The Devil In The White City

I am not entirely sure what to do for a book club when the participants are on opposite sides of the country, and when one was an English major and the other most definitely was not, but here are some thoughts and ramblings.

The first book of this amazing book club is Devil in the White City by Eric Larson. So far, it seems to me to be about the construction of the World Fair in Chicago, the architects who built it, and the madman who used it to further his habit of lying, cheating, stealing, and murdering innocent people. I started the book while on the plane heading east on Friday, and am about 135 pages in so far.

At this point, I must admit that Holmes is of more interest to me then the architects, as evidenced by that fact that I can remember his name but not the main guy off the top of my head (though I do remember that it starts with a B, his partner is Root, and Olmsted is the landscape guy, lol). This is not to say that the architecture of the fair is not interesting to me, just that it is a bit dry and taking a long time to get through, and not just in pages, but in months and years story wise as well.

I suppose this is appropriate though, as the building of the exposition dragged on and on for months, with various committees mucking it up. In fact, as I read about the committees, I see a correlation between what happened with the World Fair and what happens every day in current times. For example, look at the World War II Memorial versus the Vietnam War Memorial. The WWII Memorial was designed by a committee while the Vietnam War Memorial was designed by a single architect. Personally, I really dislike the WWII Memorial, and consider it ostentatious and overdone. By having a committee involved, everyone had to have their say and wanted their own point of view included in the final product. This is the same in the book, where there are two main committees who each want control over the fair. leading to arguments, the stalling the start of the work, and slowing the pace of the work once it finally begins.

The architects themselves seems to be egomaniacs. This is not to diminish their brilliance or anything, but the Eastern ones also seem to rely on Hunt (I think?) to make the decisions, and then follow blindly along. Why couldn't they just decide to do it or not on their own, like the guy from the Midwest did? Another scene with the architects that stands out to me is where they are all unveiling their drawing for the fair, their works of art, to hushed, reverent silence. Larson notes that everyone whispered instead of speaking in normal tones, which just seems weird, haha. Also in this scene, there was one design that was bigger (better) than Hunt's, so it was voluntarily reduced. Wtf? I can't see that happening today. Ah well, the ego is a funny thing, and it will be interesting to see how these men work together to build the fair.

The labor issues are just beginning, and I am wondering how much of a role the Unions will have in the rest of the book and the Fair itself.

Also, the rivalry between the East and West is fun to follow, and reminds me a bit of the NorCal/SoCal debates. One could also argue that there is still a rivalry between the coasts, but where the middle of the country fits in those debates (i.e. Chicago), is to be unclear.

Another thing that sticks out in my mind is the minimal role of women in the design and building of the Fair. There has been one mention of a woman winning a contest to design a building, and how her award was $1000 versus the $10000 the men get, and that's about it. Unless of course, Larson is speaking of women getting lost in the city, falling easy prey to Holmes' charms, or their roles as wives to the "brilliant" architects. Granted, its possible women did not have that great of role in the Fair, and it is true that they were the main victims of the times, but I find myself wishing for a bit more depth in the women spoken of, rather than the simpering over Holmes we seem to get in every chapter that covers him.

I do like the format of the book: the way it goes from the architects to Holmes and back. It keeps it interesting and spices up what might otherwise be a slightly boring history lesson on the Fair. This way we get to see the role the Fair played in the psychopaths evolution, and learn about architecture, the society of the times, and all that went in to the creation of the Fair. I do get the feeling that Larson was more interested in the Fair itself, and that he tossed in Holmes in order to keep the readers interested in his pet project. Its working though, as I am excited to keep reading, so no complaints here.

One last note: I think it is fascinating that by choosing AC instead of DC for the electrical current for the fair, the committee essentially chose the current we use primarily today.

And that's it for now, back to reading and I will post more thoughts on the book sometime soon.