 by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. Justin Kaplan and I shared a dream. I'm sure of it, although I never asked him. I didn't have to. My dream starts in the hallways of Puffer School, Downers Grove, Illinois, a functional one-story red brick structure, severely practical, smelling of cleaning fluid and God Bless America. There in its just mopped corridors, twice a year or so publishers reps came to show their wares and seduce their young customers. They soon saw that I was the easiest to charm and watched smilingly as I exercised my considerable wiles to get one more, "just one more, please!" ... usually succeeding, too, even if I do say so myself... then hunkering down of a prairie evening, oblivious to absolutely everything until each and every word and I had bonded. The dream continues... In my dream, there were not just books... there were more books, stacked to the ceiling books, towers of books, books so abundant and vertical even nimble clerks on shaky ladders couldn't reach the top and would say, "Young man, catch this!", dropping a hand-tooled leather- bound volume into hands celebrated for dropping balls, but never books. This dream found realization on Clark Street, Chicago. And I never left without substantial proof that I'd been there amidst the second-hand treasures. Money left. Books taken. I always had the best of the bargain, however much I paid (and I made $4 a week from my paper route)... for I didn't leave with books alone but with happiness and the certain prospect of enjoying my own imagination, a tool of the greatest importance. "Are you sure you don't want this one, too?", that shrewd clerk would ask... for he knew I could never resist... and made no attempt to, whatever the consequences. A place to dream. Books must reside in a congenial place, though this is not difficult for them, for they breathe congeniality no matter what the subject. I was18 the year I saw the place I'd been dreaming of. It was Halloween and a group of Freshman classmates at Cornell College were out and about. It was a perfect night for suburban-bred ghouls and the rosy cheeked witches whose silvery laughter belied their costume. Up the road a piece was our destination, where the dean of the college resided in professorial clutter and abundance. We barely said "... or treat" before ushered into nirvana, the roaring fire, the smell of old wood heirlooms and bee's wax. The big ol' friendly retriever who knew in his ancient wisdom just how young and welcome we were, condescending to sniff, then returning to blanket and bone, having earned his further rest, guarding the premises wherein lay the secret to happiness and joy, with books galore, including the special books that featured (in my imagination) my name as Author, the highest and most meritorious rank on Earth, open to all should they seize the dream and do the necessary labor to make that dream come true. My dream was Joe Kaplan's reality for on Francis Avenue, in Cambridge, hard by Harvard Yard he and his equally literary wife of nearly 60 years, Anne Bernays, fashioned not just a home but a mecca of wit, bonhomie, joy, where friendship reigned and words ruled, where the old and distinguished found empathy and comfort while the aspiring, bold and bumptious young received encouragement and advice, always good, timely and true, whether wanted or (more usually) not. About "Joe" Kaplan, brilliant, thoughtful, opinionated, independent. Justin Kaplan (universally called "Joe") was the son of Tobias D. Kaplan, a shirt manufacturer, and Anna (Rudman) Kaplan, a homemaker. He was born in Manhattan on September 5, 1925. Both parents died before he was 9. He was raised by an older brother and the family's West Indian housekeeper which had the unexpected consequence of turning him into an experienced (often daring) cook and food shopper, the chef in the family. Like so many New Yorkers before and since, Kaplan went to Harvard (though he was just 16 years old) graduating in 1944. He continued his graduate studies in English for two additional years. However, he didn't take the usual road, Ph.D. then a junior professorship at a good college. Instead he traveled into the American Southwest where he discovered the greatness of the sun swept lands and the writers they inspired. In due course he returned to New York (as all true New Yorkers must). There he began work as a free lance book editor before becoming a senior editor at Simon & Schuster. Because of his broad and often surprising interests he was tagged as the "house intellectual". His authors included Bertrand Russell, Nikos Kazantzakis, C. Wright Mills, and a bevy of card-carrying egg heads. They all liked "Joe" and came to rely on his practical advice and friendship. It was a job he could have kept forever, but he had a dream, too, and in his imagination he saw his name on the cover. To make this dream real, he had to give up his job, move to Cambridge to get access to the documents he needed from Widener Library, and invest seven years in mastering the writer's insistent craft. Bonanza! "Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain" (published 1966). The result was the one in a million shot, the first-time book by an unknown author which made money, won both the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the National Book Award, and became a readable classic. Joe had been dreaming the right dream and American arts and letters were the beneficiary. He had defied all odds, leapt from obscurity to fame and money in a single jump, and had a world of possibilities for his next book, for he now knew there would always, until death, be a next book. Thus he became that most rara avis, a literary gentleman of independent voice, point of view, approach and means. Such people if they know what they're about and bring grit, talent, perseverance and page-turning narrative to their work can beguile a nation and change the way it thinks. This Joe Kaplan most assuredly did. And the books, distinguished by a zest for the story and his meticulous handling of the right words, moved from his mind to the highly readable pages that showed just how good he was... "Lincoln Steffens: A Biography (1974) , "Walt Whitman: A Life" (1980) which won a National Book Award... and a stream of others. Along the way he took the opportunity to edit the 16th and 17th editions of that indispensable resource, "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1992, 2002) which gave him the pleasure of adding Cookie Monster to the repertoire ("Me want cookie."). Unrepentant liberal that he was, he also used his editorial clout to exclude President Reagan's thrilling line, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Though he loathed Reagan he admitted he had gone too far in blocking such a famous quotation and entered it in the next edition. He could be and was irate and hot-tempered; he could be and was equitable and fair. Now Justin Kaplan is dead following in the footsteps of fellow Francis Avenue denizens Julia Child and John Kenneth Galbraith, whose work also changed the Great Republic and the world. Now only Anne Bernays remains. How acute her memories must be for she dreamed, too, and now her dream wanes in the twilight of her notable life, mistress of words, keeper of the flame and of every book, Joe's lifelong sweetheart and friend. Envoi. While writing this article I asked my driver Aime Joseph to take me over to Francis Avenue. In the olden days I would have walked; it's not that far from here. However, I'm not as agile as I was then. I didn't even think of knocking on the doors which had once, long ago, opened for me when I was young and aspiring. It was a scene tailor-made to be bittersweet, even sad. But I wasn't sad. Instead I heard a song rattling around in my brain, a song of the Mississippi River, "Muddy Water" from the 1984 Broadway musical, "Big River," based on "Huckleberry Finn" and released just in time for the centennial of what is the Great Republic's greatest book. And in just two shakes of a lamb's tail, I was smiling... thinking of the splendid words and dazzling books which had been conceived, written, savored and discussed within the cul-de-sac where I was standing. It had been a place of dreams and those dreams still existed in all the books which remained, Clemens to Twain to Kaplan to "Big River" to me, to you, to... And that's why I could not be sad... because there is and will be so many others in this chain for the ages. Go now to any search engine and listen to "Muddy Water" Then close your eyes and dream, "Look out for me, oh muddy water/ Your mysteries are deep and wide/ And I got a need for going some place/ And I got a need to climb upon your back and ride." |
