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2020-07-16
The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest. ... Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.
— E. B. White, 1977
Recently I had the good fortune to discover something wonderful and completely unexpected via the internet. This happens less than I would like. For all the cultural treasures out there, I seem determined not to find them. Instead I visit the same old link aggregators discussing the same tired topics every single day, somehow expecting to find novelty and broaden my mind if only I repeat the process often enough.
My journey began at a YouTube video[1], a cover of "City of New Orleans". For those like me who aren't deeply familiar with American folk music, it's a song from the early 70s written by Steve Goodman and popularised by Arlo Guthrie, a pretty and nostalgic piece about riding a particular train route.
I was rather taken by this song and the scenery it evoked and I spent some time clicking around other performances. One YouTube commenter called out an essay by E. B. White called "The Railroad", which allegedly was also a great take on the passenger rail culture that no longer exists in modern America.
When I looked him up I realised I did know of Mr White due to his involvement in the style guide commonly known as "Strunk & White" (officially "The Elements of Style"*), and as the author of "Charlotte's Web". What I didn't know about him was his career as an essayist spanning decades, often published in the New Yorker. I decided I would quite like to read "The Railroad", so I placed an order for a collection of his essays and forgot about him.
Eventually that book showed up, and what a wonderful book it's been. I haven't even read "The Railroad" yet as it is somewhat towards the end. With each essay having its own distinct story it seems a shame to "binge" it. I'll take one in every few days when I want to be transported to rural Maine to learn about the perils of raising geese, or whatever else was going on in his life when he chose to sit at the typewriter. Nobody on Hacker News ever writes about geese. Computer nerds like me are the poorer for it.
The essay I read a couple of days ago is truly marvellous. It's called "Here Is New York"—you can read it yourself on the Internet Archive if you wish[2]. It's a description of the city of New York, its people, its culture, its sights and smells, its values and motivations. As an Australian, New York is almost the opposite side of the planet from where I live but I had the good fortune to spend a week there not long ago. Even though my visit came seventy two years after the essay was written, it manages to put into words something about the energy and bustle of Manhattan that was utterly distinctive, but being a brief visitor I was unable to put my finger on it.
He discusses the city's vulnerabilities too. It could just be the proximity to WWII, but it is perhaps more prescience than coincidence that he used "destroying planes" as the example, long before this became a terrible reality for New Yorkers. In his view it would have to be a wild external factor which brings the city to its knees, for its resourceful inhabitants could absorb just about anything else.
As in many of his essays, the commentary seems creepily timeless.
Many people who have no real independence of spirit depend on the city's tremendous variety and sources of excitement for spiritual sustenance and maintenance of morale. In the country there are a few chances of sudden rejuvenation—a shift in weather, perhaps, or something arriving in the mail. But in New York the chances are endless. I think that although many persons are here from some excess of spirit (which caused them to break away from their small town), some, too, are here from a deficiency of spirit, who find in New York a protection, or an easy substitution.
He might as well have been watching me log on to those same link aggregators every day. In any case, I'm looking forward to "The Railroad".
[1] [YouTube] Ger O Donnell & One for the Foxes — City of New Orleans
[2] E. B. White — Here Is New York
(*) I've never read "The Elements of Style" but if you fancy a book about writing techniques I heartily recommend "The Elements of Eloquence" by Mark Forsyth. I have never laughed so hard at a non-fiction book, let alone one concerning English grammar. This was another unexpected discovery some years ago, and this time the internet played no role—I was travelling and found it while browsing a bookshop out of boredom.