Seattlest: Seattlest Book Club: The Pretty Bad Sorta Difficult Time

Courtney

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 09:44:21 -0800

That's an interesting point Seth. I'm torn on how much Egan has to spell his thesis out to his readers (to me, at least, its clear he has one). The Times had something to say about that as well: "Perhaps stung by critiques of ecocentrism in Lasso the Wind, his 1998 book about the New West, Egan here refrains from making overt parallels between the false environmental steps of the 30's and the false steps of today. But he does blame the government outright for setting the Dust Bowl's stage: clearing the land of bison to make way for cattle, offering incentives that lured settlers to plow, stimulating wartime demands and encouraging unsustainable practices." Popular history, or narrative non-fiction, or whatever you want to call it--how much does it need to lean on the storytelling vs. the conclusion drawing? I absolutely LOVED Stephen Johnson's The Ghost Map right up until the final chapter when he abandoned his storyline (at its rightful ending) and veered off into what felt like technobabble about the current state of the world and maps and Google, and connectedness and...argh. I was happy drawing those conclusions myself based on his expertly recounted narratives of 19th century London. It was all in there, he didn't need to hit his readers over the head at the end, and for me the book fell a bit flat as a result.

Seth

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 09:17:46 -0800

The Times has a history of wanting books to be something that they aren't--Egan is clearly attempting popular history here--he isn't, for better or worse, doing much deep thinking about what the disaster means, what it meant, or anything else...and that's ultimately sort of dissatisfying. Unlike a historian like Simon Schama or Alan Taylor or David Hackett Fischer, who'd do a little bit more deep investigation, and have more of a thesis, Egan is just a conduit, bringing this story to life. I would've liked to see some more investigation, though, especially in the case of the hyping newspaperman. How much did he have invested in the town? Did other newspaper people make similarly outlandish claims? You're fairly shouting at these people to leave--like the girl in the horror movie who investigates that strange sound in the dark garage--but they don't, and people die--how much responsibilities do the newspapers bear for that? In the end, you feel just as confused as the people who lived through the era, which may be Egan's intent...but other than being a cracking story, I'm not sure how much value the book has...It's really the non-fiction equivalent of a Louis L'amour novel (p.s. I LOVE Louis L'Amour)

David F.

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 12:01:10 -0800

I think a big part of the reluctance to leave is the emotional attachment so many of us have to "home"--especially a home you struggled hard to create. When I was just out of college, my mother was in the last stages of a terminal illness that would soon take her life. This was her personal-size natural disaster. I tried to convince her to move in with me. It was the most rational choice; she needed someone to help her with the most basic human functions when the nurses weren't around and I could spend more time with her at the end than I would have been able to if I had to fight rush-hour traffic after work every day to drive to her house. But she wouldn't leave. Even though she knew on some level that staying meant her quality of life would probably be reduced dramatically (it was), that her pain would be more extreme (it was), and her anxiety more persistent (it was), she did not want to leave her home. In the end, she died in a hospital--not in her home or my apartment.

MvB

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:05:01 -0800

The NYT may not be being terribly fair to Egan there: I took most of that hyperbole as being related to all the marketing to homesteaders and real estate speculators, illustrating the language of the time. There are plenty of other, soberer descriptions of what was going on. I wondered why people stayed, too. The ones who got out got the fancy novel and movie treatment, but 2/3 of them just stayed put. I can't help but think it was related to 1) the idea that you weren't nobody if you didn't have your own land, and b) the fact that so many of these people were dirt-poor. They literally had nowhere else to go, and no way to get there. And of course, the first few years, people kept thinking things would have to turn around.