Essays of E.B. White (urspr publ 1977; utgåvan 1979)

Excerpts from my original GR review (Jan 2011):
- "I bought a puppy last week in the outskirts of Boston and drove him to Maine in a rented Ford that looked like a sculpin."
- These days, E.B. (Elwyn Brooks) White is best known for his much-revered children's books, such as Stuart Little. What is perhaps less known, or appreciated, is his long-lived contributions as an essayist. This wonderful collection displays his talents very well. Harold Ross, founder of The New Yorker, hired White in 1926 as associate editor, where he worked alongside James Thurber and Katharine Angell, who eventually became his wife. He was the main contributor to "Notes and Comments" in the magazine, and kept a close association with it right up until the 1980s.
- The Whites worked and lived in Manhattan for much of their early careers, but from early on kept a saltwater farm along the Maine coast. They made it their permanent residence in 1957, and some of his most poignant work seems to emanate from his simple observations of farm life. In fact, the first section of this collection is titled "Farm Life", and is my favorite overall. Other sections include "The Planet", "Memories" and "Books, Men and Writing". The postscript, "About E.B. White" was a nice surprise as well.. ( )

A friend recommended this essay collection to me after seeing a picture I had posted of a raccoon in a hollow tree on our property. The particular essay she had in mind is titled Coon Tree . Luckily I happened to find this edition (an used copy) just a few days later, on spring break up in Boston and the Harvard Bookstore.

E.B. White is probably best known for authoring Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little , so it's not surprising that his observations of animal life, such as raccoons in the aforementioned essay or geese in The Geese are quite engaging and also somewhat anthromorphic.

His essays here cover different topics, and are organized in different categories: "The Farm", "The Planet", "The City", "Florida", "Memories", "Diversions and Obsessions", and "Books, Men, and Writing".

While some of White's essays may seem a bit dated, they are still contemporary accounts of events that were relevant at the time he wrote them, which is something worth considering. His observations are keen. Here are some of my favorites:

"There are two sides to a raccoon -- the arboreal and the terrestrial. When a female coon is in the tree, caring for young, she is one thing. When she descends and steps off onto solid earth to prowl and hunt, she is quite another. In the tree she seems dainty and charming; the circles under her eyes make her look slightly dissipated and deserving of sympathy. The moment she hits the ground, all this changes; she seems predatory, sinister, and as close to evil as anything in Nature (which contains no evil) can be. If I were an Indian naming animals, I would call the raccoon He Who Has the Perpetual Hangover" (p. 35-36, Coon Tree).

"On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy. It is this largess that accounts for the presence within the city's walls of a considerable section of the population; for the residents of Manhattan are to a large extent strangers who have pulled up stakes somewhere and come to town, seeking sanctuary or fulfillment or some greater or lesser grail. The capacity to make such dubious gifts is a mysterious quality of New York. It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky (p. 118, Here is New York)".

"There is also a woodchuck here, living forty feet away under the wharf. When the wind is right, he can smell my house; and when the wind is contrary, I can smell his. We both use the wharf for sunning, taking turns, each adjusting his schedule to the other's convenience. Thoreau once ate a woodchuck. I think he felt he owed it to his readers, and that it was little enough, considering the indignities they were suffering at his hands and the dressing-down they were taking. (Parts of Walden are pure scold.) Or perhaps he ate the woodchuck because he believed every man should acquire strict business habits, and the woodchuck was destroying his market beans. I do not know" (p. 237-238, A Slight Sound at Evening -- this is an essay discussing Thoreau).

I definitely will seek out E.B. White's other essay collections. ( )

This is a widely diverse collection of essays. The sections include The Farm, The Planet, The City, Florida, Memories, Diversions and Obsessions, and Books, Men, and Writing. Some are funny, some are nostalgic, and some are just downright boring. While a few of the essays would have gotten five stars on their own, a few others would have gotten one or two stars, and most would have been somewhere in between, so I averaged it out to three stars for the collection as a whole.

Some of my favorites include “Farewell, My Lovely!” about the first Model-T and it’s idiosyncrasies; “The Years of Wonder,” about White’s month and a half aboard a cruise ship in Alaska; and “The St. Nicholas League,” about a magazine that published art and writing by children. One of my least favorites is “Mr. Forbush’s Friends,” a random collection of bird facts from Forbush’s book.

When I read my first collection of White’s essays (entitled One Man’s Meat), I was totally enchanted. I haven’t felt the same about the other two of his collections that I’ve read. There were definitely moments of enchantment, but I was expecting more. For anyone who is interested, I’d recommend One Man’s Meat as his best collection. ( )

E.B. White's essays are enduring classics, part of a rather small number of books that are enjoyable to re-read years later. His famous style does begin to seem stodgy and even a bit smug in our world, but his love of nature and ability to find humor in small details is still endearing. What struck me this time around, reading for a January 2016 book group, is his gentle approach to raging political problems of his time, the 1950s. On racism, he describes in leisurely style a vacation in Jim Crow Florida, and the astonishment of his Finnish cook that she shouldn't sit in the back of the bus. His deep identification with nature and animals implies a criticism of nuclear energy policies that threaten the environment. His appreciation of good writing brings along an implied criticism of the McCarthy era attacks on Hollywood screen writers he admires like Ring Lardner. After seeing the Trumbo film, this suddenly became much more obvious to me. Such a calm observational style could definitely improve our current political discourse if the public had the patience to think things through with care. These political implications are anything but stodgy and smug. Even his famous essay on racoons seemed to me this time like a very indirect commentary on motherhood in general. It's just easier to think about when transposed onto cute critters rather than real people. Here's a book that's definitely worth a another look. ( )

Polished gems crowning the New Yorker magazine at its literary apogee. ( )