Tag: E.B. White
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As familiar as I am with the concept of the Trumpet of the Swan I never actually read it before May 2023. The Library of Congress summary: Louis, a voiceless trumpeter swan, finds himself far from his wilderness home when he determines to communicate by learning to play a stolen trumpet. The book opens in…
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E.B. White Mocking Gossip Writers on Their Lazy Use of Language: “On a fetid afternoon like this, when all the nobility goes out of a writer and parts of speech lie scattered around the room among cigarette butts and crushed paper cups, we envy the gossip columnists their lot.” (From his essay “No Verbs”) E.B.…
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I’m reading E.B. White’s Writings from The New Yorker, 1927-1976, edited by Rebecca M. Dale. First, I’ll read the introduction by Dale. Rebecca Dale worked on an independent study project at Virginia Commonwealth University in 1988, where she read all of E.B. White’s New Yorker work. This book is a result of collecting many pieces…
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“For when too large a proportion of the populace is supporting itself by the indirections of trade and business and commerce and art and the million schemes of men in cities, then the complexity of society is likely to become so great as to destroy its equilibrium, and it will always be out of balance…