Basin and Range

McPhee, John. Basin and Range. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980.

John McPhee can make anything interesting. His book Basin and Range chronicles his travels across Interstate 80 with geologist Kenneth Deffeyes. And rocks are interesting. Basin and Range takes the reader on a geological history tour of the United States, and the continent’s westward movement.

McPhee uses a variety of techniques throughout the text, some more effective than others. His descriptions that use a series of short crisp sentences engage the reader—one can see Deffeyes with his “tenured waistline” lecturing in sneakers (31). One can sense the tension driving on mountain roads, or the frustration the author feels trying to find silver with a broken military shovel.

Basin and Range is as much about Deffeyes as it is about geology—it becomes difficult to separate one from the other. McPhee paints a vivid picture of Deffeyes relationship to geology, to his students and to the project at hand. There are places in the middle of the book that the reading slows down with two-page paragraphs and lots of geo-jargon; places where Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, phytoplankton, all melt together into a blur and the reader begins to pull words that make sense: catastrophe, meteorites, calculations, pulverized (117-119). The big-boom theory takes shape and one is sure their head is about to explode. Almost.

But then suddenly McPhee transports his reader to the hills in Nevada and it is all very serene. There is time in the text to breathe, to read pleasurably, to explore the depths of geology and Deffeyes character – to see where he fits into the earth’s history. McPhee forces the reader to consider where she fits – and ultimately where humanity fits. Without the longer passages about geological history the sense of the smallness of humanity would be lost. Humanity being small in the scheme of things is hard to swallow and McPhee, by providing such a vast timeline, is successful in making at least this reader see just that.

Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris

Sedaris, David. Holidays on Ice. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1997.

David Sedaris is a modern satirist. He (like Pratchett) tackles the mythology of Christmas. The six essays contained in Holidays on Ice are heart-wrenching, tragic, and hysterical. Sedaris attacks his subject matter with gusto. We all have strange surreal experiences (many of which seem to cluster around the holidays). Sedaris captures the thought processes of his surreal experiences. One would assume his work was fiction if not told otherwise. Who needs fiction when the truth is so colorful?

Sedaris’ experiences at Macy’s in the SantaLand Dairies ring frighteningly true: drunk Santas, obnoxious parents, children urinating on the fake snow. It is Sedaris’ ability to make these bizarre moments in the human experience acceptable, even funny that captivates his reader. He uses anecdotes to express his distain for what Christmas has come to mean.

At the end of each essay the reader, though amused, feels a little dirtier, a little more ashamed for the roles we have accepted in the western holiday madness. Sedaris’ prose are crisp and biting—he makes it easy for his reader to believe that his mother had no problem with a prostitute drinking with him and his siblings on Christmas Eve (as long as dad didn’t find out). He makes a case for the sappy-holiday-movie producer; we can almost see him preaching to that congregation. Almost.

But as critical readers come to see Sedaris isn’t talking about the movie industry, or his mother’s good will. He’s talking about us: our compassion, our greed, our combination of idiosyncrasies that make us human. He allows us to laugh at ourselves when we realize his sister isn’t getting him a prostitute for Christmas – she is rescuing one.

The deceptive use of foreshadowing throughout the book allows the reader to make assumptions. Assumptions that are almost universally wrong. As a consummate writer Sedaris successfully forces the reader to look inward and reconcile the fact that the moral of the story isn’t that prostitutes can be saved, but that we made assumptions. And we shouldn’t do that. No one knows where the story leads, even on Christmas.

Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

Pratchett, Terry. Hogfather. New York: HarperTorch, 1996.

Terry Pratchett is considered one of the most significant modern English-language satirists. He has written thirty-three books to date, most of them in his science-fiction-fantasy series, Discworld. In every one of his books one finds something very concrete, very relevant to the world in which we live.

Hogfather is a Christmas story. At least it is Pratchett’s idea of a Christmas story, or more aptly a non-Christmas story. The Hogfather is Discworld’s version of Santa Claus. In the text Pratchett tackles humanity’s obsession with mythology and fairy tales. No legend is safe, from the tooth fairy to Mary Poppins as Pratchett deconstructs the mythology of the modern world. He interrogates why we tell our children fairy tales—and how. In the story, The Hogfather is depressed. In fact, his holiday has been cancelled because not enough people believe. So, a stand in must fill the roll: the Grim Reaper, Death, the most affable character in Pratchett’s world.

While subtly examining our social customs and values Pratchett weaves a fanciful tale of a being trying to move outside of the box. Death wants to be seen for who he is inside—not as people perceive him. He wants to renew the world’s faith in magic, in fairy tales, in something better and by so doing rejuvenate the Hogfather and Yule celebration.

As with all of his novels, Pratchett pokes at academia, government institutions, social values, religion and anything else that he fancies in the moment. He asks the critical reader to look at these institutions here on planet Earth and see exactly how closely they resemble Discworld. Hogfather questions our human propensity for fairy tales – to what end are they perpetuated? Do they entertain? Or teach? If they teach, Pratchett posits, what is it that we can learn from the character of Death? The text, for this reader, adequately answers that question. Fairy tales are not children’s stories at all. The Brothers Grimm perhaps finally have competition.