Synopses & Reviews
THE NEW YORK OBSERVER: ONE OF THE TOP 10 BOOKS FOR FALLA literary walking tour of New York City as seen through the eyes of American and British writers.
It's no wonder that New York has always been a magnet city for writers. Manhattan is one of the most walkable cities in the world. While many novelists, poets, and essayists have enjoyed long walks in New York, not all of them have had favorable impressions. Addressing an endlessly appealing subject, Walking New York is a study of twelve American writers and several British writers who walked the streets of New York and wrote about their impressions of the city in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Seen through the eyes of Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, William Dean Howells, Jacob Riis, Henry James, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, James Weldon Johnson, Alfred Kazin, Elizabeth Hardwick, Colson Whitehead, and Teju Cole, almost all the works in Walking New York are about Manhattan, with only Whitman and Kazin writing about Brooklyn. Though the writers were often irritated, disturbed, and occasionally shocked by what they saw on their walks, they were still fascinated by the city William Dean Howells called "splendidly and sordidly commercial" and Cynthia Ozick called "faithfully inconstant, magnetic, man-made, unnatural-the synthetic sublime."
In this idiosyncratic guidebook to New York, celebrated writers ruminate on questions that are still hotly debated to this day: the pros and cons of capitalism and the impact of immigration. Many imply that New York is a bewildering text that is hard to make sense of. Returning to New York after an absence of two decades, Henry James loathed many things about "bristling" New York, while native New Yorker Walt Whitman both celebrated and criticized "Mannahatta" in his writings.
Combining literary scholarship with urban studies, Walking New York reveals how this crowded, dirty, noisy, and sometimes ugly city gave these "restless analysts" plenty of fodder for their craft.
Review
"I can't imagine any specialist in the field not finding this book a worthy addition to the literature. It's a pleasure to read." -Phillip Lopate, Director, Nonfiction Graduate Program at Columbia University
"Walking New York, although socially aware, is an unashamed work of literary studies, recounting for its readers the way this particular city has seized the attention of the writers, how they have been affected by it, and how it has been reflected in their work." -John McLaren, Victoria University, Melbourne
"A brilliant analysis of walking in New York and how it has been viewed and experienced by some of our greatest writers. Miller's analysis of Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens, Henry James, Teju Cole, Alfred Kazin, and others is both incisive and highly original."--William Helmreich, author of The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City
"In 'Walking New York', essayist Stephen Miller takes a look at the city's literary perambulators, examining the writing of Stephen Crane, Alfred Kazin and Teju Cole, among others, and offering an evolving portrait of New York through the centuries. 'Each Writer' Mr. Miller says in the book's preface, 'wanders a different city'." -The New York Observer
Synopsis
THE NEW YORK OBSERVER: ONE OF THE TOP 10 BOOKS FOR FALL It's no wonder that New York has always been a magnet city for writers. Manhattan is one of the most walkable cities in the world. While many novelists, poets, and essayists have enjoyed long walks in New York, not all of them have had favorable impressions. Addressing an endlessly appealing subject, Walking New York is a study of twelve American writers and several British writers who walked the streets of New York and wrote about their impressions of the city in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Seen through the eyes of Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, William Dean Howells, Jacob Riis, Henry James, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, James Weldon Johnson, Alfred Kazin, Elizabeth Hardwick, Colson Whitehead, and Teju Cole, almost all the works in Walking New York are about Manhattan, with only Whitman and Kazin writing about Brooklyn. Though the writers were often irritated, disturbed, and occasionally shocked by what they saw on their walks, they were still fascinated by the city William Dean Howells called "splendidly and sordidly commercial" and Cynthia Ozick called "faithfully inconstant, magnetic, man-made, unnatural--the synthetic sublime." In this idiosyncratic guidebook to New York, celebrated writers ruminate on questions that are still hotly debated to this day: the pros and cons of capitalism and the impact of immigration. Many imply that New York is a bewildering text that is hard to make sense of. Returning to New York after an absence of two decades, Henry James loathed many things about "bristling" New York, while native New Yorker Walt Whitman both celebrated and criticized "Mannahatta" in his writings. Combining literary scholarship with urban studies, Walking New York reveals how this crowded, dirty, noisy, and sometimes ugly city gave these "restless analysts" plenty of fodder for their craft.
Synopsis
Walking New York is an idiosyncratic guidebook to New York a study of twelve American writers who walked in New York and wrote about their impressions of the city in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
New York has always been a magnet city for writers. Alfred Kazin says "New York may very well be the biggest subject for American literature in our century." Many authors who lived in New York, however, did not write about it from the perspective of a walker for example, Edith Wharton.
The writers the author discusses did what Whitman said he did: "MANHATTAN'S streets I saunter'd pondering." They could be called "restless analysts" to use a phrase that Henry James applied to himself. Their view of the city cannot be summed up in a phrase or two. Though they often disliked what they saw on their walks, they were fascinated by a city William Dean Howells called "splendidly and sordidly commercial."
Several writers ruminate on questions that still are debated: the pros and cons of capitalism, the impact of immigration. Many imply that New York is a bewildering text that is hard to make sense of. Returning to New York after an absence of two decades, James was "agreeably baffled" by the city. James loathed many things about "bristling" New York, but he found the city far more interesting than Boston or Philadelphia.
The author reflects on Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, William Dean Howells, Jacob Riis, Henry James, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, James Weldon Johnson, Alfred Kazin, Elizabeth Hardwick, Colson Whitehead, and Teju Cole.
In "The Daydreamers," Robert Pinsky says, "All day all over the city every person/Wanders a different city. . . ." Each writer in Walking New York wanders a different city.
About the Author
Stephen Miller is a freelance writer and the author of five books. His articles on literary, political, and cultural questions have appeared in many journals in the United States and Great Britain, including the
American Scholar, the
Times Literary Supplement,
Partisan Review, and
Sewanee Review, among others. He has an M.A. in English from Yale and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Rutgers.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
1. Reflections on Walking: From Plato to Baudelaire
2. Brits Walking New York: The Trollopes (Mother and Son) and Dickens
3. Walt Whitman: Magnetic Mannahatta
4. Herman Melville: Lost in the City
5. William Dean Howells: Boston vs. New York
6. Jacob Riis: Walking for Reform
7. Henry James: What to Make of the Bristling City
8. Stephen Crane: Adventures in Poverty
9. Theodore Dreiser: From Broadway to the Bowery
10. James Weldon Johnson: A Black Man in Manhattan
11. Alfred Kazin: Reveries of a Solitary Walker
12. Elizabeth Hardwick: West Side Stories
13. Colson Whitehead and Teju Cole: Disoriented, Deracinated, Exhilarated
14. The Synthetic Sublime
Notes
Bibliography
Index