Cast of Characters by Thomas Vinciguerra

When I was growing up I often spent time with a relative who had a subscription to The New Yorker magazine. She had traveled to that metropolis many times and wanted to keep up with what was happening there. I was too young to appreciate anything in the magazine except the cartoons and the colorful covers. I didn't understand what a literary treasure trove it was.

I have come to see the error of my ways. I am especially fond of and fascinated with the early history of The New Yorker when it was lorded over by its founder Harold Ross. The first issue came out in 1925 and Mr. Ross remained the magazine's editor until his death in 1951. 

Mr. Ross and his crew - James Thurber, E.B. White, fiction editor Katharine White, theater critic Wolcott Gibbs, and others - are the shining stars in Thomas Vinciguerra's Cast of Characters. I discovered this book in the new non-fiction display at the library the other day and snatched it up. As Mr. Thurber and Mr. White are two of my favorite writers, I couldn't resist.

And it is great to find a book about the magazine that features so much information about Katharine White whose intelligence and clear thinking kept the bombastic Mr. Ross in line. (If you haven't read Onward and Upward in the Garden, a collection of her columns, I can surely recommend that you do.) 

I have only read the first two chapters of this tale and am already in thrall of the talent that came together in the editorial offices of the magazine. There is brief background information on each writer and editor and generous examples of their work - which of course is the best part - all held together by Mr. Vinciguerra's fine prose.

I am looking forward to spending the weekend in the company of this erudite, witty, and charming cast of characters. 

The Story of Charlotte's Web...Redux

"Where's Papa going with that axe?"

That has got to be the greatest opening line ever! In case you don't recognize it, it is the first sentence in Charlotte's Web by 
E. B. White. It brings a tear to my eye to this day as I know what is coming.

In honor of today being the thirty-year anniversary of Mr. White's death, I am re-running a post below from a couple of years ago in which I encourage you to read Michael Sims's fond look at the early life of Mr. White and his writing of CW. 

I was thrilled to met Michael Sims, the author of The Story of Charlotte's Web, and hear his tale of doing research for the book. He visited the farm in Maine where Mr. White wrote about Charlotte and her word-filled web. My autographed copy holds a treasured place on the bookshelf.

Also, these two links (here and here) will take you to other posts I have written about Mr. White who is one of my favorite authors and whose writing has taught me so much.

*************

March 11, 2012

Read this book...

Read This Book...if you know nothing of writer E.B. White and the place he holds in literary history.

Read This Book...if you have ever read Charlotte's Web and fallen in love with the tale of the spider and the pig.

Read This Book...if you want to be a writer, or a better writer, for the examples of clarity and conciseness found in White's words and to experience his agony and angst in order to produce such fine writing.

Read This Book...if you hate spiders and want to find out how fascinating they can be and how White himself relished researching their habits in order to give Charlotte as many true characteristics as possible - down to writing words with her web.

Read This Book...if you want to be drawn into the world of E.B.White - his childhood at the turn of the 20th century, his work at The New Yorker, his loving relationship with his wife Katherine White, his love of the natural world and the barnyard animals that inhabited his farm, and his dedication to his life of words.

In short: Read This Book.

Savannah, Georgia - October 24, 2013

We struck pay dirt today in Savannah. Two bookstores and eight books. I had to restrain myself! But I did find some gems.

E. Shaver, bookseller 
OK, I broke down and bought a new, autographed hardcover edition of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. I was prompted to buy because we had just toured the Mercer-Williams house which was the home of Jim Williams, the fellow featured in the book and the movie. I also purchased a new hardcover edition of Charlotte's Web by E.B. White to replace my paperback copy. And I bought a box of notecards featuring pen and ink drawings of Savannah landmarks.

Turns out the owner, Esther Shaver, used to own a bookstore in Louisville, my hometown. Small world.

Books stacked on a staircase in The Book Lady

The Book Lady
This is just the type of place that one wants a used bookstore to be: a bit crowded and a bit comfortable. Worn leather sofa, plenty of chairs to pull up to shelves, and helpful assistants. I bought two books by Bill Bryson (The Lost Continent to replace the copy I gave to my brother and a hardcover edition of A Short History of Nearly Everything) and four volumes of The Bedside Guardian - 1978/79; 1980/81; 1983/84; and 1985/86. These contain columns, reviews, and cartoons from this London newspaper. I don't know where I heard of these anthologies, but I have never seen them in a bookstore. I could barely contain myself and instead of trying to pick one volume I just went ahead and bought all of the four on the shelf. The introductions are by John Cleese, William Golding, Peter Ustinov, and Salman Rushdie. I am excited to see what treasures I will discover in these volumes!

Shelves of vintage books decorate Gryphon restaurant

Gryphon
This was the place we wandered into for lunch. I looked about me and there were books all over the place. The building used to be a pharmacy, then a college bookstore, and now is a restaurant and is somehow connected with Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Our bill came stuck between the pages of a book! A perfect complement to the Grand Southern Literary Tour.

Memorandum

A friend and I were talking about books and other things today. It was a clear afternoon with a slight breeze and the front porch was the perfect place for a chat. She sipped lemonade; I enjoyed a latte.

She grew up on a dairy farm and now she and her husband and three children - well, two are away at college, so really there is just one boy at home - live on what is known as a hobby farm. They have three sheep, two goats, two or three hives of bees (she kindly brought me some fresh honey), a dog, a cat population that increases and dwindles, and sometimes they have hens wandering about. There are two ponds, a barn, a forest full of trees, and fencing surrounding the pasture where the sheep and goats graze.

I was telling her about one of the essays in E.B. White's One Man's Meat titled "Memorandum".

It was written in October 1941 and begins:

Today I should carry the pumpkins and squash from the back porch to the attic. The nights are too frosty to leave them outdoors any longer. And as long as I am making some trips to the attic I should also take up the boat cushions and the charts and the stuff from the galley and also a fishing rod that belongs up in the attic. Today I should finish filling in the trench we dug for the water pipe and should haul two loads of beach gravel from the Naskeag bar to spread on top of the clay fill. And I should stop in and pay the Reverend Mr. Smith for the gravel I got a month or two ago and ask him if he has seen a bear.

White's To Do list runs on for another five pages. There is the corn to husk, hen roosts to clean with a wire brush, plowing decisions to be made, nails and shingles to buy, and raking to do. One ought leads to another, one should reminds him of an additional task, one To Do spawns ten more.

I found this essay to be hilarious because it is exactly how my mind works. I am easily overwhelmed and just thinking of one or two tasks for the day leads to a Post-it note full of errands, which then translates into a list on a sheet of A5 paper that gets stuck into my calendar book; then I need a nap. And not one task is completed.

But back to my friend. I thought she could certainly identify with many of the essays in the book and especially this one because, as she well knows, no matter how much gets accomplished there is always one more task to do on the farm.

And now, unwittingly, I have added to her To Do list. I gave her the book to read.

Dog Training Made Easy

E.B. White and dachshund, perhaps Fred?

 I have owed dogs and I have owned cats. They both bring their own joys and sorrows and frustrations. Here, from One Man's Meat is E.B. White's take on training his own dog, Fred. These are just the opening remarks. He goes on to discuss puppy shopping (although he writes that he has never had to do that); housebreaking; and dog loyalty.

There is a book out called Dog Training Made Easy and it was sent to me the other day by the publisher, who rightly guessed that it would catch my eye. I like to read books on dog training. Being the owner of dachshunds, to me a book on dog discipline becomes a volume of inspired humor. Every sentence is a riot. Some day, if I ever get a chance, I shall write a book, or warning, on the character and temperament of the Dachshund and why he can't be trained and shouldn't be. I would rather train a striped zebra to balance an Indian club than induce a dachshund to heed my slightest command.

For a number of years past I have been agreeably encumbered by a very large and dissolute dachshund named Fred. Of all the dogs whom I have served I've never known one who understood so much of what I say or held it in such deep contempt. When I address Fred I never have to raise either my voice or my hopes. He even disobeys me when I instruct him in something that he wants to do. And when I answer his peremptory scratch at the door and hold the door open for him to walk through he stops in the middle and lights a cigarette, just to hold me up.

Ice in the Inkwell

From E.B White's One Man's Meat:

The cat, David, is lying beside me, a most unsatisfactory arrangement, as he gives me hay fever. My sensitivity to cats defeats the whole purpose of a cat, which is to introduce a note of peace in a room.

(Who names a cat David?)


How contagious hysteria and fear are! In my henhouse are two or three jumpy hens, who, at the slightest disturbance, incite the whole flock to sudden panic -- to the great injury, nervously and sometimes physically, of the group. This panic is transmitted with great rapidity; it fact it is almost instantaneous.

(Can you say Chicken Little?)

The first sign of spring here is when the ice breaks up in the inkwell at the post office. A month later the ice leaves the lakes. And a month after that the first of the summer visitors shows up and the tax collector's wife removes the town records from her Frigidaire and plugs it in for the summer.

(I love the image of stabbing a dip pen through a layer of ice to get to the ink underneath.)

One Man's Meat by E.B. White

E.B. White at his writing table
(Photo by Jill Krementz)

Today I am reading my new (old) copy of One Man's Meat which is #8 on my List of 10. I have a paperback edition with this lovely black and white photo of Mr. White sitting at his wooden writing table in his writer's shed. An open window shows water and coastline in the background. On his desk are a typewriter, what looks to be an ashtray, and some sort of small basket perhaps used to hold pencils or erasers. The photo was taken by Jill Krementz and is included in her book The Writer's Desk (which I wrote about here.)

The new (old) book was published in 1944. It has a green cloth hardback cover. I bought it yesterday at a used book fair. It is smaller in size - 5 inches by 8 inches - and lighter than the paperback which measures 6 inches by 9 inches. The 1944 edition is much easier to hold. The 1997 paperback is stiff and a bit too big to rest comfortably in my hands. It is also perfect bound which means to doesn't want to open flat.

Let's put these essays themselves in context. First, Mr. White was about 40 years old when he wrote them - he was born in July 1899.  They were written right before and during World War II. (There is a note on the copyright page that the book was "manufactured in strict conformity with Government regulations for saving paper.") His first children's book, Stuart Little, wouldn't be published until 1945 and Charlotte and Wilbur of Charlotte's Web wouldn't be born until 1952.

These are really journal musings that Mr. White wrote for Harper's Magazine between 1938 and 1942. They were written from his Maine farm and contain many references to chickens, turkeys, seeds, foxes, dirt roads, dogs, eggs, and other farmish things. There is mention of goings on in the world, but mostly these are the thoughts of a man living the seasons on his farm.

Now why would an urban woman living in the 21st century want to read the thoughts of a man living in the countryside and written over 70 years ago. Well, for one thing, the writing is as crisp and clear as the morning air on Mr. White's farm. He wants to write about chickens? I have chickens living next door to me. He wants to write about the weather? I have experience with rain, snow, drought, and the turning of leaves. He wants to write about his neighbors? I have neighbors; they just live closer than his. He wants to write about war? I read and hear about war - in whatever country the U.S. happens to be fighting in - every day.

Looking at it like that, there don't seem to be many differences, do there?

Have I Stayed Too Long at the Fair?

My Grand Southern Literary Tour traveling companion Rose and I managed to go to two fairs today. The first was the State Fair where we looked at quilts, cakes, watercolors and photographs, painted china, sculptures, and decorated Christmas trees until out knees and feet gave out.

Over lunch, somehow one of us mentioned the book fair held this weekend at an historic home here and off we went. Much more dangerous than riding a roller coaster on the midway.

I ran into two fellows that I had worked with in an independent bookstore in the '90s. A couple of years ago and after a good fight, that bookstore went the way of so many, but these guys were still in the business. One has always had a used book and out-of-print concern going and the other buys remainders. They were helping out at this book fair and it was great to see them again.

I have been to the public library's twice-a-year book sale many times. It has gotten very big and tiresome. Too many tables, piles, boxes, and people. Today's sale was quite manageable and of course within the hour I walked out with a stack.

Here is the haul:
One Man's Meat by E.B. White which replaces my paperback edition and is #8 on my List of 10. It is inscribed to: Ruth Ferguson Smythe - For Christmas 1944 - From Fred. I hope she enjoyed it.

The Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb and a copy of Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and his sister Mary Lamb. I had just written about them here. It seemed fortuitous that these two books were for sale.

Another hardback to replace my paperback copy of The Art of the Personal Essay edited by Phillip Lopate. This is a very thick book, some 777 pages, and very difficult to read in paperback form. I actually recognize the inventory sticker; this book came from my former bookstore. Yikes. The date: 1994.

Two others are new to me: My Ears Are Bent by Joseph Mitchell and The Writer Observed by Harvey Breit.

Mitchell was a newspaper man in New York City from 1929 until 1938 when he went to work for The New Yorker.  This is a collection of feature stories and articles from his newspaper days. They were originally published in book form in 1938. My very clean, crisp edition was published in 2001 and contains the original stories and some additional ones as well. Just my cup of tea.

Breit was on the editorial staff of The New York Times Book Review. His book is a collection of 60 of his weekly "Talks With -----" columns. It was published in 1956. Here are interviews with T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bowen, Dylan Thomas, Christopher Morley, and Angela Thirkell. There are also interviews with many I have written about on Belle, Book, and Candle: Hemingway, Faulkner, Thurber, Robert Penn Warren, and Aldous Huxley.

Treasures all.

I guess I know what I will be doing this weekend.