Here at the New Yorker

I loved this book. It is superbly written. the times this book is about was when there were really great writers in our country. You will find, E. B. White, wife, Katherine(a powerhouse at The New Yorker), Thurber (one of my favorite writers), Peter Arno (those wonderful sometimes unexplainable cartoons, Charles Addams (sound familiar?), Edmund Wilson (very interesting review) and so many more; some forgotten and gladly brought back to life. And then there,s the founder of the magazine, Harold Ross who breathed life into it(it seems literally) and kept it going and then the great Wallace Shawn who took over from Ross. Some books like this, I can get easily bored but this one was kind of like a favorite mystery; you can't put it down. It is indeed most likely the best book written about an era.

Brendan Gill worked for the 'New Yorker' for sixty years. He wasone of its major 'Talk of the Town' writers and an editor who seemed to be involved with every facet of the magazine. In this Memoir he tells the inside story of major relationships in the magazine. He goes on at great length about founding editor Harold Ross and his successor William Shawn, and he tells too of the owner Raoul Fleischmann and his relationship to editors and magazine. He tells us about many of the artists, writers, editors ,some of whom are well- known to the public, and others lesser so. He tells his own story, in which he has a great deal of praise and love for his father who widowed early gave unstinting support to his five children. Gill can be small- minded as he is in the opening section in which he talks about writers who are 'losers'. But he was a tremendously sociable and intelligent person, who seemed to genuinely want to mix and mingle. He tells us his philosophy of living beyond one's means and indicates the way he did it. To my mind the book was longer than it had to be, and without some overall statement of Gill's view of life and the magazine. But it has many interesting anecdotal parts. My favorite was the small section on arguably America's greatest poet of this century , Wallace Stevens. Stevens upon reaching retirement age did not want to retire, and so left behind complicated work which only he could do. His firm thus had to keep him on. Gill also describes Stevens morning walks to work in Hartford where the custom was for people to give rides to walkers. Stevens always refused the rides and composed poetry on the way to work. Gill shows an appreciation of those figures larger than himself like Stevens and Edmund Wilson. He appears as the consummately 'in' social person. A sense of fun, chic, elegance, sophistication radiate from the work. In his person he thus seems to epitomize much of what the 'New Yorker'was and is as a magazine.

The New Yorker magazine is an acquired taste. It does have plenty of advertisements but the founding and the development of this timeless magazine over the first 50 years since it's inception in February 1921 is an historical and amazing accomplishment. To know the New Yorker, you must learn to love the New Yorker. We look forward to those Letters from Paris, London, Rome, Warsaw, Cologne, Cracow, Naples, Milan whenever we can since many of us don't get to go there often enough. Contributors have become literary phenomenon's like J.D. Salinger, Charles Addams, Janet "Genet" Flanner, E.B. White, James Thurber, William Shawn, John Updike, Harold W. Ross, Robert Benchley, Truman Capote, Dorothy Parker, Brendan Gill, and many more to mention. Brenda Gill's book is a testament to his devotion and adoration of the New Yorker when magazines were major reading source of enlightenment, entertainment, and information all rolled into one.

It was interesting to read about the writers and editors who helped make The New Yorker a magazine of such distinction. I bought this book during that whole rage of last year when "Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker" was all over the place. In the time since I read this book, I resubscribed to the magazine. Periodically, I read glimpses of the magazine's former glory in its pages. I don't think I could read "Gone," though. Even though I know The New Yorker is not as good as it once was, that doesn't mean I have to take a broom handle to it. That's why I found "Here at The New Yorker" great, pricisely because of its balance.

Having just read the new "About Town The New Yorker and the World it Made" I felt compelled to go back and reread Brendan Gill's memoirs of his days working for Harold Ross and William Shawn.Some critic called "Here at the New Yorker" "wonderful entertainment". That is wrong--this book does not entertain it probes. Granted there are some funny anecdotes and glances of writers like Scott Fitzgerald. But the book has a darker more serious side as well.I imagine that Brendan Gill has made many enemies with his book. He talked about Editor Harold Ross's racism and William Shawn's phobias. Of many he writers he either praises them or he says they did not produce much legible writing at all.But these dark character portraits are wonderfully written and penetrate deep. After reading Gill I think I can more carefully size up my peers. This one is a drunk never-do-well. That one works all day to keep away from his wife. Brendan Gill has the novelist's eye for detail.