Exploring the continent layer by layer and stone by stone
Annals of the Former World
John McPhee '53
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
$35
After reading John McPhee '53's new book, Annals of the Former World, a 660-page exploration of North America's geology, I began to see my daily world in a starkly different way. I imagined, for example, riding New Jersey Transit from Princeton Junction to Penn Station in New York City, then ascending the escalator and emerging not on teeming Seventh Avenue but on a vast glacier of the sort that blanketed Manhattan during the last ice age.
This imaginative impulse comes naturally after reading McPhee's book --
understanding the geologic past is no longer exclusive to those holding
specialized doctorates in the discipline. McPhee's rich
descriptions and seemingly effortless prose dispel any notion that
scientifically detailed writing cannot be ebullient and
refreshing.
"The book was not written for geologists. It was written for a general readership," McPhee said in a recent telephone interview. "Yet, it is my deepest hope that the material would be acceptable to geologists. It should be; geologists sat beside me and went over drafts of the book before publication. I didn't do it alone."
Annals comprises five sections, the first four of which originally appeared as essays in The New Yorker (and were published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux as separate books) -- Basin and Range (1981); In Suspect Terrain (1983); Rising From the Plains (1986); and Assembling California (1993). The final section, Crossing the Craton, is published here for the first time.
"I really didn't know what I was getting into when I took up the project in 1978," McPhee admitted. "Two years into it, my hair was standing on end. The first section, Basin and Range, was very difficult. I wrote most of it in the East Pyne basement, where the office numbers begin with zeroes. I felt like a zero. The first draft of the fourth section, Assembling California, took two years to complete; but the second took only four months; the third, only one. I became more relaxed as the writing and editing process went on."
The book not only takes the reader deep into the bowels of the earth, it also presents both past and contemporary debates on the theory and application of geology, while providing a picturesque and compelling travel narrative.
"My goal was to describe and present those debates; to elucidate various opposing arguments, and not try to resolve in some way what geologists had not agreed upon," says McPhee. "The organizing principle of the book is the theory of plate tectonics, not a geographic sweep of America from the East Coast, where the book begins. It moves about according to the ideas of plate tectonics. Geographic narrative is subordinate."
Although we tag along with McPhee as he accompanies four geologists to sites such as the New Jersey roadcuts of Interstate 80 and sites in the Sierra Nevada, Annals is far from autobiographical. "Not to a very great extent am I in the book," explained McPhee, the Ferris Professor of Journalism in the Council for the Humanities. "One purpose was not only to describe the geology of America, but also to study certain geologists. I wanted to sketch them as well as rocks, and provide inter-reflective insights. The story is not about me."
One of the most engaging of the geologists portrayed in Annals is Princeton's Kenneth S. Deffeyes, a professor emeritus of geology, to whom McPhee mainly owes the initial direction and ultimate success of his project. "Deffeyes helped me pick the other geologists who are in the book," McPhee said. "He called and got them interested in what I was doing." Princeton's Department of Geosciences, in fact, proved immeasurably important during the drafting of Annals. "Even though I work in East Pyne, while writing the book I was regularly in Guyot Hall. Many geology professors there were very generous and helpful in this project."
McPhee's title is taken from a line in James Hutton's classic Theory of the Earth ("to a naturalist who is reading in the face of rocks the annals of a former world...") and patterned after The New Yorker's tradition of heading certain departments with "Annals of...". As to the question of the relative importance of a book like this, McPhee put it best: "The earth has an extremely mobile surface, which is tied to economic and other practical human affairs. Technology rests on it. This is the only planet we're going to live on, so why not wonder how it operates?"
-- Gene Jarrett '97
Gene Jarrett is a second-year doctoral student in English and American literature at Brown University, and a freelance writer. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
It's Mama, me, llamas, and whales
Just Us:
Adventures and Travels of a Mother and Daughter
Melissa Weiner Balmain '87
Faber & Faber, $24.95
In 1992, at the age of 27, Melissa Weiner Balmain '87 proposed to her 54-year-old mother, Gina Ingoglia, that they take a trip together, "just us." Melissa wanted to get to know her mother as an individual, and wilderness travel with groups of other women appealed to both of them. So they left their menfolk and headed off to northern Minnesota to spend five days learning to drive sled dogs. And despite Melissa's mother's allergy to dogs, a two-seater outhouse, and predictably bitter weather, they enjoyed themselves so much that they took another seven trips together.
Just Us is Melissa's account of these trips, and it combines two currently fashionable literary genres, adventure saga and family memoir. As armchair travel, it can't be beat. Balmain, an experienced journalist, is a terrific observer and does a wonderful job of describing the places they visit: the brilliant air of mile-high eastern Oregon (hiking with llamas), the strength and grace of an orca at close range (kayaking in Washington State), the fierce dry beauty of Ute Mountain Tribal Park (studying the lost Anasazi tribe). She is generous with factual details, and a list of resources at the end of the book can guide readers who find this kind of travel appealing. Balmain is also generous with the characters she and her mother meet on the trips, particularly the strong, competent professionals who lead them.
She is less generous, however, with herself, and this is the book's principal flaw. Each expedition is handled as a discrete essay. Many of the essays share a similar structure, which involves Melissa's initial discomfort or incompetence, her self-doubt, and an epiphany that redeems it all. She often contrasts her own behavior with that of her mother, who tends to be more patient and enthusiastic. Though the intent is probably comic, she sometimes sounds fractious as she retails her humiliating efforts to tie a fly or feed a newborn calf.
Along the way Melissa and her mother have the heart-to-heart discussions Melissa craves, ranging from body image to, well, birth to death. What emerges most clearly from the book is the author's tremendous respect and affection for her mother -- and the mother's for her daughter.
-- Carol McD. Wallace '77
Carol McD. Wallace is a freelance writer living in New York City.
Here is how it can be between a man and a woman.
In this handkerchief of his are tears he cried today --
over her, for her, he doesn't know why he cried --
when she smiled a little, when he saw her
recover, a little, from her fragility,
when he thought how much he loved her;
how desperately he hoped she would be happy.
Once, she gave him a handkerchief of hers, perfumed
in the instant when, standing before him alone,
she pushed it down into her panties and pressed it
against herself and brought it out again
still neatly folded, and smiling she gave it to him
to carry with him on his journey.
Mischief, happiness, sorrow, desire.
From Sparrow, a collection of poetry by Reginald Gibbons '69, a professor of English at Northwestern University. (Louisiana State University Press, $22.95)
When Charles Fish *64 was growing up in rural Vermont, the end of summer meant country fairs, where farmers showcased the results of their husbandry, and where a midway twinkled of an evening, beckoning boys and girls to spend yet another quarter. Fish's new book, Blue Ribbons and Burlesque (The Countryman Press, $29.95), features his photographs taken 30 years ago, when Fish visited Vermont's fairs, capturing images of farmers and animals, food and games, contests and burlesques. Fish is an associate professor of English at Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Web Sightings
No lawyer jokes here: Legal services on two sites
For a sense of the changing nature of legal practice, look at the sites of Jim Schenkel '68 (www.quojure.com) and Walter W. Moore '81 (www.just-litigation.com). Combining clean design, bright copy, and attitudes atypical of professional services, the two sites present legal services in practical terms, right down to what they charge.
Moore's site talks about his law firm in Marina del Rey, California. He signals his bold approach to legal marketing from the start, with a cartoon of a grinning shark with a briefcase and tie. With four attorneys besides Moore, the firm specializes in civil litigation with a "generalist" orientation. Moore positions his team as skillful courtroom advocates. The site says, "Choose a trial lawyer based on his ability to persuade judges and juries, not on his ability to write articles for other lawyers." Expanding on that, the site says the firm is worth hiring over the "10 bizillion" other California law firms if the client wants to win, to win efficiently, and to be treated right. The last point, for example, means "we send you bills that make sense and show you what services were performed."
The site covers the cases the firm handles, its staff, and, most impressive, its billing options. On an hourly basis, Moore charges $250; less experienced staffers make less. Other options are à la carte, flat fee, contingency, and mixed contingency. The charge is $500 for its "Litigation 101: How to Stay Out of Court" presentation. (Note: when looking at this site, you must use the exact URL. Omitting the hyphen takes you, for reasons utterly unknown, to the site of the Ozark Feather Co. in Conway, Missouri.)
San Francisco-based Quo Jure Corp. has lawyers themselves as clients. Founded in 1993, the firm lets attorneys outsource the ever-so-tedious chores of research and writing. Schenkel and his staff of attorneys are moving those briefs and appeals at $85/hour for "routine" assignments, $110/hour for rush jobs (and aren't they all?). As befits a lawyer, Schenkel makes his case well: "Research and writing demand focus, expertise, perseverance, native ability, and an affinity for the task that not every lawyer can muster. But somebody has to actually find the cases, read them, think about the structure, and then write, revise, and re-write until the argument's force is irresistible. That's what we do." To drive home its sales proposition one more time, Quo Jure's phone number is 800-MEMO-911. The site excels at showing how Quo Jure does its work, through brief "war stories" in which the firm finds the legal keys to dazzle judges and unlock a defendant's bank account. More detailed archives of "sanitized" cases in civil, criminal, family, employment, and other legal areas have actual Quo Juris documents in their citated and argued glory.
Schenkel and, especially, Moore have created Websites that are fun to read and eye-opening. They spare readers blathering about the majesty of The Law and instead tell specifically how they get the legal job done.
-- Van Wallach '80
Second Thoughts: A Focus on Rereading, edited by David Galef '81 (Wayne State, $24.95) -- Using anthropological, psychological, and cultural approaches, contributors explore the phenomenon of rereading texts from various narrative genres. Galef is an associate professor of English and creative writing at the University of Mississippi.
The Setting in Life for the Arbiter of John Philoponos, by John Emory McKenna '57 (Wipf & Stock, 790 E. 11th Ave., Eugene, OR 97401) -- Explores the background for the writings of the sixth-century Alexandrian scientist whose revolutionary concepts depended upon his Christian beliefs. McKenna is the chairman of the theology department at Ambassador University, in Big Sandy, Texas.
Soviet Defense Spending: A History of CIA Estimates, 1950-1990, by Noel E. Firth and James H. Noren *60 (Texas A&M, $49.95) -- Provides a close look at the development of intelligence analytic capability based on economic units and explains what the CIA has recently learned about the Soviet Union's actual Cold War spending. Noren was formerly with the CIA.
Spectacle and Society in Livy's History, by Andrew Feldherr '85 (University of California, $17.95) -- Demonstrates that Livy's narrative approach to public artistic performances, games, and contests claimed a forceful role in shaping ancient Roman civic life. Feldherr is a visiting assistant professor of classics at Columbia.
The Unpredictable Mistress: Intimate Glimpses of an Oceanographer's Longtime Affair with the Sea, by Harris Stewart '45 (Best Publishing, P.O. Box 30100, Flagstaff, AZ 86003) -- An autobiographical chronicle of the author's career as an oceanographer. Stewart was the first director of the NOAA oceanographic research laboratory in Miami.