Why I like E.B. White

He was an essayist in the earliest days of The New Yorker, but probably best known for his children’s books, notably Charlotte’s Web. He also published extensively in Harper’s and The Atlantic.  Andy, as he was known to his friends had no love for his first name, Elwin, which is why he is formally E. B. His nick name, bestowed upon him by his fraternity brothers at Cornell, channeled the president of Cornell at the time, Andrew White. You probably came across, or will, in college, the little volume of English instruction, The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White.  Strunk is the professor, White is E.B.

I am fond of telling people E.B. was my neighbor.  That’s really a stretch. He did own an apartment in Turtle Bay across 2^nd Avenue at 48^th Street from mine, but he had long since sold it, and passed shortly after I got there in 1984. One of his books, The Second Tree from the Corner, while academics have parsed deeper meaning from the title, is a reference to a tree in the courtyard of his apartment building. A leaf falls; a quiet, exact and natural event.

I think the thing that draws me into his world most is his farm on the coast of Maine. Here, with his wife Katherine and their son Joel, he found inspiration for many of his letters and essays. But it is as much the cast of characters around them; his dogs, farm animals, the mailman known to all by his first name, the little library, the foibles of a New Yorker adapting to rural farm life, and the empty boathouse where he escaped to write. No kids, no phones, no interruptions, no heat.

His body of work is comfortable, easy to read, and humorous, at times laugh out loud funny, like “Death of a Pig” for one. If you have read Faulkner or Joyce, both of whom can seem Sisyphean in difficulty, White is like coasting downhill. He uses plain English, well placed, and would never use a word like Sisyphean.  That is his gift; plain English, with each word perfectly placed, each sentence a puzzle he has solved.  Of course, like any author with a large body of work, some are are going to fall flat, and some will feel dated. Katherine, herself an editor of children’s books, would often get on him for neglecting deadlines in order to answer letters from readers, a vice in her eyes, contentment in his.

While living through WWII on his salt farm at Allen Cove (he had no interest in reporting from Europe), he fashioned himself a ‘foreign correspondent’ – reporting to New York readers from the coast of Maine. Even while suffering guilt at not being more involved with the war effort, he was deluged with grateful mail from troops overseas, anxious to read about life at home. He did play a role early on as part of a team that came up with Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms”, which were introduced in his State of the Union address in 1941, preparing America for the inevitability of entering the war.

As I read over some of his work once more, I realize how presumptuous of me it is to write an essay about this master essayist, so if you will follow this link I will let his words speak for themselves.

https://gwarlingo.com/2012/writer-e-b-white/ (Read the PDF version.)