deliver essential messages; a Chariot brings us back to the Egyptian army, drowned in the Exodus. I think this suggests a sketch of a response to those worried that reading is horribly impractical in the face of state violence. Obviously someone who sticks their head in a book to pretend that their neighbors aren't being pulled into unmarked vans has made a horrible choice. But building your mind, the essential work of reading, is about building defenses. That frigate will not be stopped easily; horses which move fast bypass what would ordinarily be obstacles; the frugal Chariot, as we noted above, speaks to issues difficult to see, let alone articulate. Often we hear about people who are all talk, no action. E.g. the guy who is loud about a union but unwilling to sign up for one. I'm loathe to say people like this read–they may see the words and can tell you what a text is about–because there has to be some element of them open to change and betterment. We can contrast this sort of individual with someone who reads about mass incarceration or redlining, is able to see the problems outlined with their own eyes, and resolves to expand upon what they read.

The frugality of one's own Chariot, then, comes into relief. Dickinson's last lines of this poem: "How frugal is the Chariot / That bears the Human Soul." Books open you to the richness of the world. The vehicle of the Soul must of necessity be poor. What is of import is that it keeps finding the things that matter, over and over again. In the end, reading is an attitude and a resolution. It may not concern books at all. Rather, it's like a commitment to lifelong learning or a deep desire to not let words we thought wise be meaningless. Reading conceived this way has less to do with books and more with an approach to life. Those opposed to this are quite insistent that there is only one approach to life, and they are the sole administrators of it.