Jonathan Franzen’s “New York”

The United States of America, by its very name, can suggest uniformity. But what unites the States? Although the states do have similarities, with “the same buildings… stores… and songs [played]”, they are not, of course, unvarying in cultural, political, and social outlooks. But according to Matt Weiland, “despite all the books and blog posts, the documentaries and songs, America and the lives lived here remain strangely and surprisingly underdescribed”. Each state has “its dynamism, its variety, [and] its intensity” that is rarely captured on a page; each state is unique culturally, politically, and socially.

As a countermeasure to the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt created jobs with the New Deal: the Works Project Administration, one branch of which was the Federal Writer’s Project. In order to capture the distinctiveness of each state, and to put their best talent to work, the Federal Writer’s Project commissioned the American Guide Series, which employed over 6,000 writers, researchers, and archivists during the 1930s, “creating a vivid, detailed and lasting portrait of America”. The Guide Series covered not only the cultural, geographical, social, and economic aspects of the state, but also the idiosyncrasies of each state, culminating in, as Lewis Mumford claims, “the finest contribution to American patriotism”.

State by State: a Panoramic Portrait of America is Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey’s attempt to create a single book with the same ideals as the original American Guide Series. The book is a collection of fifty essays, each written (or drawn) by an author or artist, handpicked by Weiland and Wilsey, on a given state. The idea came to Weiland when he returned to the States after four years living abroad. He “hit[…] the Americana hard”, reading Moby Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Will Eisner cartoons, etc., as he traveled across the States, fascinated by the variety he found here. Weiland had a hunch that even though “America is growing more homogeneous with each passing year”, that still, the fifty states “stubbornly resist blending into a single undifferentiated whole”. For this project, Weiland and Wilsey understood that State by State would “not be the ‘great storehouse of facts’ that Kazin declared the WPA Guides to be”; they also found the guidebooks from the Series to be “too anonymous, too stiff, and too formulaic for what [they] had in mind”. But they nevertheless wanted an assemblage of stories, albeit “more personal, more eccentric, and more partial” than the original guidebooks, that could be “a road trip in book form”, each essay of which would be “the kind of story… that begins like this: ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but where I come from… ‘”.

South Carolina is split considerably between Charleston and “Upstate”, as described in detail by Jack Hitt. Hitt describes his home state in the words of James Louis Petigru: “South Carolina was too small to be a sovereign nation, and too large to be an insane asylum”, and with a play on Gertrude Stein’s famous insult, “there’s a lot of ‘there’ there”… in the Palmetto State. Hitt captures the dominant defining factor of this coastal southern state, which is the tension between the “aristocrats and the hicks… the bourbons and the rednecks”, in an unceasing list of contrasts. Hitt succeeds in capturing South Carolina’s role in preserving memory of the antebellum South, of Charleston’s being the the southern peak of old gentry (with Virginia forming the northern), along  with a final anecdote about the gentrification of Charleston.

St. Louis, Missouri, today home of the largest Bosnian population outside of Europe, is now becoming reminiscent of its original 43% foreign population in 1851, when it was the fourth largest city in the United States. Jacki Lyden reports on two prominent figures in Missouri: Sukrija “Suki” Dzidzoic and Mark Twain. Suki is the “unofficial spokesman” for the Bosnian population, a former captain of the Yugoslav Peoples Army, and the founder and publisher of the only Bosnian newspaper printed outside of Bosnia, the Sabah. Another newspaperman, Samuel Clemens, grew up in Hannibal, Missouri. Better known as Mark Twain, he began his writing career with his brother who had started the Hannibal Journal, writing a column called “The Rambler”. Lyden, a reporter herself for NPR, distills Missouri’s original, self-making ethos by profiling these two Americans, though they live and wrote a century apart.

Alison Bechdel, cartoonist, whose play, Fun Home, is currently playing on Broadway, portrays Vermont as a state of unconventional individuals and ideals in her graphic essay, describing Vermont’s nature to be the forefront of change – Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery. Bechdel fell in love “not with [her girlfriend], but with this place” where she could run errands at a “non-chain store… [and then] go to a non-chain theatre for a three-hour foreign film”. Bechdel captures the sheer individuality of Vermont, its nonconformity, along with maps, bits of trivia, and memories of her life there.

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque and John James Audubon, two prominent scientists in the 19^th century, traveled and resided in Kentucky. Rafinesque was an autodidactic polymath – interested in, and contributing greatly to, botany, zoology, and North American prehistory – who traveled and taught in Kentucky. Audubon was a prominent ornithologist who created The Birds of America, one of the finest ornithological works ever created. John Jeremiah Sullivan chooses to evoke the wildness of the early frontier as experienced by these 18^th and 19^th century naturalists, by writing a beautifully rich and detailed description of their friendship.

Of the 50 States, New York has had one of the greatest impacts in the origin and the success of our nation. New York produced the very man who established the WPA, played a significant role as a battleground for much of the Revolutionary War and the French and Indian War, has produced four presidents, and retains distinguishing characteristics. Hyde Park, the childhood home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is situated on the Hudson River, one of the nation’s most important waterways. New York was the battleground for many decisive battles during the Revolutionary War, indispensible in forming our nation of distinctive states, which the Writer’s Project sought to capture.  The first of the decisive battles fought in New York was the Battle of Harlem Heights, on September 16, 1776, the first victory of General George Washington. Washington successfully held Manhattan against the British, raising morale among troops, after a succession of defeats at the Battle of Long Island and the Battle of Brooklyn Heights. A year later, on October 7, the Battle of Bemis Heights was fought, the second of two battles in Saratoga County – and it was a decisive victory leading to a British surrender ten days later. The surrender commenced negotiations between Americans and French, concluding in the Franco-American alliance, which diverted British resources towards other French colonies. Major battles were fought and won in New York, some leading to substantial outcomes such as the Franco-American alliance.

As New York recovered from the war, it became one of the most important ports in the newly formed nation. Trade with Europe was restricted to the coastal areas because transportation routes towards the west were unsafe, inefficient, or a combination of both. But in 1817, New York State Legislature approved the 363 mile-long Erie Canal, which, according to NY State’s official website, is the “engineering marvel of the 19^th Century”. The canal initiated the major westward expansion beyond the Adirondacks, connecting New York Harbor to the Great Lakes. This boosted New York far above other port cities, allowing it to ship, in total tonnage, more than Boston, Baltimore and New Orleans combined. The canal received successive additions and expansions throughout the 19^th and early 20^th century, until the competition of trains, highways, and the St. Lawrence Seaway dramatically reduced traffic on the canal.

Modern day New York retains a highly distinctive culture, though parts of the state have blurred borders, overrun with  “bland interstate highways and big-box superstores”. Known as the “melting pot”, New York City is the home to the widest mix of ethnic races in the country, joining less than ten other cities worldwide in its diversity, where roughly 800 languages are spoken. It is the largest city in the United States. New York’s distinctiveness is rather well known – a New Yorker is sometimes thought of as having a fast-paced lifestyle and an assertive, bullying manner. This well-known stereotype presents a complication for Jonathan Franzen, as a character in his own play – he captures New York in an original, captivating manner that showcases the unique traits of the Empire State.

Franzen (born on August 17, 1959, in Western Springs, Illinois) grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, (hometown also to Vincent Price) graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in German in 1981, and studied at Freie Universitat Berlin on a Fulbright Scholarship. Franzen moved to Boston after graduating, hoping to pursue a career as a novelist. Unsuccessful, he moved to New York in 1987 and has lived there since. Franzen writes both as an insider and an outsider on New York; in Missouri, his parents “went through life apologizing and feeling the opposite of entitled”, and yet he has lived in New York City since age 29, when he was first successful with his book The Twenty-Seventh City, examining St. Louis’s fall from its “fourth city” status. For State by State, he writes a play featuring New York State officials. The only play in the collection, his New York contrasts and reflects well with the personal narrative, the biographical, the reportorial angles and the graphic depictions that the other authors employ. Franzen decides to personify New York State, featuring a series of important elected and appointed officials. Franzen’s play incorporates his experience both as a stranger and resident.

Franzen casts himself as interviewer, visiting officials in Manhattan. The play begins with the New York State Publicist apologizing for shortening the interview, halving the initially designated hour to thirty minutes without Franzen’s input or approval. The Publicist goes on to interrogate Franzen about the “travel guide” he is writing, and subsequently attempts to persuade him to ask Weiland and Wilsey to shorten State by State to a “Top Five States of the Union” or a “Top Ten Most Important States, and then… in the appendix… some other states”. Franzen is then ushered to the office of the New York State’s Personal Attorney to have his questions vetted, where he is warned to avoid “the wild and crazy years… roughly from ’65 to ‘85”. The Attorney speaks in tangents about his own experiences, occasionally interrupting Franzen and generally treating him with a demeaning attitude. Upon mentioning the “wild and crazy years”, the Attorney labels the people who pursue that era as “deadbeats and failed artists… [who think] they know the ‘real’ New York State.” When Franzen notes, “I guess this puts me in the company of the deadbeats and failed artists”, the Attorney does not deny the assertion, only replying, “… Hey, you were young”. The Attorney enjoys making light of others, implying, and then stating outright, that Franzen is not hip because he does not live in Brooklyn. “All the great writers [live] in Brooklyn.” Fully aware of the State Historian’s methods, the Attorney passes Franzen along to an old, rambling man well versed in New York’s antiquity. The Historian overwhelms Franzen with an unending torrent of history, interrupts all of Franzen’s questions, and awes the reader with the extensive history of New York. The Historian’s forceful style of presentation is efficacious in transmitting information, but does not engage Franzen.

Saved by the State Geologist, Franzen escapes from the Historian and receives a chance to express his own experience in encountering the Empire State. Franzen takes this opportunity to recount his first impression of New York City as a teenager, emphasizing his awe for the “entitlement” that he witnessed; he first experienced New York City with his cousin Martha and the three girls she babysat. Although Martha lived in Westport, Connecticut, to Franzen, she was his “exciting New York cousin”.   The trip involved driving to New York City, dropping the three girls off at their grandmother’s, wandering around the city, changing a flat tire, and … falling in love with New York. Of the three girls Martha babysat, the middle of the three created a lasting impression on Franzen by going to the city barefoot – he had “never seen entitlement like this, never even imagined it”. His day in New York, witnessing what was “beyond [his] ken and totally intoxicating”, along with spending the day with Martha “wandering the streets… [having] dinner like two adults, and [going] to a free concert in the park”, allowed him to see a self that he “recognized only because [he’d] longed it for so long… I met, in myself, on my first day in New York City, the person I wanted to become”. Franzen describes the connection between New York and the Midwest as yin and yang, which he employs to explain the self he had longed for:

“New York’s like the beady eye of yang at the center of the Midwest’s unentitled, self-effacing plains of yin. And the Midwest is like the dewy, romantic, hopeful eye of yin at the center of New York’s brutal, grasping yang. A certain kind of Midwesterner comes east to be completed. Just as a certain kind of New York native goes to the Midwest to be renewed”.

On the drive back to Westport, Franzen had a “clinching vision” as he crossed the Whitestone Bridge – he fell in love with New York at the sight of Co-Op City. The “huge towers of habitation” were “otherworldly… unknowably and excitingly vast”. But his rich memories are cut short when the Publicist adjourns the discussion between Franzen and the Geologist, making a shouting entrance.

On her tardiness, the Publicist tells him: “I’m sorry, but hiding back here with Hal [the Geologist], you do bear a certain amount of responsibility”, and to further shift the blame, she tells the Geologist that he “[needs] to install escape-path lighting or something” for her own incompetence. She drags Franzen away from the Geologist, bringing him to his interview with New York State Herself, while she informs Franzen that he should be “content… with fifteen minutes”, once again shortening Franzen’s interview, against his will. Franzen’s meeting with New York State is repetitious of his meetings with the other state officials: Franzen speaks in short succinct sentences, generally to answer a question, and is heavily dismissed. New York State’s demeaning attitude – her successive rejections of Franzen’s reminiscences, by changing the topic back to her recent achievements – is the final example of Franzen’s Midwestern inferiority complex. Although Franzen’s complete interview is not transcribed in the play, he is able to convey the necessary elements to exhibit the aspects of New York that he considers vital to its identity.

Weiland and Wilsey wanted the essayists to capture a given state so as to exhibit its unique traits. Franzen successfully begins achieving his goal when he immediately focuses on one of the most notable aspects of New York – the rush, the sensation of limited time – at the beginning of the play. The Publicist acts as Franzen’s emissary for the message on time, she shortens Franzen’s interview multiple times and is constantly in a rush, epitomizing the assertiveness, and possessing the character traits that are necessary for ascension in the perceived social hierarchy. She attempts to conceal her behavior with superficial apologies and by shifting responsibility to others. The Attorney’s arrogance is apparent in his insincerity; he disparages Franzen indirectly and does not express regret for his strong words. The State Historian is overwhelming and self-assured; he does not pause and refuses to be interrupted. New York State herself is demeaning. Contrary to the rest, the Geologist remains amicable towards Franzen; he rescues him from the Historian and is attentive. Is it redemption for the state that the Geologist reminds the reader of an older, or more permanent New York?

In the illustrated Oregon, Joe Sacco captures his own emotional yin and yang, from living in the Beaver State. Like the Publicist, he is often rushed – but it is to find “a break in the clouds that might last 20 minutes” just to walk the “awful, embarrassing creature” that is his girlfriend’s corgi. His walks with his girlfriend in the rain are also calculated for proximity to the nearest drink. Sacco’s character traits differ from a New Yorker’s, especially in their feeling of assertiveness and purpose. Many of his actions are dictated by the wishes of his girlfriend: he goes on walks in the rain, joins her in wine tasting (he likes beer). To further amplify his reserved character, Sacco states that he feels “superfluous, like [he is] only taking up sacred space” as he appreciates a friend’s paintings of Oregon’s landscape. The oppositions between the attitudes and composure of Sacco and of the New York State officials is yet another highlight to State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, whose subtitle reads: Take Pride in Your Country!