Humor as Barometer of Emotional Stability.

Part 4 in my E.B. White Series



White, no doubt happy to be home with his parents, found a job with both Frank Seaman & Company and J.H. Newmark. He scrimped for 2 years at $55 a week. Although he didn't like commuting, his saving paid off when he moved into a flat at 112 West 13th Street. He picked up a copy of the New Yorker and in his words, "[it] was a turning point in my life, although I did not know it at the time."



After getting some of his work published and his name in big print in the New Yorker, and by 1926 White got a job writing filler and punchlines. It was at this time white met Katharine Angell, his future wife and subsequently ignored her in preference for a brunette from Birmingham, Alabama: Mary Osborn. Though White chased after her, his hamartia, irresolution, settled matters. Osborn found a suitor and married to White's discomfort. White maintained this job until 1927 when he started half time at the New Yorker.

His time at the New Yorker was anything but simple; White spent his time whether part-time or later full-time at his desk working. It could be said that Elwyn and Katharine were the backbone of the publication, though Harold Ross their boss played a major role as well. It was during these first difficult years when Elwyn and Katharine developed a strong Writer/Editor relationship.



(Photo from this article http://www.bangormetro.com/media/Bangor-Metro/May-2007/E-B-Whites-Web/)

It wasn't until 1929 until White's first two books were published and Katharine and Elwyn were married. The White's were married on 13 November 1929. Katharine, a divorcée with two children from her marriage to Charles S. Sergeant, and White married and returned to work the next day waiting till later to have a honeymoon.


His Writing Life.


It seems to me that whenever White is decisive about the main issues in his life he turns out much happier than when he is irresolute, testimony both to resolution and to his marriage. Regarding his marriage White says he made, "the most beautiful decision of his life." White's letter to Katharine (below) in November 1929 illustrates the White's Beautiful respect for each other, Elwyn's acknowledgement of his "hesitancy," and shows his process for acceptance of reality, i.e. slowly coming to appreciate the changes which have occurred.

Dear Katharine,

I've had moments of despair during the last week which have added years to my life and put many new thoughts in my head. Always, however, I have ended on a cheerful note of hope, based on the realization that you are the person to whom I return and that you are the recurrent phrase in my life. I realized that so strongly one day a couple of weeks ago when, after being away among people I wasn't sure of and in circumstances I had doubts about, I came back and walked into your office and saw how real and incontrovertible you seemed. i don't know whether you know just what I mean or whether you experience, ever, the same feeling; but what I mean is, that being with you is like walking on a very clear morning--definitely the sensation of belonging there.

This marriage is a terrible challenge: everyone wishing us well, and all with their toungues in their cheeks. What other people think, or wish, or prophesy, is not particularly important, except as it tends to work on our minds. I think you have the same intuitive hesitancy that I have--about pushing anything too hard, and the immediate problem surely is that we recognize & respect each other's identity. That I could assimilate Nancy overnight is obviously out of the question--or that she could me. In things like that we gain ground slowly. By and large, our respective families had probably best be kept in their respective places during the pumpkin weather--and gradually, like the Einstein drawing of Rea Irvin's, people will become accustomed to the idea that etc. etc.

I'm just writing this haphazard for no reason other than that I felt like writing you a letter before going to bed.

I love you. And that's a break.

Andy

Before this gets too long, I wanted to also mention that I think Andy's Humor comes back after he returns from his cross-country trek. I attribute this to the fact that White isn't bogged down anymore with self-doubt. His life in the city, due to his success with employment and eventually Katharine, happens to be extremely fulfilling. I can imagine that its pretty hard to come up with anything to funny when you are emotionally, even subconsciously, insecure. Fortunately, White returns to his old self.


August 1929

Dear Katharine:

...Hub just showed me a letter he received from a frightened parent; the letter enclosed another that the parent had got from his small son in camp: "Dear Daddy, Please come up at once as I am so homesick and I will die if you don't come up here right away." Hub, on investigating, found out that the boy had written the letter just after being hit on the head with a broom by a tent-mate, and had forgotten the whole affair ten minutes later. But he had mailed the letter home, just as a matter of routine...

or September 11, 1929

Dear Katharine:

I once started a letter to you (date uncertain) but it dried up and got crumbly. Later I started another, but it got wet and mouldy. I intend to get this one down on the floor with my knees on it and push it into an envelope even if it's got maggots. The last letter I wrote was a beauty--four typewritten pages, which so exhausted me I couldn't reach for a stamp--vivid word pictures of lakes, streams, fish, men and women, seasonal changes, statistical matter, references, addenda, all kinds of advice, charts, marginal notations, and brisk passages designed to stimulate and exalt. It got wet.

...

Jeremy

An Apology to a Resting Bird in the Coffee House.

A man jolted up nervously from a table across from me making his way to the clerk. I looked up, and saw a grey and brown flurry at the window. Earlier, a small sparrow found her way to the corner, both to keep an eye on her nest and apparently to take a break from her busy life finding strings, twigs and paper for her nest. That is, until a young man looking to power his device brushed the fabric which had held the tired, resting bird. She flapped from corner to corner, out of her mind, finally finding a perch resting in the northeast corner. The young man, along with everyone in the larger room, surprised and a little confused wanted to set things right in the room and feeling responsible, jumped up from his station to bother the clerk.

The hip clerk, who was busy making coffee and was no doubt excited by the opportunity, calmly left the smaller room with a towel in hand, as if it was a common occurrence--as I'm sure it is, to capture the bird. Followed closely by the transgressor, the savior took the towel and after a few minutes slowly closing in on the bird, caught the bird with a towel. She took the bird in to the other room, and out the window saw, what looked to be, a female sparrow fly up into a tree.

All this is to say, though the coffee shop has a no birds allowed policy, you my female friend are welcome to live in a tree near my window without being molested, I'll even donate my curtains.

Jeremy

The Open Road

Part 3 of my response to the Letters of E.B. White

As Elwyn, herein Andy, struggles with employment the internal struggle of self-identity against the societal values of unhappy employment, moral values of employment, and societal values unemployment--his unhappiness becomes apparent. Andy seems, despite his most ambitious intentions "pounding the pavement," unable to find worthwhile work after college. As editor of Cornell's Sun, the puffed-up educated man learned more about how society works when he took some time trying to find work. After a few meetings with the executives of the major papers in New York, Andy finds himself with a lot of advice.

But fortunately Andy lands himself a meat-grinder job feeding wires to the United Press working 13 hours with a half hour break for lunch...well I'll let him tell it.

When the sport stuff is going through in the afternoon, it is fierce. Last Saturday I worked from 8 a.m. straight through to 9:20pm--30 minutes out for lunch. There were twenty-two football games, eight major league baseball games, and two golf matches, all going on at the same time. For my own personal amusement ai afterwards figured out that between 3:30 and 6:00, I had handled 1,270 seperate and distinct bulletins. Now that shouldn't be...If you should ever see Cush by any chance, give him my love and tell him he owes me a letter and $11.50.

Andy's difficult job gives him no reprieve from the tension, it in fact intensifies it. His unhappiness peaks when he gets a job as a publicity man. But he came up with an ingenious plan of leaving his job, buying a roadster (naming it Hotspur), and heading with Cush from college town to college town and camping all along the way to meet up with Alice in Ithaca. Though he waited all day for her on a bridge, they never met and he found her later in Buffalo.

The Point

I propose that the theme of irresolution in E.B. White's early life is the cause of all his difficulties. He doesn't find a good job not because he is unable to compete, but because his insecurity. Mr. Ochs, the Times executive, was ready to give him a job, but young Andy asks only for advice. His irresolution with Alice makes her understandably hesitate his proposal. And all this irresolution results in his ignoring these tensions and running away. Andy decides to pack up and leave the city, with it's career opportunities, and Alice to see the rest of the country. It is this westward expansion which is a result of Andy's irresolution. As a result, the entire trip contains a hint of overcompensation for his insecurity. Further, it is not until he returns and owns up to his insecurity that he can move on to the next phase of his life.

The Writing Life

If White's irresolution makes it into his writing life, its in the maintained ignorance of self. Also, His sense of humor during this time away seems to be more a matter of luck then of much forethought. Though focused and clear, he doesn't make the quiet, reflective development of himself. Still, he's the master of the punch-line, opening with turns of phrase, jokes and, more often, unrelenting hyperbole. A couple of examples.

Dear Folks:
Green and crisp they fluttered from their cozy envelopes, green and crisp and strong--out and onto the counter of White's Lunch. And I almost changed my order from egg sandwich to ham and eggs, but held myself in check as an exercise in self-control in the face of riches. I felt that had I changed the order to ham and eggs the short-order man would have thought I was putting on airs.

or regarding his new job...

Dear Stan:
Glad to get your letter. You are right about my not shining spitoons; all editors spit on the floor.

The man himself seems to be coming back around after a letter to Alice mending things. I'm excited to see how the changes both in his persona and writing make there way into his life. You see this, the newfound self-reliance from the journey, marks the beginning of his literary life.

Jeremy

Cornell and the Open Road

Only a couple of letters from White's college years, but he does end up saving a young boy's life on a camping trip in Canada. Him and his buddy carry a sick, half-conscious camping companion through a few portages and ferry him over an equal number of lakes in a canoe. Not only did he have a good heart, but he also was a hero in his youth. The character of White from this point on, most likely won't be mentioned, that is, unless something drastic comes up.

White is just starting a relationship with Alice Burchfield and its interesting to see that he had some trouble finding a job after Cornell. After moving to New York City, he writes in July 1921:

Gosh I envy you if you got to New york. I dont know where I'll be headed from here. Guess I'll go wherever there is a job--and from the things I hear there aren't any of them...

Then again on September 15, 1921:

Dear Alice,
Gosh, its good to write again. That flip remark I made in parting about writing "when I get a good job" certainly saved me a lot of stationery. But it gives me great pleasure to report that at 3:32 on the afternoon of the sixth day I secured a position. At 4:32 I had a date to jump off the Brooklyn bridge, so it came in plenty of time.

He goes on to talk about how hard it was to "pound the pavement" talking to his Cornellian friends, and their friends and their friends. I know what that's like as I've spent so much time being passed off to a friend's friend or having my resume re-criticized. Anyway I thought his reflection on this common procedure was particularly powerful.

It was, I suppose, what is technically know as "good experience." You must have often looked in a dictionary and been directed to "see such and such" and when you looked there you were again directed to see such-and-such. And so on. That's what I've been doing the past week--I go to one person and he says hello and shoots me on to another.

So the business world seems not to have changed so much over the last 100 years or so, despite the increasing technology, people still end up running around, on a goose chase, looking for work. What a comedic idea. Although it is in someways annoying, for if not on the chase how does one find anything, maybe its better than any alternative--it just sucks. How else can we find work? I'm excited to move on to the portion of the book on his time at the New Yorker and also his time in the war.

Jeremy

E.B. White

Ever since my forth grade class reading of The Trumpet of the Swan, I'd never been as wrapped up in a story then when I was reading Mr. White. His ability to make me lose sight of reality, forget my existence and only think of the story, was unlike any other author. I believe this is because of his, as William Zinsser in his On Writing Well puts:

...[Knowledge] that the tools of grammar haven't survived for so many centuries by chance; they are props the reader needs and subconsciously wants. Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White... because it was too good. But readers will stop reading...if they think you are talking down to them.

After reading Zinsser, I picked up Letters of E.B. White: Revised Edition, edited by Dorthy Lobrano Guth, at a Half Price Books.



After skimming the pages, I thought the $7 was a good investment and took the book to the clerk. I, situated between a register and a crane game at work, entered the author's note and didn't leave. His easy prose, endearing humor, and self-denying spirit grace me with his ease. Its weird explaining to people why I find his writing so attractive, I say, "He's just so...endearing, he's just so...concrete" and it hits me how abstract talking about his writing is. By reading his letters, I want to come to some understanding of what is quintessential Whitian. What is the consolation that describes his interaction with life and writing. I hope to find the man for who he really is and then, when found, loved.

Ultimately, I will (or hope to) be checking in here with this book for the next week or so describing different ideas of the person of White as well as stylistic stigmata which show how he uses grammar and language to affect his audience to the intended effect.

Cheers,
Jeremy

The 14th and 15th Centuries.

I've been reading The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Seventh Edition Volume 1 for a while now. I have really been enjoying it. The sections on the 14th and 15th centuries were inspiring especially Chaucer, Langland, Malory, Henryson and Julian of Norwich.

I particularly thought Chaucer, even though many hold him as one of the three greatest writers of the English language, was a great storyteller. He was just so dynamic and versatile, adding humor and depth by irony and hyperbole. I was reading about humanists in the 16th century and lamenting the loss in education; there had been a long tradition of learning somewhere in the upwards of 500 rhetorical devices in addition to their multiplication tables, oh what a useful lost art! It really makes me want to find some of these old rhetorical manuals of the 14th and 15th centuries and memorize! Regressing, I was particularly interested in The Pardoner's Tale and the theme of human corruption in all men. This together with the upcoming 16th century, with its self-aggrandizing talk and boasting babble unnerves my idealism. I'd been going on about the possibilities of human resistance, rather than thinking about the resistance to humanism.

Still, disregarding for now the tension between progress or change and tradition or resistance which comes to a head in the 16th century, Julian of Norwich and the rest of the spiritual, even mystical, writers (baring the annoying Margery Kempe) give me hope for the strength of human character. It is this quiet life, and I don't mean it in the romantic sense, which illustrates the depth of understanding and growth in emotional and spiritual realms which drives me to attempt to understand what it is we, as writers and as humans, need to develop or as Paul puts it, become "...perfect and entire, wanting nothing." I'm really hoping to follow this theme around in the next seven centuries, hopefully I can arrive and some sort of deeper understanding, even though this maybe a backwards way of doing it.

-J

Trying to hang on.

"Trying to hang on."

I hungrily brokethrough the window,
And devoured Khalil Gibran.
But I sent you yesterday
A poem
and throe
in every letter.
I was selfish, I admit—
Distant, painful, and ignor(arrog)ant—
This is a understatement:
“This is my regret.”
Hypnophobia(murdered Insomnia)’s
Hands bled
His case
To me.

“I don’t have
Romantic Feelings”Isaid,
But I’ll steal photographs
On your dead page
And hardly swallow|your letter
sent with word of
causality.

--

-J