“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”–Wilbur in Charlotte's Web
Jacquie's Email Hello Literary Ladies! Just a reminder that we will be meeting this Wednesday, April 3rd at noon in Barbara Morrow's divine hilltop home. Linda Tucker will be presenting on 1946/1947 Selections from American Literature of the Past 25 Years: E.B. White.
Unfortunately, the weather report calls for rain, but I imagine we will all feel cozily ensconced in Barbara's warm, yellow living room which will surely buoy all our hopes and dreams for these April showers. We will begin to gather at noon. Our newly elected club president, Joanna “I will only be a dictator on the first day” Riesman, will ring the bell for the first time in her tenure quite promptly, I'm sure, at 1pm, to begin our meeting.
Diana's Minutes (substituting for Christine) Ten members of the Literature Club gathered in Barbara Morrow’s comfortable living room, warmed by the fire while listening to chilly rain and raging wind outside. Barbara served a delicious spread, including an assortment of cheeses, Middle Eastern dips and pita chips, nuts, dried fruit, and a tray of lovely sweets.
Our new president, Joanna Riesman, rang the bell promptly at 1pm, and she thanked outgoing president Constance Stewart for leading us through two challenging years. As Jacquie said so eloquently in her email, “Constance dealt with the complicated topsy-turvy era of uncertainty, constantly re-visiting the questions: In-person or not? The library or someone's home? To mask or not to mask? To lunch or merely to snack? Hamlet had nothing on Constance!”
The minutes of the last meeting were not available, as our secretary, Christine Lehner, was cavorting among the mountains, volcanoes and beaches of Costa Rica. We did not have a Treasurer’s report, as our treasurer, Lori Walsh, was also away, in Morocco.
We had a brief discussion of several topics: Jacquie mentioned that the play telling her father’s story about being saved from the Holocaust in the Philippines is currently being produced in Los Angeles. Joanna announced that the Friends of the Library Annual Gala this year will be Sunday, June 9th, and will once again have a stellar entertainment line-up of local Broadway talent. We also discussed the upcoming eclipse next Monday (April 8); two Lit Club members (Laura Rice and Diana Jaeger) are traveling upstate to experience the area of totality.
Laura handed out a list of topics under consideration for our next year’s theme. At the next meeting, we will have a preliminary vote to narrow down the list before the final vote in May.
Our presenter, Linda Tucker, had the theme of “Selections from American Literature of the Past Twenty-five Years,” meaning the 25 years prior to 1946. Fortunately, one of the names on the Lit Club list appealed to her: E.B. White. Having written grammar books in the past, Linda figured that The Elements of Style is probably the closest she’ll ever find as a grammar book suitable for a Lit Club presentation. She structured her presentation into three parts: the essays, the children’s books, and, finally, The Elements of Style.
Elwyn Brooks White was born on July 11, 1899, in a fashionable section of Mt. Vernon, NY. He was the youngest of 6 children. E.B. was not a confident child: he said, “As a child I was frightened but not unhappy.” He loved being with animals.
He never liked the name Elwyn, and when he went to Cornell University, he was happy to acquire the name “Andy.” (Cornell students with the last name White were called Andy to honor Andrew Dickson White, a co-founder of the university.) The name Andy stuck. He published his work using the initials E.B. rather than the name Elwyn.
At Cornell he did well in courses that interested him and not so well in courses that didn’t. The course he took with William Strunk interested him a great deal. He still suffered from a lack of confidence, and the traits he exhibited at Cornel –wanting to do only what he wanted to do and greatly valuing his freedom, followed him through much of his life. So did his fears, but they morphed into a chronic distress of unspecific anxiety.
After graduation, Andy traveled to the West Coast and had several jobs over a period of 3 years, including working on an Alaskan fireboat as well as jobs writing, including at an advertising agency. He returned to the East, and in 1925, after The New Yorker was founded, he began submitting manuscripts. He was offered a job, but in his normal “I do what I want when I want to” way, it took a long time for him to sign on, and he agreed to work in the office only on Thursdays. (Kind of ahead of his time, insisting on “remote work.”)
After finding it difficult to commit to any girlfriends, Andy finally found happiness in a relationship at age 30: he had an affair with the New Yorker’s (married) literary editor, Katharine Angell; she divorced her husband and Andy and Katharine married in 1929. They had one son together, Joel. A bonus of his marriage was that E.B. (Andy) became stepfather to Katharine’s sons, one of whom, Roger Angell, became a major New Yorker writer and is known for his talents in writing about American baseball.
Andy and Katharine lived in New York City apartments and owned a farm in Maine, where Andy was always happier. They eventually settled in Maine. Both Andy and Katharine had health problems, both physical and mental. They had a good income, but they had a lot of expenses, including a large staff: a housekeeper, a cook, gardeners, and eventually, nurses and caretakers, and Andy worried about money.
Andy wrote for The New Yorker for 60 years (1925- 1976). He was known for his essays, his unsigned Notes and Comments, and Newsbreaks (the little blurbs at the end of articles, often based on quotes from newspaper articles). He wrote over 30,000 Newsbreaks. Andy kept writing for The New Yorker for six decades, mostly because he was worried about money.
As we know, writing well is not easy, and E.B. White did not consider writing easy. In fact, he struggled to perfect each piece he wrote. He said, “I find NOT writing very soothing, but I haven’t figured out yet what I will use for money.” White’s essays have an eloquent, unaffected prose style, and were often quite funny. Linda’s Lit Club subject last year, Stephen Sondheim, said E.B. White was one of his favorite writers because of White believed strongly that “less is more.”
In the late 1930s, E.B. tried writing children’s books in addition to his work at The New Yorker. He was afraid he wouldn’t live long and wanted to provide more money for Katharine. His first children’s book, Stuart Little, was published in 1945 and was very successful; but even that did not help Andy’s depression. Charlotte’s Web, one of the most popular children’s books ever, was published in 1952. He wrote The Trumpet of the Swan in 1970; he may have written it solely for the money.
William Strunk’s Elements of Style was first used at Cornell University and was known simply as “the little book.” When E.B. White wrote an essay about “the little book” and MacMillan promptly called him to revise Strunk’s book. White’s essay is now one of the chapters in the Strunk and White book, and White’s stepson, Roger Angell, wrote an eloquent foreword to the 4th edition of the book.
Andy and Katharine’s later years were marked by continual illness. Katharine remained mentally sharp but was ill for the last twenty years of her life. She died in 1977 (age 84). Andy developed Alzheimer’s and died in 1985 (age 86).
We read selections from The Essays of E.B. White, two of his children’s books, Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, and finally from The Elements of Style.
Respectfully submitted,
Diana Jaeger (substituting for Christine)
Our new president, Joanna Riesman, rang the bell promptly at 1pm, and she thanked outgoing president Constance Stewart for leading us through two challenging years. As Jacquie said so eloquently in her email, “Constance dealt with the complicated topsy-turvy era of uncertainty, constantly re-visiting the questions: In-person or not? The library or someone's home? To mask or not to mask? To lunch or merely to snack? Hamlet had nothing on Constance!”
The minutes of the last meeting were not available, as our secretary, Christine Lehner, was cavorting among the mountains, volcanoes and beaches of Costa Rica. We did not have a Treasurer’s report, as our treasurer, Lori Walsh, was also away, in Morocco.
We had a brief discussion of several topics: Jacquie mentioned that the play telling her father’s story about being saved from the Holocaust in the Philippines is currently being produced in Los Angeles. Joanna announced that the Friends of the Library Annual Gala this year will be Sunday, June 9th, and will once again have a stellar entertainment line-up of local Broadway talent. We also discussed the upcoming eclipse next Monday (April 8); two Lit Club members (Laura Rice and Diana Jaeger) are traveling upstate to experience the area of totality.
Laura handed out a list of topics under consideration for our next year’s theme. At the next meeting, we will have a preliminary vote to narrow down the list before the final vote in May.
Our presenter, Linda Tucker, had the theme of “Selections from American Literature of the Past Twenty-five Years,” meaning the 25 years prior to 1946. Fortunately, one of the names on the Lit Club list appealed to her: E.B. White. Having written grammar books in the past, Linda figured that The Elements of Style is probably the closest she’ll ever find as a grammar book suitable for a Lit Club presentation. She structured her presentation into three parts: the essays, the children’s books, and, finally, The Elements of Style.
Elwyn Brooks White was born on July 11, 1899, in a fashionable section of Mt. Vernon, NY. He was the youngest of 6 children. E.B. was not a confident child: he said, “As a child I was frightened but not unhappy.” He loved being with animals.
He never liked the name Elwyn, and when he went to Cornell University, he was happy to acquire the name “Andy.” (Cornell students with the last name White were called Andy to honor Andrew Dickson White, a co-founder of the university.) The name Andy stuck. He published his work using the initials E.B. rather than the name Elwyn.
At Cornell he did well in courses that interested him and not so well in courses that didn’t. The course he took with William Strunk interested him a great deal. He still suffered from a lack of confidence, and the traits he exhibited at Cornel –wanting to do only what he wanted to do and greatly valuing his freedom, followed him through much of his life. So did his fears, but they morphed into a chronic distress of unspecific anxiety.
After graduation, Andy traveled to the West Coast and had several jobs over a period of 3 years, including working on an Alaskan fireboat as well as jobs writing, including at an advertising agency. He returned to the East, and in 1925, after The New Yorker was founded, he began submitting manuscripts. He was offered a job, but in his normal “I do what I want when I want to” way, it took a long time for him to sign on, and he agreed to work in the office only on Thursdays. (Kind of ahead of his time, insisting on “remote work.”)
After finding it difficult to commit to any girlfriends, Andy finally found happiness in a relationship at age 30: he had an affair with the New Yorker’s (married) literary editor, Katharine Angell; she divorced her husband and Andy and Katharine married in 1929. They had one son together, Joel. A bonus of his marriage was that E.B. (Andy) became stepfather to Katharine’s sons, one of whom, Roger Angell, became a major New Yorker writer and is known for his talents in writing about American baseball.
Andy and Katharine lived in New York City apartments and owned a farm in Maine, where Andy was always happier. They eventually settled in Maine. Both Andy and Katharine had health problems, both physical and mental. They had a good income, but they had a lot of expenses, including a large staff: a housekeeper, a cook, gardeners, and eventually, nurses and caretakers, and Andy worried about money.
Andy wrote for The New Yorker for 60 years (1925- 1976). He was known for his essays, his unsigned Notes and Comments, and Newsbreaks (the little blurbs at the end of articles, often based on quotes from newspaper articles). He wrote over 30,000 Newsbreaks. Andy kept writing for The New Yorker for six decades, mostly because he was worried about money.
As we know, writing well is not easy, and E.B. White did not consider writing easy. In fact, he struggled to perfect each piece he wrote. He said, “I find NOT writing very soothing, but I haven’t figured out yet what I will use for money.” White’s essays have an eloquent, unaffected prose style, and were often quite funny. Linda’s Lit Club subject last year, Stephen Sondheim, said E.B. White was one of his favorite writers because of White believed strongly that “less is more.”
In the late 1930s, E.B. tried writing children’s books in addition to his work at The New Yorker. He was afraid he wouldn’t live long and wanted to provide more money for Katharine. His first children’s book, Stuart Little, was published in 1945 and was very successful; but even that did not help Andy’s depression. Charlotte’s Web, one of the most popular children’s books ever, was published in 1952. He wrote The Trumpet of the Swan in 1970; he may have written it solely for the money.
William Strunk’s Elements of Style was first used at Cornell University and was known simply as “the little book.” When E.B. White wrote an essay about “the little book” and MacMillan promptly called him to revise Strunk’s book. White’s essay is now one of the chapters in the Strunk and White book, and White’s stepson, Roger Angell, wrote an eloquent foreword to the 4th edition of the book.
Andy and Katharine’s later years were marked by continual illness. Katharine remained mentally sharp but was ill for the last twenty years of her life. She died in 1977 (age 84). Andy developed Alzheimer’s and died in 1985 (age 86).
We read selections from The Essays of E.B. White, two of his children’s books, Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web, and finally from The Elements of Style.
Respectfully submitted,
Diana Jaeger (substituting for Christine)
No comments:
Post a Comment