E.B. White is 114 years old today. I deliberately use the present tense, since to me he's as alive and relevant and wise as he was on his 70th birthday in 1969, when he gave The New York Times the following quote:
"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."
What I miss most about the literary world today is the subtle, thoughtful, moral response to the human condition. There are a lot of thoughtful people, there are a lot of moral people, but there aren't very many subtle people, and making a measured view of the rightness or wrongness of a person or event is quite rare. Irony is big, empathy is not. The balance is way off. Many writers have no trouble planning their days.
Throughout One Man's Meat, White's collection of essays from Harper's Magazine, World War II is a quiet presence, but some of the greatest anti-war sentiment is found in this book, with no shouting, no enraged pacifism, no exploding bodies or cruel drones, no statistics of death. He got at the blackest subjects through the commonest things - going to the lake, the death of a pig, a spider, farm chores, taciturn Maine neighbors. Improving and saving the world is rather hard to do quietly: I'm in awe of how he did it. Too bad we can't be like White, and save and savor at the same time.
About Me
- Jim Krosschell
- Retired publishing executive ecstatic with the idea of spending most of his time on the coast of Maine
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Friday, July 5, 2013
Four crows
About half the area's usual patrol has landed on the lawn. Three walk around, tottering a bit on their clumsy legs, looking for bugs. The fourth takes a dry bath, rubbing its belly and wings on the grass as if to rid them of lice. They totter and bathe until a shadow in the window sends them clacking and cawing away.
I shouldn't like crows as much as I do. They are loud, sociable, aggressive - traits I run from in humans. They specialize in the 4:30 am wake-up chorus call. They dive-bomb poor little foxes. Sometimes their cries sound like something or someone mortally wounded, or at least gaseous. They're black and ominous.
Yet I like them, not adoringly as I do goldfinches, not awestruck as by the dive of the osprey - but comfortingly. They're like family. And in these few days when we celebrate the birth of our country, when we tolerate the firecrackers and parades in the heat and fireworks in the mosquito-bitten night, the raucousness of crows fits right in. They remind me of all the places I've lived, for they were there too, announcing big events, chaperoning. They remind me of the Fourth of July, the anticipation of picnics, badminton with your uncles, sparklers (as close as we were allowed to firecrackers), lemonade and Grandma's white bread and hot dogs that have never tasted so good since, fireworks over water. The crows were there, picking up the pieces. It was OK to be loud, sentimental. It was OK to be an American.
Now we don't do much of anything on the Fourth. Patriotism has become a little suspect. Our summer evenings are no longer endless. Our enthusiasms have waned. Equally I can say that the ones that remain have intensified. We are content with quiet, and lovely views, and words on a screen or a page. Love is still there, and passion. But the hoopla is gone, except when the patrol flies by, a loud pack of eleven-year-old cousins bent on mischief.
I shouldn't like crows as much as I do. They are loud, sociable, aggressive - traits I run from in humans. They specialize in the 4:30 am wake-up chorus call. They dive-bomb poor little foxes. Sometimes their cries sound like something or someone mortally wounded, or at least gaseous. They're black and ominous.
Yet I like them, not adoringly as I do goldfinches, not awestruck as by the dive of the osprey - but comfortingly. They're like family. And in these few days when we celebrate the birth of our country, when we tolerate the firecrackers and parades in the heat and fireworks in the mosquito-bitten night, the raucousness of crows fits right in. They remind me of all the places I've lived, for they were there too, announcing big events, chaperoning. They remind me of the Fourth of July, the anticipation of picnics, badminton with your uncles, sparklers (as close as we were allowed to firecrackers), lemonade and Grandma's white bread and hot dogs that have never tasted so good since, fireworks over water. The crows were there, picking up the pieces. It was OK to be loud, sentimental. It was OK to be an American.
Now we don't do much of anything on the Fourth. Patriotism has become a little suspect. Our summer evenings are no longer endless. Our enthusiasms have waned. Equally I can say that the ones that remain have intensified. We are content with quiet, and lovely views, and words on a screen or a page. Love is still there, and passion. But the hoopla is gone, except when the patrol flies by, a loud pack of eleven-year-old cousins bent on mischief.
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