meta4worldz

I am, at times, a voracious reader. I gobble up everything I can, sometimes with nearly no regard as to quality or genre, but I usually stick in my favorite areas; Sci-fi, Horror, and thriller fiction.

I am always on the lookout for a standout piece of work that I haven’t read, and shoot outside of my comfort zones on occasion. So, I heard some guys talking about a book, and got the name of it, Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson. I noted the name, and based on a very generic recommendation, I stopped them before they gave me more details, and read the book.

Let me preface this by also saying that as I had a beer with a buddy, telling him about the book I’d just started reading, someone at the bar spoke up to tell me how good it was, and I had to stop them from going on and maybe ruining it for me. Well, that’s what I said, I actually just didn’t feel like talking to them.

So anyway, on to the book. Devil in the White City is one of those historical drama type of books that have become popular, and usually elicit no interest from me whatsoever. It was solely the person that initially recommended it to me and a few details that got me to read it. Still, the book came highly recommended on all levels.

The New York Times
“A dynamic, enveloping book. . . . Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramtic effect of a novel. . . . It doesn’t hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction.”

Esquire
“So good, you find yourself asking how you could not know this already.”

It is about late 19th century Chicago, when the city of broad shoulders stood together to build the World’s Columbian Exposition, the event that would change not just Chicago, but America itself.

These are bold claims, and oddly, ones I had never heard before, but intriguing enough to get me reading. The story unfolds very nicely, switching between historic accounts of all the trials and tribulations of making the fair itself, and a factual account of a truly despicable man that preyed on everyone he ever met.

Two things kept occurring to me as I read this;
How did this guy continue to get away with what he did
I wished I knew downtown Chicago better than I do, to match up these old neighborhoods to current areas.

Unfortunately, the book never does a roundup of what happened to the White City after the fair, except to describe it’s deterioration after the fair, but that is one of the few downfalls in this very good read. The setting of the age and it’s principal drivers, especially Daniel Burnham , the chief architect and visionary who made it all happen, are brought to life through the details of this undertaking.

Meanwhile, H.H. Holmes, a man of many aliases and absoultely no morals or conscience, used everyone that crossed his path in some way, and soullessly murdered any who gave him the opportunity.

The story of either of these men makes enough for a good book. Together, it is like reading a coffee table book with a pulp novels pages interspersed. The effect works, and Erik Larson is to be commended for covering both in adequate fashion.

And that’s about all I have to say about it, I can definitely recommend it and hope that anyone who reads this goes out and gets it.

Toys

Almost every place I ever visited as a child is defined in some ways by the toys that were there for me to play with. Every relative’s home, office I visited, restaurant, even schools and churches, had their own set of toys to play with. Maybe it is part of my generation, or an eye to things to come, but in many cases I remember the tyos more than the place, or the people in it.

Let’s take both sets of Grandparents, first my mother’s side, where I can tell you that she and Grandpa kept a big cardboard cannister of Lincoln Logs and a stack of comic books, handed down from my Uncle and older cousins in the hall closet. I remember nearly as much about those toys, as I can about her holiday dinners, but this is because NOBODY cooked like my Grandma Shaw.

Homemade southern dumplings aside, I remember what those Lincoln Logs looked like when Grandpa and Uncle Sonny set them all up at once, so it looked just like the cabin in the picture on the container, and I remember that it never seemed to look quite as good for me. I remember finding Superman and Batmanand the Justice League of America in already worn comic books, and reading through them like they were treasures, each and every time we visited.

At my father’s grandparents, there was a box of mixed dominoes and tinkertoys, among all the other toys that my dad had left behind, and a small wooden train, held together by magnetic hitches, which I would pull in circles around the lower floor of the house.

There is a couple that has been a friend of our family for years, as long as I remember, but one of my most vivid memories is the rubber Underdaog that we played with at their house.

So, those are the easy ones, how about the Doctor’s office, with the crayons and worn out kids magazines, or the barber shop, which had comic books. It has just sturck me lately as odd that I tie so many places from my past to the toys I was given at them, and makes me realize that maybe above all, I should be aware of the ones I can have for children that are around my own home, as well as a tool to define characters in my wtories.