Response: “Shipping Out” (+ comments on the Internet and writing)

Where Wallace did Supposedly Fun Things: The MV Zenith.

I first read "Shipping Out" as an undergrad, and turned to it again in the last year or so when I was writing about a county fair. Here, I've plucked out a few different features that I notice everytime I re-read this piece.


Opening Sequence

The first section of this piece functions as a sort of brochure, offering the reader a glimpse of what they’re about to encounter in the story. DFW creates rhythm through repetition, beginning most of the sentences with “I have” before selecting a verb. About half the time it’s a sensory one like “seen” or “heard,” suggesting more passive experiences, but DFW also hints at the active side of the cruise—he’s jumped at the sound of the ship’s horn, eaten all types of food, and acquired a crush on his steward.

There are the beautiful details that might have been promised by the cruise line itself: “sucrose beaches,” “sunsets that [look] computer-enhanced,” boats as “floating wedding cakes.”

But DFW balances this description with less savory details: “suntan lotion spread over 2,100 pounds of hot flesh,” “[smelling] all 145 cats inside the Ernest Hemingway residence,” and a “flatulence-of-the-gods-like sound.” (Or my personal favorite: when he saw “a woman in silver lame projectile-vomit inside a glass elevator.” What an image.)

This is a pattern that continues throughout “Shipping Out,” with the pleasant, enjoyable aspects of the cruise meeting up against the creepy, strange, and discomforting. It's also an introduction to one of DFW's signature moves: piling image upon image and detail upon detail with nearly overwhelming effects.

Themes: Birth & Death

Early in the essay—in a section titled “Pampered to Death,” no less—DFW cites a recent suicide on a Megaship and his longtime association of the ocean with death. He characterizes the open sea as an “engine of decay” and a “primordial stew of death and decay,” populated by man-eating sharks. The image of the shark fin appears frequently in the story, a hint of darkness outside of the ship. (And in the wake of his suicide, DFW’s feelings of despair and “wanting to die” are pretty painful to read.)

On the other hand, the ship is described with a lot of birth-related vocabulary. You have the “uterine” temperatures, the “near-parental” attitude of the cruise program, and the “mother’s pulse” of the ship’s engines.

This theme not only plays up the pleasant vs. creepy dichotomy of the cruise, but also places the cruise-goers in an interesting position between life and death. (DFW alludes to this when he mentions that cruises are popular with older people or those who already feel near to death, like the pair who had spent time caring for a dying relative.) And in the end, to make it off the ship is to have "survived." It all hints to a larger psychological phenomenon beyond cruise-going.


Voice & Authorial Presence

Something I've always admired about this piece is how well it expresses DFW's authority as a writer. How many others could get away with chronicling the efficiency of their cabin's toilet and shower? Or an hour-by-hour account of what one is doing on the ship? This goes on for about 20k words, nearly 3k words of footnotes included.

For me, the success of "Shipping Out" lies in DFW's voice and visibility as an intelligent, eccentric narrator—and, as someone with a unique and necessarily cynical view on the situation. (Consider the difference between his cruise narrative and that of Frank Conroy.) His voice is consistent and dotted with Wallace-isms like "methamphetaminic" and "exfoliatingly," not to mention a healthy dose of dry wit:

[Mona's] real birthday, she informs me on Monday, is July 29, and when I quietly observe that July 29 is also the birthday of Benito Mussolini, Mona's grandmother shoots me kind of a death-look, although Mona herself is excited at the coincidence, apparently confusing the names Mussolini and Maserati.

***

Comments on the “Internet is a Disaster for Writers” Idea

In truth, I haven’t really paid much attention to this debate—mostly because I’m so deeply immersed in the pro-digital, pro-Internet camp. When I write, I like to have the TV on and music playing; for me, silence is distracting. Guess I'm part of that multitasking, digital-overload generation.

Yet, I have a hard time seeing that as a really bad thing for writers. After all, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs allow us to network with others in our field and share connections. Sites like AgentQuery and forums like AbsoluteWrite make it possible for writers to look up agent preferences, avoid publishing scams, etc. In terms of research alone, think of all the time that online databases and search engine have saved writers, and how those resources have offered inspiration. So when someone says that the Internet is oh-so-distracting and wastes our valuable time, I can’t help but feel totally unconvinced. Everyone—not only writers—has to deal with these distractions and manage their time. Why do we feel particularly wronged by it?

Response: "The Devil in the White City"

In case you haven’t heard, there are murmurs that Leonardo DiCaprio will be starring as H.H. Holmes in a film adaptation of The Devil in the White City. IMDb has the movie listed as “in pre-production” and estimates that it’ll be out in 2013. So, a fictional adaptation of a nonfiction book that uses fiction-inspired techniques.

And Leo, with a mustache that—if it’s as magnificent as Holmes’—will probably get its own billing in the credits. Awesome.

Character development

Despite the vast number of characters in The Devil in the White City, I rarely had trouble remembering who was who. Larson is talented at painting portraits of his cast with just the right amount of detail: more for primary characters like Holmes and Burnham, less for those like Pitezel. I imagine that it was tempting to follow some of those people’s stories further, but to do so would have been “going down the rabbit hole,” as we say in class. I admire Larson’s restraint in choosing the sharpest, most relevant information in building his characters.

One section in particular caught my attention. On page 79, Larson describes the meeting of “the eastern architects” with Burnham. He uses this great, sweeping line to quickly establish the groups’ shared experience:

All were wealthy and at the peaks of their careers, but all also bore the scars of nineteenth-century life, their pasts full of wrecked rail cars, fevers, and the premature deaths of loved ones.

He goes on with this shared description to say:

They wore dark suits and crisp white collars. All had mustaches, some dark some gray.

Then the narrative splits off to look more closely at two particularly important characters:

Post was huge, the largest man in the room. Hunt was fierce, a frown in a suit, with a client list that included most of America’s richest families. Every other mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, and along Fifth Avenue in New York seemed to have been designed by him…

Larson then swings back into describing the shared attributes of the group—namely, their similar backgrounds in education. This becomes a roundabout way of characterizing Burnham, who appears as an outsider:

For Burnham, with his failed attempts at getting into Harvard and Yale and his lack of formal architectural training, sitting down to dinner with these men was like being a stranger at someone else’s Thanksgiving.

All of this adds up to a quick, useful introduction to this mass of characters. And an artful one, no less—I just love that “frown in a suit” line.

That said, I did feel like there was one secondary character who got too much attention: the assassin Prendergast. I understand his function as a character, but every time the narrative jumped to him, I was pulled right out of the story.  I suppose I’d prefer to see him presented as a more mysterious figure . . . At the moment, he’s only a distraction from the main story—and the main murderer—for me.

Use of primary sources

Larson used an interesting assortment of primary sources to offer a snapshot of the White City's time and culture, ranging from:

- An inventory of the ailments treated by the fair’s hospital, from constipation to headaches to . . . “extreme flatulence.”  (See page 284.)

- A few different event menus that are kind of incomprehensible if your aren’t into French cuisine, but offer some cultural cues: time set aside for cigarettes and cigars, etc. (See pages 98 and 219).

- A reprint of how Burnham addressed his letter to Millet. (See page 389.):

Hon. F.D. Millet

To arrive on

Steamship Titanic

New York

Larson lets these sorts of sources stand on their own as part of the White City's world. They are more effective this way; for instance, wouldn't it have been far less powerful if Larson had simply said, "Millet was due to arrive on the Titanic"? I think there are some good lessons to take from The Devil in the White City in this regard.

Visual elements

When I saw the gorgeous cover of this book—with its old-timey font, sepia coloring, and lovely photo of The White City—I was excited to see how Larson worked images into his narrative. However, aside from the maps and architectural renderings at the beginning of the book, I only counted six other pictures in The Devil in the White City. None of them really interacted with the text in any way; rather, they only appeared as ornamentation for the title pages of each part. Part 1 offers a picture of Chicago circa 1889, Part 2 features the Manufactures and Liberal Arts building after a storm, etc.

I wonder if this was a choice by Larson or a choice by his publisher. Given the focus on architecture in this book, shouldn’t we have at least seen a picture of Holmes’ “Castle?” Or better yet, the blue prints?

(Source. Lots of pictures and videos here.)

How about pictures of Holmes’ victims, especially the children whom he murders at the end? (When I watched a documentary on Holmes, they showed drawings from 19th century magazines that illustrated how he went about killing the kids. Talk about an interesting comment on the time period.) Or more pictures of the White City and its architects over time? Maybe it's just my love of pre-1930s photography, but I feel that the absence of pictures—ones that contribute to the narrative, not just act as decoration—is a significant flaw in this book.

Response: "Radioactive"

(Source.)

It took me three nights to realize that the cover and spine of Lauren Redniss’ Radioactive glow in the dark. For the first two nights, I lacked the ambition to climb out of bed and figure out what the heck was lighting up my desk. (I figured that the lights from my router were reflecting on something.) Finally, on night three, I got up to investigate.

And the book was glowing. And I was really impressed.

Radioactive is the sort of book I would love to write, mostly because it takes a concept and just owns it. Radium glows? Make the book glow. Radium-205 is the most stable isotope? Make the book 205 pages. (Note: That's speculation on my part. But it would be cool if that was her intent.) Need an interesting font? So make one, and base it on the font of manuscripts you used for your research. Much of the enjoyment that I got out of Radioactive came from these Easter egg-like surprises. The text and design interact in a number of interesting ways:

- At the beginning of the book, Pierre’s story occupies the left-hand pages, while Marie’s occupies the right. Then, when they meet on p. 26, this pattern starts to dissolve; their quotes are placed on the same pages, and they begin appearing in color illustrations together. I thought this was a really clever visual gesture to how their early lives ran parallel to one another before finally converging in a romantic relationship.

- Redniss also makes great use of empty space and font size/color to draw attention to certain phrases. On the otherwise black-and-white p. 26, the word “colorific” jumps out in a rainbow. And on p. 27, we have a quote from Marie about the beginning of her friendship with Pierre: “We began a conversation which soon became friendly.” This phrase appears in red and is larger than the preceding text. More importantly, though, it is set apart—a line in the background illustration separates it out, and the huge empty space below the quote draws the eye right in.

- The placement of the text creates certain effects, as well. Check out the way that the text moves between Marie’s arms on p. 19, slowing down the reader’s pace. I thought that the sequence on pp. 125-127 was also really cool, as Redniss asks: “Who wouldn’t rejoice in the union of Paul and Marie—a coupling of giants?” Two pages later, we get this isolated phrase: “His wife.” (Being the very serious literary critic that I am, I’d call that an “OMG” moment.)

That’s not to say that the text placement was perfect, though. For example, see p. 53, where white text over a light background makes for tricky reading. It goes to show how mindful a writer/designer has to be of every little detail for a book like this.

- Finally, text shape and spacing. Note the wavy shape of the text on p. 64, when Redniss is telling the dancer’s story, and how the lines radiate like light from the figures' bodies on p. 123. I also appreciated the way that the paragraph spacing increased and decreased, either slowing down or speeding up the reading experience. Line breaks also contributed to these effects.

As for the drawings themselves... I’m really torn about them. Though their style is not to my taste, I thought the majority of them were effective—this is “a tale of love and fallout,” after all, so the twisted, semi-grotesque figures are fitting. I loved the use of negatives to create a glowing effect (the couple on page 40-41 and the carrying away of Pierre’s body on pp. 100-101 were particularly nice). On the other hand, some of the art just distracted me from the story. Who is the man on p. 26, and why does he have three eyes, two noses, and two mouths? Why do people randomly switch from clothed to naked from page to page? And what am I looking at on pp. 98-99, given that the coachman wouldn’t be riding the horse?

Frankly, I found myself really wanting fewer drawings and more photographs in Radioactive, such as those on pp. 110-111 and pp. 156-157. They worked nicely to ground this fantastical book in reality. I mean, we didn’t even get a photo of Pierre!

Pierre Curie, seen here channeling the Dos Equis guy. (Source.)

Now, since I’ve spent so much time talking design, I’ll say a word about the story itself:

I connected best with Radioactive when it focused on Marie and Pierre. (The latter of whom got the short end of the storytelling stick here, I think. Marie seems more well-developed as a character, and not just because she lives longer.) Some of the non-chronological cutaways from their tale, like the story of Irving S. Lowen, felt very abrupt and broke the mood of the book for me. It’s not that I didn’t want the extra context of the Curies' radioactive legacy. The structure just didn’t feel quite right. Maybe if the book had opened with a hint toward the future of radium and then jumped back to the Curies, the back-and-forth structure would have felt more established and natural.

Something to consider: Would this story (in its current form) have worked as plain text?... I think not!


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ETA: In advance of reading The Devil in the White City, I just noticed that there is a H.H. Holmes documentary up on Netflix. It's called "H.H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer." I'm not sure if it's any good -- I'm waiting to watch it until after I finish the book -- but it might be worth checking out.

Response: "About That Day"

According to the Pew Research Center, 97% of Americans remember where they were on 9/11. It’s something that comes up in every conversation I’ve had “about that day”: Where were you when you found out? (My answer: Homeroom, ninth grade.) In terms of both content and style, Rhett Miller’s essay on experiencing 9/11 as a New Yorker offers lots of interesting points for discussion.

Immediacy: Tense Changes and Fragments

A major feature of this story is its sense of immediacy. In part, Miller achieves this effect by switching into the present tense, which could have felt gimmicky but worked for me in this particular story. In addition to the introduction, we have this opening paragraph in the past tense:

“Went to bed at three last night after writing a song, 'Lovebird,' and making love with Erica. About 9 a.m., heard two loud explosions. [ . . . ] It’s not unusual to hear construction in the morning, and I think I muttered a sleepy complaint about the loud noise.”

After a few lines of dialogue, we move into present tense, launching us into a play-by-play of the day’s events:

“Terrace is locked. A girl getting on the elevator says we can go stand in the stairwell. There’s an opening with a view. A half-dozen people already there.”

Aside from one brief switch back (“Six weeks ago, E’s parents came to the city . . .”), the story stays in the present tense until the last paragraph. Here, it returns to past tense, with a hint of present at the very end:

“I didn’t write a word about the engagement ring in the journal. I was afraid Erica would see it. [. . .] We got married, had two kids, and now live in a quiet spot in the Hudson Valley. We don’t discuss the events of that day much anymore.”

Those last two sentences are interesting to me because of their movement through time. They describe what happened (“We got married, had two kids . . .”), what is happening presently (“. . . and now live in a quiet spot . . .”), and suggest a trend continuing into the future (not discussing 9/11 anymore).

To achieve a sense of immediacy in this piece, Miller also uses fragments and short, choppy sentences. It makes the story feel more off-the-cuff, like a pure stream of thought. It’s useful to consider the effects that different constructions could have:

Miller’s construction: “We run. In our stupid Birks. Down to where the street dead-ends. South.”

Another option: “We run south in our stupid Birks, down to where the street dead-ends.”

Another option: “In our stupid Birks, we run south, down to where the street dead-ends.”

Repeated Themes

- Loss. Miller doesn’t mention knowing anyone who died in the attacks, so the sense of human loss in more abstract in this story than in other 9/11 pieces I’ve read. (It’s mostly represented by the recurring image of the falling man. It’s an image of hopelessness, but also an image of a person taking control of their fate.) This piece was more about Miller’s loss of “home”—not just material possessions like his guitar and notebooks, but the sense of security and personal control that “home” suggests.

- Confusion/Disorientation. The characters in this story are at a total loss as to how to handle the situation. They don’t know if to stay or leave, they fail to wear good running shoes, they’re on “autopilot.” At one point, Miller says simply: “We don’t know where to go.” Later, he reflects on how E’s mother said that younger generations wouldn’t be able “to deal with a catastrophe;” 9/11 entailed, as it’s often been said, a loss of innocence. In a particularly telling moment, the characters seek comfort in a place that feels familiar—a restaurant called Buffa’s, where they eat their typical eggs and bacon.

- The bodily experience of 9/11. This is a really “physical” story, as opposed to a reflective one. My favorite line of the bunch was: “Breathing feels like chewing and swallowing.”

Digital Components

The Atlantic augmented this story with video and links to Miller’s related writings. The latter offers images of his notebook—but only of the pages where he had written lyrics. I wish they had included a snapshot of his actual journal writings. For one thing, I’m curious about how much of this piece is straight transcription (from his diary) and how much has been added to assist in the flow of the story.

A few parts feel reflective, as if they were added in once Miller had more time to process how he was feeling. (Like when he senses that he’s beginning to distance himself, an instinct of self-defense that he acquired in childhood.) But in the end, this essay's power seems to lie in its rawness.

Response: "Death of a Pig"

Among our classic readings this week, E.B. White’s “Death of a Pig” was the piece that resonated most deeply with me. I know this is partly due to my rural . . . er, country . . . upbringing. The subject matter is familiar, and with very few modifications—the removal of the telephone, for instance—“Death of a Pig” could have been written in 1848 rather than 1948. (And with an update of the tech, this experience would fit into a contemporary issue of Lancaster Farmer.) But for a number of reasons, I also think that this story could have timeless appeal for readers who haven’t lived the “antique pattern,” kept vigil in a barn, or dug a grave.

Sympathetic Characters

The liveliest characters in “Death of a Pig” are non-human—but this is not to say that they aren’t humanized. Though the pig is never named, White presents him as something like a sickly child: it is worrisome when he fails to show up for dinner, he reacts hatefully to taking nasty-tasting medicine, and White checks him for a fever with his hand (touching his ears, rather than his forehead). White makes eating noises to encourage the pig to eat, calls him a “patient,” and checks on him regularly through the night. He is now connected to this creature, as soul to body, by “the silver cord.”

These details not only make us sympathetic to the pig, but also act to better define White’s own character. Fred the dachshund also contributes here; he is personified as a “happy quack” and acts as comic relief, his joyful, troublemaking nature rubbing up against the narrator’s despair. (White writes about him with such affection and exasperation, like: “I love you . . . but you’re sort of awful.”)

For me, the stories that stay with me are those that make me feel something for the characters—and in this case, I definitely sympathized with White and his four-legged protagonists.

Universal Themes

In our classes, we often talk about the big themes that make our stories relatable to our readers. Largely, “Death of a Pig” is concerned with the relationship between humans and animals and how certain circumstances, such as illness, affect that connection.

This story also explores the human fear of sickness, as White deals with the fact that he might have gotten erysipelas from the pig. (Brilliantly, he describes his worry about the illness as “fastening its hooks in [his] head.”) Likewise, White struggles with feelings of uselessness as the pig’s health continues to decline. The reader is prepped from the beginning for a tale of death and loss, and “Death of a Pig” delivers.

The most resonant theme in this story, however, is the painful disruption of expectations.

While White is deeply affected by the pig’s illness, he was raising the pig for food. The pig was destined to die—just not in this way. It’s the deviation from the “script” that disturbs White, and I think that this feeling is universally familiar in some form or another—it’s the pain of the sudden twist, or an “awakening,” as White terms it. Essentially, the pig’s unexpected death makes White question his personal autonomy and power over his own life. Regardless of the subject matter, it's a greater theme like this that makes a story accessible to readers across time and circumstance.

Survival in the Digital Age?

The Atlantic lists this story under the simple heading of “Animals” and has not updated it with any of the features we’ve examined in more recent stories: no hyperlinks, embedded videos, etc. The sparseness suits this story, though. (And in fact—aside from some illustrations—all of the classic stories we read were left in their original, text-only forms. It just seemed right for them to be that way, and it might be interesting to talk about why this is so.)

With or without contemporary updates, digital forms offer stories like these an extended afterlife  that they wouldn't have enjoyed otherwise. This includes the greater possibility of readers "stumbling" across the work—something that would happen far less frequently if the story was confined to print—and sharing it with many others. Though I'm still partial to print, I have to appreciate digital forms for allowing access to stories like these. 

*** I really wanted to link a picture of White and Fred here—but I couldn’t find one. I did find a Fred-related quote from White, though: “I've never had a dog who understood so much of what I said or held it in such deep contempt.” Ha!