The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert

Another craft essay and this one also ties in with the previous post Krakauer vs Gilbert.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s Presence in The Last American Man

The author’s presence is prominent throughout this book. Before we see her and Eustace Conway together on the page, we learn a little bit about the author’s background which includes working on a ranch in Wyoming for two years with Conway’s younger brother. “Like me, Judson was twenty-two years old and a complete and thoroughgoing faker.” (9) The purpose of including this is to show the readers that Gilbert and everyone she worked with on that ranch, pretended to be what Eustace Conway is. “We were all putting on the same show.” (9) When the readers meet Conway through Gilbert meeting him, we already know where she comes from, and seeing him through her eyes gives us a better idea of how enamored she (and everybody else that meets him) is.

Many scenes in the book are told through first person. The author is not merely present and observing Eustace Conway interacting with family members, friends, or acquaintances; she is interacting with these people too. She establishes her authority by of her subject by being on the page so much. “Like everyone else, I call Mrs. Conway “Big Mom,” and, like everyone else, I adore her.” (145) She shows that she has a right to participate in the story because she didn’t just interview people, she became friends with them while writing the book “I once asked Candice what she used for her excellent bread…” (221) Even when she doesn’t put herself on the page, it’s obvious that she’s there, asking her interviewee for their opinion. “But it wasn’t as bad as Eustace makes out, Walton says.” (37)

Gilberts choice to immerse herself as a character in the story, works because reading this book is like having a friend sit across from you and tell you about someone they know, someone that’s their friend that you haven’t yet met. Although you would think that this would put a biased slant on the interpretation of Eustace Conway, Gilbert avoids that by including other people’s idea of what happened in a scene that Conway describes. For example, when telling the story of how Eustace met and dumped his first girlfriend, Donna Henry, she includes Donna’s take on the situation, “’Now, remember,’ says Donna today, thinking back on it.” (78) She also goes back to Eustace and asks him his opinion after she’s talked to his ex.

The fact that Gilbert is writing about a friend, or someone who became a friend, and she’s still close friends with (“I get drunk with Eustace Conway sometimes. It’s one of my favorite things to do with him.” (227)) lends authority to her narrative, but is also why she can be a character on most of the pages of the book. I also don’t think that someone like Eustace Conway would have shared as much of himself as he did with Gilbert, if he didn’t consider her a friend, and she probably would not have had access to his journal. (I also don’t think he would have been as open with a male—but that’s a different story.) Also, by being friends with Eustace’s family, they too are more open with her and spill more details. This is especially true when Judson and Walton Conway talks about their brother on pages 236 and 237.

It would have been very easy for Gilbert to exploit that nearness and the people that spoke to her, but her presence on the page and her friendly and sometimes chatty tone of voice avoids that. You’re left with the feeling like she really cared and still cares about the people she wrote about—especially Eustace Conway.

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Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Here’s the craft essay about Into the Wild, it ties in with the previous post Krakauer vs Gilbert.

Framing Jon Krakauer

In the visiting writer workshop on Friday, Lee Gutkind described how the basic building blocks of creative nonfiction are scenes and stories. An author uses a frame, or a larger story, to keep the reader turning pages, but stretches each scene out so that the substance (the “aboutness”) is cleverly woven through the narrative. In other words, the frame keeps the reader reading because it keeps him or her wanting to find out what happens next.

After the workshop, I was curious to see how Krakauer does this in Into the Wild, especially since most people already know the ending of Chris McCandless’ story. But just in case some readers missed the author’s 1993 Outside article about Chris, or didn’t see the movie, or never heard about the controversy surrounding the events of finding his body, Krakauer gives away the ending in the first paragraph of the opening Author’s Note: “In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do East Coast family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. Four months later his decomposed body was found by a party of moose hunters.” So, why did I keep turning the pages of Into the Wild if I already knew the story’s gruesome ending?

In the first chapter, the action starts immediately when Jim Gallien picks up a young hitchhiker who calls himself Alex. Through scenes containing snippets of conversation I learn that Alex is heading into the bush of Denali National Park for a few months, but doesn’t seem adequately prepared for such a trip. At the end of this chapter, I keep reading because I want to know how the hitchhiker—who I’m fairly sure, is Chris—survived as long as he did.

The next chapter describes the Stampede trail and how McCandless’ body was found. It weighed sixty-seven pounds and the authorities listed starvation as the most probable cause of death. Krakauer cleverly ends this chapter without answering the questions raised in the previous chapter; instead he adds more of them: “But because he had been carrying no identification, the authorities didn’t know who he was, where he was from, or why he was there.”(14)

The third chapter skips back in time and leads me to Wayne Westerberg, a man whom “Alex” worked for and got very close to. I also learn a little bit more about Chris’ college years, briefly meet his family and find out that he breaks all contact with them before heading out on the big trip. Krakauer teases me with some details that begin to answer the questions raised in the previous chapter, but the more information I learn, the more questions I have. I know who the hitchhiker was in name only, I don’t know very much about his character or why he broke with his family. I know where he was from, but still don’t know why he decided to go to Alaska. I turn some more pages to see if I can find out more.

As I keep reading, the picture of Christopher McCandless becomes clearer, but Krakauer weaves his narrative slowly and stretches out each chapter so that with more information comes more questions. He traces Chris’ physical travels from Atlanta to Alaska in detailed descriptions of landscapes. We learn about McCandless emotional journey through journal entries, letters and notes, and conversations he had with people that Krakauer has interviewed. Slowly, the narrative begins to answer my questions of why this boy broke with his family, why he wanted to go to Alaska, and ultimately why he didn’t survive.

Then, about one third into the book, starting with the chapter called “Alaska,” Krakauer expands the question “why did Christopher McCandless want to escape into the wild?” into “why do people want to escape conventional society and live in isolation in the wild?” by telling the stories of Gene Rosellini, John Waterman, Carl McCunn, and Everett Russ. The frame of the book becomes much larger, but so does the “aboutness.” To show me his authority on this topic, Krakauer tells his own story in the chapters called “The Stikine Ice Cap.” At this point I have a fairly clear picture of Chris McCandless personality, so when the author tells me that “As a youth, I am told, I was willful, self-absorbed, intermittently reckless, moody. I disappointed my father in the usual ways.”(134) it becomes clear why he’s so obsessed with McCandless story. So although I consciously hadn’t asked that question, I realize that as Krakauer wrote this story, he found out something about himself, which immediately alerts my reading-as-a-writer radar.

As Amanda Miller pointed out in her essay on this book, Krakauer is very deliberate in his explanations and makes sure that his conclusions are clear to the readers. From the beginning of the book, he is present on the page: “We know all of this because McCandless documented the burning of his money…” (29) and “On January 4, 1993, this writer received an unusual letter…” It is also obvious that the author cares for the subject of his book and wants to set the record straight: “The boy made some mistakes on the Stampede Trail, but confusing a caribou with a moose wasn’t among them.” (178)

In the last two chapters and the epilogue, the story changes from being about Chris McCandles and people like him to be focused mostly on John Krakauer. He describes visiting the bus for the first time and what that felt like; the extensive research involved in figuring out what really killed Chris McCandles; and then what it was like visiting the bus again with Mr. and Mrs. McCandless. At times the strong presence of Krakauer irritated me, but it also kept me reading. I had a hard time relating to Chris McCandless. Although I’m an avid backpacker and love the outdoors, I have never been a young American male, filled with angst, estranged from my family. By clearly spelling out why other people may relate to McCandless and why I should care about him, Krakauer kept me engaged. And then of course there were all those questions I wanted answered which the author eventually did, but only after leading me through all of the book’s 203 pages, using a captivating narrative constructed by scenes and stories.

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Money Ball by Michael Lewis

Another craft essay for my class.

Figurative Language in Moneyball

Michael Lewis’ book about the Oakland A’s, is so brilliantly told that readers who don’t care about baseball (readers like me for example) still enjoy the story. For those who like fairy tales, there’s the Cinderella story about how the A’s General Manager Billy Beane drafted players who were too fat, too short, or just not handsome enough for the other major league teams. Or for readers who enjoy a hero’s tale, there’s the one about how Beane, by looking at statistics in a new way, revolutionized the game of baseball. But it isn’t just about how the author spins his content, Lewis also engages his readers by sprinkling fabulous metaphors, similes, and analogies on the pages to enhance scenes, sharpen characters, and to just explain concepts to readers not familiar with baseball (again, readers like me).

Lewis figurative language is especially effective when describing how Billy Beane’s actions affected the people around him. He describes how Beane quitting as an outfielder and instead looking for a desk job took the A’s front office by surprise because, “It was as unlikely as some successful politician quitting a campaign and saying he wanted to be a staffer, or a movie actor walking off the set and taking a job as a key grip.” (55) While setting the scene for how the A’s GM interacts with his scouts during the 2002 draft, Lewis conveys the level of tension in the room, “The tone of the conversation is that of a meeting in a big company that has just decided to drop a product line, or shift resources from marketing to R&D.” (30) New members of the A’s team realized that the GM was more than a distant figure head, “He was like a Hollywood producer who insisted on meddling not only with the script but also the lights and camera and sets and wardrobes.” (154) When Beane trades players with other GM’s mid season he does so by “Trawling in late June, using Carlos Pena as chum…” (203)

Two reoccurring themes chosen by Lewis are from the worlds of casinos and Wall Street. Some of them are close enough on the pages that they should function as mixed metaphors, but somehow the author makes them work. This may be because Lewis sees both as gambling establishments; he described being a bond salesman in London in a book titled Liar’s Poker. (Which I have not read.) The gambling examples include how during the 2002 draft, “Billy and Paul no longer think of the draft as a crapshoot. They are a pair of card counters at the blackjack tables; they think they’ve found a way to turn the odds inside the casino against the owner.” (112) Lewis describes Scott Hatteberg’s virtues of plate discipline and ability to get on base to be the same as David Justice’s and Jeremy Giambi’s, “He like them, was a blackjack dealer who understood never to hit on 19.” (160) During the game between the Oakland A’s and the Kansas City Royals, the author argues that if Billy Bean really believed that baseball could be reduced to a science, he would remain calm during all games. “To get worked up over plays, or even games, is as unproductive as a casino manager worrying over the outcomes of individual pulls of the slot machines.” (247)

Some straight stock market examples include Lewis’ description of Billy Bean’s reaction when he’s able to draft pick Nicholas Swisher. “He was a bond trader, who had made a killing in the morning and entered the afternoon free of fear. Feeling greedy. Certain that the fear in the market would present him with even more opportunities to exploit.” (113) He relates the effect of A’s complete lineup after the 2002 draft to, “It was is if a big new market-moving Wall Street money manager had sprung into being, and bought shares only in vegetarian restaurants, or electric car manufacturers.” (117) The method of creating big league closers out of minor league players Lewis illustrates as “You could, in essence, buy a stock, pump it up with false publicity, and sell it off for much more than you’d paid for it.” (125)

The figurative language in Moneyball, makes Lewis narrative crisp and colorful. He’s a master in its usage and adds those extra details that drive his point home perfectly. One example of this is when he contrasts deeply religious pitcher Chad Bradford’s normal behavior with how he is on the field. Lewis could just say, “The moment he scuffed the rubber with his foot he became a pitiless con artist, a sinister magician.” but continues with, “He sawed pretty ladies in two, and made rabbits vanish.” (232) That extra sentence is what adds the colorfulness to the crispiness of his words. Through it’s usage, Lewis also manages to convey his own opinions. My favorite example of this is when he describes how event though many baseball professionals purchased computers in the 80s, they still didn’t know how to use them effectively. This was because they hired technical personnel, “But they did this less with honest curiosity than in the spirit of a beleaguered visitor to Morocco hiring a tour guide: pay off one so that the seventy-five others would stop trying to trade you their camels for your wife. Which one you pay off is largely irrelevant.” (88) Lewis clearly shows his contempt of the baseball insiders who were too foolish to recognize the opportunities presented to them, but does it with wittiness which keeps him from becoming preachy—something few authors know how to do.

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