I've decided now, for sure: John McPhee sometimes just does not do a very good job explaining physical shapes or spaces. It bothered me from time to time during Annals but I figured maybe I was just being obtuse or that perhaps I was not well-versed enough in geological vocabulary conventions. But after reading Control of Nature, I've realized that the problem is probably in his writing. In each of the stories - "Atchafalaya," "Cooling the Lava," and "Los Angeles Against the Mountains" -- McPhee describes physical objects, or their relation to one another in space, in a way that does not conjure up anything like a clear picture of what he's looking at.
In "Atchafalaya," the best example of this problem is in McPhee's description of the Old River Control System, a network of gates and related navigation locks that governs (sometimes) the flow of water between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers in Louisiana. McPhee spends some words here and there describing how the various components are situated but I had to look up a diagram to have any idea what he was talking about. I'm still not quite sure how it all works. Despite the fact that he's failed to adequately describe the structure that is the center of his essay, "Atchafalaya" is a wonderful history of and meditation on a group of humans' attempts to arrest a geological inevitability.
In "Cooling the Lava," the problem arises in McPhee's description of a somewhat less important element: At one point he is standing on an active lava flow in Hawaii, on just-cooled surface lava, looking down a natural chimney into a tube of lava flowing beneath him and his companions. He wonders whether he is (paraphrasing) "looking into the near side of the tube, or standing over the middle and looking into the far side." I spent quite a while trying to parse that sentence and trying to figure out how a view through a chimney could be to the near or far side of a tube. No luck. This snag is doubly frustrating because it comes in the middle of the most awesome section of the essay.
In "Los Angeles Against the Mountains," the descriptive issue arises in the relationship between LA and the San Gabriel Mountains. However, here McPhee finds the solution that I found myself wishing for over and over in Annals and a couple of times in the previous two essays in Control: He draws a diagram. A perfect, single-line diagram that does more to describe the physical space of his story than do all his words. Oh well. This is also the McPheeiest essay in the book, the one in which he gets the most carried away with one- and two-sentence anecdotes, which individually are fun but which eventually become skim material.
Anyway, for all that complaining Control is a gorgeous, fascinating book. I felt the need to vent in part because I spend so much time praising McPhee's writing. But if I had a chance to ask him one question, I'd ask what the hell meant by looking into the near or far side of a lava tube.
In "Atchafalaya," the best example of this problem is in McPhee's description of the Old River Control System, a network of gates and related navigation locks that governs (sometimes) the flow of water between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers in Louisiana. McPhee spends some words here and there describing how the various components are situated but I had to look up a diagram to have any idea what he was talking about. I'm still not quite sure how it all works. Despite the fact that he's failed to adequately describe the structure that is the center of his essay, "Atchafalaya" is a wonderful history of and meditation on a group of humans' attempts to arrest a geological inevitability.
In "Cooling the Lava," the problem arises in McPhee's description of a somewhat less important element: At one point he is standing on an active lava flow in Hawaii, on just-cooled surface lava, looking down a natural chimney into a tube of lava flowing beneath him and his companions. He wonders whether he is (paraphrasing) "looking into the near side of the tube, or standing over the middle and looking into the far side." I spent quite a while trying to parse that sentence and trying to figure out how a view through a chimney could be to the near or far side of a tube. No luck. This snag is doubly frustrating because it comes in the middle of the most awesome section of the essay.
In "Los Angeles Against the Mountains," the descriptive issue arises in the relationship between LA and the San Gabriel Mountains. However, here McPhee finds the solution that I found myself wishing for over and over in Annals and a couple of times in the previous two essays in Control: He draws a diagram. A perfect, single-line diagram that does more to describe the physical space of his story than do all his words. Oh well. This is also the McPheeiest essay in the book, the one in which he gets the most carried away with one- and two-sentence anecdotes, which individually are fun but which eventually become skim material.
Anyway, for all that complaining Control is a gorgeous, fascinating book. I felt the need to vent in part because I spend so much time praising McPhee's writing. But if I had a chance to ask him one question, I'd ask what the
