New York: Loving Analysis

It would seem, at first glance, that no man could write a book called "Here is New York" and have it mean anything. To talk sense about a city compassing 8,000,000 more or less neurotic individuals, 8,000,000 different dreams, and 8,000,000 secret vices would appear impossible and any attempt in that direction preposterous.

But E.B. White, poet, humorists, and editorial for the New Yorker, has written something called "Here is New York," has given it meaning, and has done all this in 54 pages. He did in the only conceivable manner: One summer day he left his sometime home in Maine (where the serenity of the pine trees would not let a man write well about New York) and moved to "a stiffing hotel room in 90-degree heat, halfway down an air shaft, in midtown."

"No air moves in or out of the room," White says, "yet I am curiously effected by emanations from the immediate surroundings."

White's book is a running story of one man's reactions to the "emanations" which New York City will transmit to anyone sensitive enough to receive them. From an "ex-speakeasy in East 53rd Street," for instance, come these emanations:

". . . A thin crowd, a summer-night buzz of fans interrupted by an occasional drink being shaken at the small bar. It is dark in here . . . Fans in the prayer for cool salvation. From the next booth drifts the conversation of radio executives; from the green salad comes the little taste of garlic. Behind me . . . a young intellectual is trying to persuade a girl to come live with him and he his love. She has her guard up, but he is extremely reasonable, careful not to overplay his hand . . . In the mirror over the bar I can see the ritual of the second drink. Then he has to go to the men's room and she has to go to the ladies room, and when they return, the argument has lost its tone. And the fan takes over again, and the heat and the relaxed air and the memory of so many good little dinners is so many good little illegal places, with the theme of love, the sound of ventilation, the brief medicinal illusion of gin."

"Here is New York" is rarely analytical; it is through emotional, so effectively emotional that few readers will be able to reject the sensations that it offers. But the only readers who will fully appreciate White's book will be New Yorkers, who have lived among the profoundly felt New York's "emanations" all their lives, but who have not until now seen them articulated.

White has also given voice to a vague fear which may cling to the pride which New Yorkers take in their town, a fear which "sticks in all our heads":

"All dwellers in cities must live with the stubborn fact of annihilation; in New York the fact is somewhat more concentrated because of the concentration of the city itself, and because, of all targets, New York has a certain clear priority. In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm."