Introduction

What is The New Yorker? I know it’s a great magazine and that it’s a tremendous source of pleasure in my life. But what exactly is it? This blog’s premise is that The New Yorker is a work of art, as worthy of comment and analysis as, say, Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Each week I review one or more aspects of the magazine’s latest issue. I suppose it’s possible to describe and analyze an entire issue, but I prefer to keep my reviews brief, and so I usually focus on just one or two pieces, to explore in each the signature style of its author. A piece by Nick Paumgarten is not like a piece by Jill Lepore, and neither is like a piece by Ian Frazier. One could not mistake Collins for Seabrook, or Bilger for Goldfield, or Mogelson for Kolbert. Each has found a style, and it is that style that I respond to as I read, and want to understand and describe.

Thursday, March 7, 2024

On the Horizon: 5 McPhee Canoe Trips

Illustration based on photo from Canoeguy's Blog







In homage to one of my all-time favorite New Yorker writers, John McPhee, I’m launching a new series – an appreciation of five of his best pieces, each of which is about a canoe trip he took.

The five pieces are “The Survival of the Bark Canoe” (February 24 & March 3, 1975), “The Keel of Lake Dickey” (May 3, 1976), “The Encircled River” (May 2 & 9, 1977), “Farewell to the Nineteenth Century” (September 27, 1999), and “Five Days on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” (December 15, 2003). 

I’ll focus on one piece each month, examining what it’s about, how it’s made, and why I’m drawn to it. A new series then – “5 McPhee Canoe Trips” – starting April 7, 2024. 

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