Monday, August 09, 2004

 
E.B. White, Here is New York (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1949).

"It is the reader's, not the author's, duty to bring New York down to date; and I trust it will prove less a duty than a pleasure" (6).

On the recommendation of a boy I dated a few times, I finally read E.B. White's ode to New York. I suppose this post-WW2 essay lately became in vogue again due to White's frighteningly accurate prophecy, which still stops my heart for a brief moment with its image of mass destruction:

"The subtlest change in New York is something people don't speak much about but that is in everyone's mind. The city, for the first time/ in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition" (50-51).

For White, however, this never had to pass. He described this destruction as a counterpoint to the UN headquarters then being built in New York as a response to the World Wars. Since White's "prophecy" did come to pass, could we now point fingers at the UN? Again, fallibility of literary reasoning.

"Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions" (16).
"Some, too, are here from a deficiency of spirit, who find in New York a protection, or an easy substitution" (17).

posted by Open Mouth 11:08 PM