The World Keeps Turning: Reveling in John McPhee’s ‘wonder’

Everyone with a profession, or even a passionate hobby, probably has one person that stands out as a role model, a target of envy, and recipient of uncritical admiration. In today’s inflated language, that person might be termed the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) although I’m not particularly fond of the acronym — it’s double superlatives go beyond what I can imagine.

As a writer, John McPhee has been that person since I first found some of his works in the late 1970s. He is a writer of what many call “literary nonfiction” to honor his skill with words and at providing fascinating narratives that don’t rely on fictional events or characters. He leads us through the forest and swamp of reality and is capable of creating tangible suspense even when the reader already knows the outcome.

John McPhee is now 92 and just published another 5,000 words that met his, and The New Yorker’s exacting standards for interest, playfulness, and the skillful use of language. He includes part of a literary will which forbids editing of reprints. He observes that he has published roughly a million words in his 30 books and hundred-or-so lengthy pieces for The New Yorker (many of which became books with added research, more interviews, and expansion to fit the biggest picture) and believes that his own and others’ meticulous proofreading missed less than 10 errors. For example, he warns against human beings or software correcting the spelling of “exxecutive” since he uses it once, intentionally to refer to an official at Exxon. It’s just another example of his wholesome obsession with words, and fanatic devotion to finished products that bear his name.

So, his longevity and ability to harness the massive, daunting, and constantly fluid English language as the paint and canvas for his sights, insights, and visions makes him an ageless wonder as he approaches double the years needed to join AARP. But it’s another type of “wonder” that inspires my love and admiration for his work.

The list of his subjects seems endless. He has illuminated the aspirations, unique philosophies, and careers of star athletes such as basketball’s Bill Bradley and Arthur Ashe in tennis, as well as exploring football, lacrosse, and golf; documented the passionate interactions of people with their natural surroundings in Maine, New Jersey, and Alaska; described the joys and challenges of transporting goods on gigantic ocean tankers and in extra-long hazmat tanker trucks; traced the complicated journey of oranges from ancient and modern trees to our tables and glasses; provided personal environmental observations as a dedicated and enthusiastic fisherman, canoeist, and outdoorsman; and navigated some of the complex intersections among visionary and pedestrian military, science, and industry leaders in pursuit of tactical advantage, pure knowledge, and gold at the end of the rainbow.

For me, his greatest triumph is making the movements of geology (a subject normally as dry as dirt and rocks) appear animated. He takes changes that are often measured in inches per year (e.g., glacier movements) and makes the earth’s surface and sublayers consistently, but unpredictably, kinetic. There’s never a dull moment as geothermal energy and plate tectonics constantly create mountains and craters, mesas and buttes, river valleys and parched deserts over millennia.

For me, the force that unites these seemingly disparate subjects is McPhee’s everlasting wonder at the ways of the world, including its human complexities and achievements alongside its irresistible natural forces. McPhee is a lover of both people and processes, indirectly expressing his admiration and “wonder” at what we have created as well as the inescapable environmental powers that have created so much in spite of us.

Recent spiritual seekers, as well as those recorded for centuries, often speak of the central “mystery” that includes both creation and destruction, life and death. It seems to be beyond a single person’s capacity to understand and encompass both the majestic and menial, the monumental and mundane, the spiritual and scientific. It’s hard to accept the idea that our environment is both a loving provider and heartless killer, or that people’s actions can embrace all others around them as well as kill the infant in the cradle.

In my limited reading of McPhee (I haven’t come close to appreciating his million words), he never overtly states this paradox or even his love for people’s complexities and nature’s extravaganza. The joy in reading his work is discovering it on our own. He forgoes fiction and luxuriates in his “wonder” at the facts supporting and surrounding us.

Allen Woods is a freelance writer, author of the Revolutionary-era historical fiction novel “The Sword and Scabbard,” and Greenfield resident. His column appears regularly on Saturdays. Comments are welcome here or at awoods2846@gmail.com.