One of the more striking essays in The New Kings of Nonfiction is Susan Orlean’s piece “The American Man, Age Ten.” In her narrative, Orlean vividly describes the inner mental workings of young Colin Duffy after having spent a couple of weeks with him. Her introduction utilizes the unique rhetorical device of using a ten-year-old’s voice, instead of a normal narrative voice. Instead of simply telling the reader about the boy’s life, she reveals it through his voice and also shares some of his own feelings and thoughts. Later, she includes narrative of times the two of them shared. She expresses the ways in which fantasy makes true childhood so different from the jaded version that populates so many of the cable television channels. It is difficult to take her writing and evaluate it alongside that of other authors, because her genre does not fit one separate style. Nevertheless, she does use some juvenile language, combined with a direct method of reporting facts, a sense of humor, and well-placed nuggets of information to get her ideas across effectively to the reader. This unique approach to the narration helps her communicate her rhetorical arguments much more ably than other writers who have taken more orthodox tacks on similar subject matter.
When Orlean describes Colin, she uses a plain, direct approach to expressing her observations. For example, she writes that:
Colin thinks a lot about money. This started when he was about nine and a half, which is when a lot of other things started – a new way of walking that has a little macho hitch and a swagger, a decision about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (con) and Eurythmics (pro), and a persistent curiosity about a certain girl whose name he will not reveal. He knows the price of everything he encounters. He knows how much college costs and what someone might earn performing different jobs (159).
Every detail in this passage is precisely trimmed to the necessary number of words. It is informative rather than speculative (Hallett); when there are modifiers instead of nouns and verbs, they evoke specific images (like the “macho hitch”) that are easy for the reader to visualize. This approach keeps the reader engaged by focusing attention on the child; it is this precision that gives the piece its intrigue and gives Orlean's writing here such power.
When it comes to writing descriptive profiles of other people, there are many different ways to do it. Author Jeff MacGregor uses a great deal of the direct, as Orlean does. Here, in his description of the process of wrapping a boxer's fists, the reader gets precise detail that also increases interest: “The wrap starts at the thumb and tightens around the wrist. The gauze roll unspooled at maximum tension and with awful concentration by[the] trainerthe champ impassive, staring ahea, expressionless, his hands draped across the back of a chair” (MacGregor). MacGregor attempts to describe the feeling of the process in ways that deliver the physical sensations right to the reader; even if one has never had one's fist wrapped by a trainer, by the end of this passage, this is a sensation that the reader now recognizes. Just as Orlean added in informative details in her description of Colin's walk and state of mind, MacGregor includes sensory details that give the reader access to a similarly alien network of information. One area of difference between the two authors is that MacGregor treats language a bit like music, working in rhythms here and there to lure the reader further and further in to the story. While Orlean deftly weaves detail, MacGregor reaches into the sentences themselves, stretching and pulling them until they form the backdrop of the scene he creates for the reader: “From the opening bell, Hopkins circles and clinches and feints and ducks and grabs and circles. And circles. Clockwise. In and out. Counterclockwise. Up and down” (MacGregor). Notice here the repeated use of the word “and” – a rhetorical device known as polysyndeton, in which the author adds more conjunctions than what are grammatically necessary for a rhetorical purpose. The purpose can vary, but here it draws the series of actions out into a long riff, showing the hypnotic daze into which boxing lures its fans, with individual movements weaving into a serpentine dance of violent beauty. Orlean never quite reaches this level of art with her manipulation of the structure of the language, but her strength of detail gives her piece a heady clarity that takes one back to one's own tenth year of life.
Combining humor into her language is another strategy that Orlean engages to lure in the interest of the reader and bring him into the narrative. When she is introducing her story, Orlean whimsically imagines what it would be like to be one of Colin's own peers, also ten: “'We woul both be good at football, have best friends, and know how to drive; we would cure HIV and the garbage problem and everything that hurts animals” (145). This quote makes the reader smile despite himself; it is fun to imagine being ten years old again, particularly when one is in the company of a child that age. The outlook of a ten-year-old on life is so much fresher than that of a jaded elder. Colin is just beginning to think about some of the serious aspects on life, such as the environment and deadly epidemics that have no cure. However, he has not yet come across such cynical thoughts that keep great ideas from finding expression in reality. There is none of the political boilerplate that people with HIV should have practiced safe sex, or better yet, abstinence; there is just the idea that there is an awful disease that needs a cure. There is none of the tired diatribe that society just will collapse if grocery stores stop using plastic bags because of the uproar; there is just the idea that garbage is bad and needs to be eliminated as much as possible. It is this paradigm shift that makes change possible; it is this clarity that is the province of childhood. This is the humor that makes us laugh, but in a knowing way, because we have heard elements of Truth (Graban).
This is similar to the writing of Rick Reilly, who has been named National Sportswriter of the Year 11 times and was a finalist for the 2011 James Thurber Prize for Humor. Reilly also uses humor to send his readers toward truth, but in a slightly different way. He pokes fun at NBA star dennis Rodman's recent diplomacy tour in North Korea, in which he was photographed with that country's new leader, Kim Jong-un. In an interview on ABC, Rodman praised the dictator who has murdered his own countrymen as being “a great guy if you sit down and talk to him” (Reilly). Reilly turns that comment into a sarcastic proposal to name Rodman Secretary of State. He hypothetically sends Rodman into other countries with which the United States, and other nations of the world, have reached a diplomatic impasse, imagining what sorts of nonsense Rodman would spout when he came back. For Iran: “Seriously, though, everybody's all on his case about building up his arms, but guess what? I think he oughta do more of that! Twenty minutes of curls every dayAnd this whole Axle of Evil thing? How can an axle be evil anyway? That's stupid”(Reilly). Reilly makes fun of Rodman here by making him sound ignorant about basic word meanings; if Rodman could go to North Korea, where human rights have been so viciously trampled, and come away calling the dictator a friend, then he would not be likely to understand much of anything that he comes across anywhere else. He plays on perceptions of Rodman's stupidity to get his point across. The Truth here is that Kim Jong-un is a brutal dictator and that Rodman is just an idiot. While Reilly's truth is a lot more cynical than Orlean's was, both of them access humor to make a point that leaves the reader smiling, knowing that what he has just read is true.
Just because Orlean is writing a story about a child, though, does not mean that her writing is aimed at children as an audience. Such diction choices as “reconstructed notions” (154) show that she is aiming higher, at adult readers. There is nothing wrong with using simple structures and accessible similes when writing for an adult audience, though, particularly when trying to evoke feelings from an earlier point in life. The purpose of her simple prose is to get the story across in a way that is easy to understand while being whimsical. The ambiance of childhood flows through this story in a powerful way. Orlean does not engage in the adult strategies of bending structure or using verbal irony to engage the reader. Instead of weaving the language into longer strands to create more of a lyrical sense, she makes the reader feel as though he is walking in a green field, watching scenes from Colin's childhood and remembering scenes from his own.
A writer with a style quite similar to Orlean's is Gary Soto. His narrative poem “Oranges” describes the first time that the speaker, a young boy, set out to go for a walk with a girl, at the age of twelve. His plan was to go walking with her, and he had brought a pair of oranges for them to share, and a nickel in his pocket. Besides that, he had no other plan. He remembers the details of the day clearly, with a dog barking and the girl coming out “pulling at her gloves, face bright with rouge” (Soto). He remembers that they passed a used auto lot and a line of trees on the way to a drugstore. Walking up and down the rows, they see candies “tiered like bleachers,” showing that curious self-absorption so endemic to adolescence that has teens convinced that the entire world is just as fascinated with their next step as they are. The conflict arises when the girl chooses a ten-cent candy, and the boy only has a nickel. Gambling, he puts the nickel on the counter, along with one of the oranges, hoping against hope that the sales lady accepts the barter. She does, her eyes “knowing very well what it was all about” (Soto). That transaction turns “a girl” into “my girl” and the remaining orange a “fire in [his] hands” (Soto). The writer stays out o the way of the details, letting them tell the story of this big day in the life of this young man. Similarly, Orlean lets her details tell the story, refusing to trip them up with a surfeit of adjectives and opinions.
Putting writing strategies such as simple structure, direct reporting of details and a use of humor gives Orlean the ability to write a touching, memorable portrait of Colin duffy. Her writing does not have the jazz of a writer like Jeff MacGregor, but it does draw the reader into the mind of a ten-year-old in ways that MacGregor's manipulation of syntax would not be able to accomplish. Her piece does not have the bite of Reilly's sarcasm, but ten-year-olds are still, one hopes, a bit too young to have that bite. There is plenty of time in life to be cynical, and children should be allowed to dream as long as they want to. Her writing simply shows, rather than tells, in a manner similar to that of Gary Soto. Both of them know the key role that detail plays in narrative and in memory, particularly for the young, as well as those who want to stay young.
Works Cited
Graban, Tarez Samra. “Beyond ‘Wit and Persuasion’: Rhetoric, composition and humor studies.” In The Primer of Humor Research, Victor Raskin, ed. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
This is a scholarly overview of the relationship between humor and rhetorical arguments. The article begins with Plato’s Philebus and Aristotle’s Rhetoric for definitions of humor, moving toward more modern definitions. One common thread throughout is the use of humor to engage reader interest.
Hallett, Christine E. “The Personal Writings of First World War Nurses: A Study of the Interplay of Authorial Intention and Scholarly Interpretation.” Nursing Inquiry 14(4): 320-329.
This looks at the differences between authorial intention and scholarly interpretation of personal narratives of nurses and volunteers working in World War I. The use of plain narrative to describe experiences is seen as one of the most effective ways to keep authorial intention clear and ease accessibility. This is a helpful source about the use of first-person sources in historical research.
MacGregor, Jeff. “Cloud Notebook.” ESPN.com 13 March 2013. http://espn.go.com/boxing/story/_/id/9047526/bernard-hopkins-genius-old-age-vs- tavoris-cloud
This article details MacGregor's observations of a fight between Bernard Hopkins and Tarvaris Cloud. It shows in detail the preparations for the fight and the rhythm of the combat itself. The purpose is to show the beauty of boxing, even a match that is not aesthetically ideal, through the manipulation of syntax.
Orlean, Susan. “The American Man, Age Ten.” In The New Kings of Nonfiction, Ira Glass, ed. Ne York: Riverhead Books, 2007, pp. 144-160.
(This is the source which is the basis of the paper)
Reilly, Rick. “Rodman to the Rescue.” ESPN.com 4 March 2013. http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/9014972/dennis-rodman-rescue
This article shows the power of sarcasm in evoking humor. It takes the ridiculous story of NBA phenom dennis Rodman's trip to North Korea and shows both how silly he is and how repressive the North Korean regime actually is. The combination of a conversational style and sarcasm gives this a strong narrative flow.
Soto, Gary. “Oranges.” http://www.personal.psu.edu/ram437/blogs/favorite_poem_psu/2010/10/oranges-by-gary- soto.html
This poem evokes much of the power of Orlean's style, in relying on details and simplicity to produce deep meaning. Using a basic humor and style to evoke a sense of empathy in the reader, this is a quietly powerful poem. Soto and Orlean have many of the same strengths as writers.
