Darwin8u's Reviews > Tabula Rasa: Volume 1

"With the same ulterior motive*, I could undertake to describe in capsule form the many writing projects that I have conceived and seriously planned across the years but have never written."
- John McPhee, "Thorton Wilder at the Century," Tabula Rasa (Volume 1?)



* When McPhee was young he went to a lunch with Thorton Wilder, when asked "Wilder said he was not actually writing a new play or novel but was fully engaged in a related project. He was cataloguing the plays of Lope de Vega. Lope de Vega wrote some eighteen hundred full-length plays. Four hundred and thirty-one survive. How long would it take to read four hundred and thirty-one plays? How long would it take to summarize each in descriptive detail and fulfill the additional requirements of cataloguing?"

***

Now in his early 90s, McPhee better understands: "I know that those four hundred and thirty-one plays were serving to extend Thornton Wil­der’s life."

That is the purpose of this book. McPhee is, at the bidding of his wife, his daughter, or the inevitable tug of the eternities, going through his files: organizing, reminiscing, looking for gems, remembering adventures, friends. Bringing to light the hidden, the unpublished, the errata and errant pages and proposals.

He has been periodically adding these to the New Yorker: drip, drip, drip.

Tabula Rasa appeared 3 times from Jan 2020 to Feb 2022.

"Tabula Rasa: Vol 1" appeared in the New Yorker on Jan 12, 2020, and included the vignettes:
1. Trujillo
2. Thorton Wilder at the Century
3. The Moons of Methuselah
4. "Hitler Youth"
5. The Bridges of Christian Menn
6. The Airplane that Crashed in the Woods
7. On the Campus
8. The Guilt of the US Male
9. Extremadura

"Tabula Rasa: Vol 2" appeared in the New Yorker on Apr 19, 2021, and included the vignettes:
1. Sloop to Gibraltar
2. The Valley
3. December 19,1943
4. The Dutch Ship Tyger
5. Ray Brock
6. Writer

"Tabula Rasa: Vol 3" appeared in the New Yorker on Feb 7, 2022, and included the vignettes:
1. Not that One
2. Night Watchman
3. George Recker and Dr. Dick
4. Dinners with Henry Luce
5. Bourbon and Bing Cherries
6. Dropped Antaeus

These 21 small pieces represent a little less than 1/2: 21/50. Clearly, if you like what you read in the New Yorker, you still need to buy the book. Fair. I would hyperlink to the New Yorker articles, but unfortunately, Goodreads only allows one to link to things from inside goodreads.com. Booo!

McPhee might be my favorite nonfiction writer, but while these pieces do present an interesting structure and allow the reader to get a bigger sense of a big writer, they are also cast-offs. Some parts are amazing, others are filler, and the structure seems more like a Smörgåsbord of memories, people, reflections, and almost taken paths. I enjoyed it, but these 50 pieces can't compete with McPhee's great books. This is Michael Jordan at 60 not the GOAT at 20-30.