Writings From The New Yorker 1927-1976 (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
The cover of this book refers to E.B. White as "inimitable," which is a word just vague enough in meaning to the modern ear to suggest the author is venerable and quaint. I couldn't have chosen a better term. While a fair number of these short pieces are pointed and political, all have the tone of a high-brow dinner party among close friends -- strong convictions softened by a pleasant cadence and linguistic etiquette. It is hard to imagine a time when busy New Yorkers opened their magazines to give ear to articles on crickets and the interaction of smog and fog, but such a time must have existed, and Mr. White paints an appealing portrait of it.One of the most fascinating (if anomalously surreal) pieces involves Mr. White taking a trip (fictional, I believe?) with Senator McCarthy to Walden pond, in order to suss out whether Thorough could be construed as un-American. White's politics are never naked and his portrayal of McCarthy stays safely short of blustering caricature, and yet the subtle undermining of the Senator's positions are playfully apparent throughout. At other times White is more forthright with his politics, as when he dedicated a column to (polite) outrage that the Board of Education was ceasing to recommend books that presented a biased perspective, in favor of balanced texts. White states forcefully that by their nature, all great books are biased, and that one achieves an education by reading many such opinionated tomes, rather than a single aggregate. And not for nothing, but this is one half of the team responsible for Elements of Style. I've never seen a collection of sentences more effortlessly convey their meaning, without falling prey to the choppiness of intense conviction and emotion. And yet it is clear from the care of his writing that White loves New York, loves Emerson, loves some funny version of America that he happily conjures in all its imperfection. There is surely, surely something for everyone in this collection.
None of the pieces in this book are longer than a few pages. Most are only a page, or even only a paragraph. This is just the right size for a literary nightcap or an introspective moment. I've nursed this collection for nearly a year, and now I've turned the last page. What shall I do? I imagine a year or two from now I'll have forgotten so many details that I'll decide to read it afresh.In the meanwhile, I have bookmarked one of the one-paragraph essays from 1936, because it comforts me to know things haven't changed so much in the past 85 years. Let me quote it here:"Constitution (2/8/36)That was a good letter of Thomas Jefferson's which F.P.A. published in his column, in which Jefferson pointed out that there was nothing sacred about constitutions, and that they were useful only if changed frequently to fit the changing needs of the people. Reverence for our Constitution is going to reach droll new heights this year; yet the Constitution, far from being a sacred document, isn't even a grammatical one. 'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union...' has turned many a grammarian's stomach, perfection being a state which does not admit of degree. A meticulous draughtsman would have written simply 'in order to form a perfect union' --- a thing our forefathers didn't dare predict, even for the sake of grammar.
What do You think about Writings From The New Yorker 1927-1976 (2006)?
Quoting page 1: '"Thoroughly American and utterly beautiful," is how William Shawn, E. B. White's editor at the "New Yorker", described his prose. At the magazine White developed a pure, and plain-spoken literary style; his writing was characterized by wit, sophistication, optimism and moral steadfastness. For his contribution to American letters, Mr. White was awarded the National Medal for Literature, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1978 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the body of his work. E. B. White died in 1985.'"(page 9) Farewell to Model TI see by the new Sears Roebuck catalogue that it is still possible to buy an axle for a 1909 Model T Ford, but I am not deceived. The great days have faded; the end is in sight...."
—Fenixbird SandS
It's all good--too much all at once. The essays--essayettes, really--on nature, New York, and Maine tend to be the best. White on Thoreau is best of all: "He got a reputation for being a naturalist, and he was not much of a naturalist. He got a reputation for being a hermit, and he was no hermit. He was a writer, is what he was.""'Walden' is so indigestible that many hungry people abandon it because it makes them mildly sick, each sentence being an anchovy spread, and the whole thing too salty and nourishing for one sitting.""What seemed so wrong to him was less man's economy than man's puny spirit and man's strained relationship with nature--which he regarded as a public scandal.""He was the subtlest humorist of the nineteenth century, a most religious man, and was awake every moment. He never slept, except in bed at night."[All from "The Individualist":]
—Dave
I question I´ve had about writing many times is, "How long should a piece be?" There are the traditional forms, essays, short stories, and novels, etc., however, what if what you have to say is a simple comment or observation that requires less than 500 words to do justice to? Is it worth writing at all?This collection of short writings by E.B. White goes a long ways towards answering that. The vast majority of the writings in this book were used as filler, a few hundred words to fill space in the New Yorker that would have otherwise been glaringly blank. And it´s good. It´s a collection of snippets; short pieces of writing, unambitious, but quite interesting and satisfying.
—Ryan
