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I have come down from my teeth-gnashing snit about The Devil and the White City and am ready to discuss it calmly now. When I think of it, my major objections are two:
1) the ceaseless, endless foreshadowing. Starts out there are only foreshadowing phrases at the end of chapters. By the middle of the book sub-chapter sections were ending with foreshadowing phrases. It got to the point where I was expecting a sentence like "Little did they know the dire consequences of that decision" to come at the end of every paragraph. It's wearying. And quite the opposite from generating tension or excitement, because the teasers start to give away the developments along the way. I was tempted to skip forward, find out if my prognostications were correct, and go on with my life, but I wanted there to be more. God knows Larson insistently hints that there's more.
2) the suggestion, both in the packaging and in the text, that it all ties together in some big meaningful way. Basically, there are three story threads that tangentially affect each other, but the blurbs, and Larson's text, suggest that they are going to be much more fundamentally linked. Basically (turn away if you don't want to know!) the three threads are:
I did love the Worlds' Fair neep, and much of the other stuff--the material about architecture, and the fair's influence on architecture for good or bad, frex--is wonderful. But I wanted the book to deliver what the subtitle suggested it would: "Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America." I know: this was non-fiction, and the author was limited by the facts. But maybe he shouldn't have promised something he had no ability to deliver.
1) the ceaseless, endless foreshadowing. Starts out there are only foreshadowing phrases at the end of chapters. By the middle of the book sub-chapter sections were ending with foreshadowing phrases. It got to the point where I was expecting a sentence like "Little did they know the dire consequences of that decision" to come at the end of every paragraph. It's wearying. And quite the opposite from generating tension or excitement, because the teasers start to give away the developments along the way. I was tempted to skip forward, find out if my prognostications were correct, and go on with my life, but I wanted there to be more. God knows Larson insistently hints that there's more.
2) the suggestion, both in the packaging and in the text, that it all ties together in some big meaningful way. Basically, there are three story threads that tangentially affect each other, but the blurbs, and Larson's text, suggest that they are going to be much more fundamentally linked. Basically (turn away if you don't want to know!) the three threads are:
A) the building of the 1892-93 Chicago Columbian Exposition, in the teeth of delays, crappy weather, architectural infighting, politics, and the financial crisis of 1892-93. That in itself is a huge and fascinating subject, and Larson does his homework. I'd have been interested in that book; there were sections that were genuinely affecting and gripping (and the descriptions of the sheer size of the buildings and of the first Ferris Wheel are amazing).Basically, the three threads all occupy the same time span and approximately the same location. But it's like three people riding on the bus and going off to do separate things. It's not that remarkable that they were riding the bus, unless there's something major that ties them together. And Larson flunked that test, as far as I was concerned. And those damned foreshadowing phrases kept assuring me that something spectacular was going to happen RSN.
B) the career of a serial killer who set up shop in Chicago, fortuitously near the site of the fair (although his settling there was not why he came to Chicago), who appears to have dispatched tens, if not over a hundred, of his associates and guests in the hotel he ran. He's also an interesting character--I have a weakness for serial killer stories. But (perhaps fortunately) we don't learn much, if anything, about what motivated him, or how he did what he did. Larson admits as much--that H.H. Holmes is, despite his post-capture celebrity, kind of a blank slate. I've read more interesting stuff about Jack the Ripper--about whom we know almost nothing--than about Holmes, whose whole life is pretty well documented here.
C) a paranoid schizophrenic (diagnosis mine) who thinks that the mayor of Chicago promised him a job in his new administration, and assassinates the mayor when he doesn't come through. Prendergast (the batshit-crazy guy) appears on stage like Chekov's pistol and, not knowing the history, I read on about him knowing he'd go off, but not whether he'd get the mayor or some other important bystander (because you knew it had to be someone remarkable, or Prendergast had to have gone out in a blaze of fair-related glory, to warrant inclusion in the book). Because of the assassination, the closing day ceremonies of the fair were cancelled, or rather, turned into a memorial for the mayor.
I did love the Worlds' Fair neep, and much of the other stuff--the material about architecture, and the fair's influence on architecture for good or bad, frex--is wonderful. But I wanted the book to deliver what the subtitle suggested it would: "Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America." I know: this was non-fiction, and the author was limited by the facts. But maybe he shouldn't have promised something he had no ability to deliver.