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Nov. 6th, 2008 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo my yay-Chicago timing would probably have been better if I'd actually read Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America this week, instead of last week and just not having time to booklog it. Maybe I will just pretend instead that this was deliberate planning on my part. Yeah!
It really was cool to be reading it around this time, though. The book is a parallel nonfiction novel, following both the construction of the Chicago World's Fair and the career of the serial killer H.H. Holmes, who was taking advantage of the confusion to get away with many murders. The serial killer story was disturbing in a fascinating-voyeuristic sort of way, of course, but what I found really intriguing was the way that Larson centers his book on the city of Chicago and how its unique character at the turn of the century made both the fair and the murders possible. I love city-books, and more than the story of any individual, this is a wonderful city-book.
Moreover, in the way that Larson conveys the sense of both civic and national pride that came out of the monumental achievement that was the fair - well, like I said. It was a very cool book to be reading, right now.
I had more issues with the H.H. Holmes bits, mostly in the places where Larson goes into more novelistic-mode while talking about the murders of Holmes' victims. He's very fair about keeping track with footnotes of the parts where he is basically making stuff up, but I still sort of feel like in a nonfiction book you should present your hypotheses as such, rather than continuing with straight narrative and just footnoting. Maybe that is just me being prescriptivist, though.
It really was cool to be reading it around this time, though. The book is a parallel nonfiction novel, following both the construction of the Chicago World's Fair and the career of the serial killer H.H. Holmes, who was taking advantage of the confusion to get away with many murders. The serial killer story was disturbing in a fascinating-voyeuristic sort of way, of course, but what I found really intriguing was the way that Larson centers his book on the city of Chicago and how its unique character at the turn of the century made both the fair and the murders possible. I love city-books, and more than the story of any individual, this is a wonderful city-book.
Moreover, in the way that Larson conveys the sense of both civic and national pride that came out of the monumental achievement that was the fair - well, like I said. It was a very cool book to be reading, right now.
I had more issues with the H.H. Holmes bits, mostly in the places where Larson goes into more novelistic-mode while talking about the murders of Holmes' victims. He's very fair about keeping track with footnotes of the parts where he is basically making stuff up, but I still sort of feel like in a nonfiction book you should present your hypotheses as such, rather than continuing with straight narrative and just footnoting. Maybe that is just me being prescriptivist, though.
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Date: 2008-11-06 05:59 pm (UTC)It's about the 1900 Galveston hurricane and the man who was stationed there from the Weather Bureau, with tales from the history of meteorology that caused the screw-ups that led to such destruction and loss of life.
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Date: 2008-11-06 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 06:37 pm (UTC)Isaac's Storm is my favorite of what I've read of his, though. It's... chillingly awesome. The sense of doom. Gah.
He uses journal entries, weather reports, newspaper articles, archived telegrams and things to recreate the lives of real people living in Galveston at the time, and intersperses into the story the development of meteorology, of the invention of the barometer, hurricanes faced by Columbus, and the political machinations which caused the existence of the hurricane to be dismissed, though all the signs were there.
It left (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Galveston_-_1900_wreckage.jpg) the previously bustling city (http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/ap_galves19004_050922_ssh.jpg) looking like (http://www.ritainfo.com/1900-galveston-hurricane.jpg) this (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Body_in_the_ruins,_Galveston_hurricane,_1900.jpg).
It's a favorite of mine and my dad's.
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Date: 2008-11-06 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-06 08:25 pm (UTC)/end eloquent commentary
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Date: 2008-11-06 08:53 pm (UTC)