Book Review: Devil in the White City

Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

The “Gilded Age” was one of the most fascinating times in American history, and there is no greater evidence than Chicago’s 1872 World’s Fair. In Devil in the White City, author Erik Larson has assembled a dizzying collection of historical facts documenting the progression of Chicago’s great fair from a mere pipe dream to a mesmerizing reality. Historical tid bits aside, you don’t have to worry about this being a dull history text book. The story line is one of American ambition and hope and takes you back to a day of great inventiveness and ingenuity in the world of technology, engineering and manufacturing. Chicago in 1890 was an unpredictably disparaging metropolis, filled with pollution, death and poverty, and it begged to be respected as a leader among great American cities.

The book’s opening chapter, “The Black City” describes in horrific detail how depraved Chicago was before the turn of the century, and just how badly it needed to host the next World’s Fair. The city’s leading architects, Daniel Burnham and John Root would eventually combine forces with New York’s Fredrick Law Olmstead to create a site never seen before in America. “The White City” was the end result of 2 laborious years in which thousands of men slaved day and night to make Burnham, Root and Olmstead’s vision a reality. With all odds stacked against them and a race against the clock at hand, all involved in planning and constructing the fair were in for the ride of their lives. In 1889, Paris France opened it’s Exposition Universelle, which featured Alaxandre Gustave Eiffel’s magnificent Eiffel Tower. This put all the more pressure on Chicago to “out-Eiffel” the French in an attempt to recapture the glory of American accomplishment and grandeur. Luckily for Chicago and for America, the right man was leading the charge. Daniel Burnham’s mantra, “Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood.” promised nothing short of a grand display that would make the world pay attention.

Just when you get comfortable with Devil in the White City being a documentation of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Larson begins to meticulously weave in the true story of cold blooded murderer, H.H. Holmes, which is both disturbing and fascinating. Holmes was born Herman Webster Mudgett, but operated under an alias as to not arouse any suspicion. Using the fair’s allure to draw in unsuspecting victims, Holmes spent several years in Chicago carrying out a series of brutal murders without managing to draw much attention from the local authorities. Larson masterfully sneaks in details of Holmes’ presence in Chicago a few paragraphs at a time through the first several chapters, then divulges all of the gory details in the last third of the book. Holmes fate would be actualized only after Philadelphia detective Frank Geyer’s undying passion for nabbing him results in strike of luck.

Devil in the White City is a joy to read and proves hard to put down from the first page to the last. Larson does a brilliant job at giving us introspective and detailed accounts of events that took place over a century ago, while bringing them to life for us to experience first hand. For me, this book acted as a crash course on the late 1800’s in America as it recounted many of the prominent people, places and events of the era. The Eiffel Tower went up and the Titanic went down; Mark Twain and Buffalo Bill Cody were alive and well and electric lighting, the Pullman train car and Shredded Wheat cereal where invented. New York and Chicago were in a heated battle to claim the fair as their own and each city desired to represent America in the global battle for World’s Fair prowess.

The author, Erik Larson, is the writer of the best seller Isaac’s Storm and has written for Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and Time. He is a former staff writer for the Wall Street Journal and lives in Seattle , Washington with his wife and three daughters.

Here’s what other’s have said about Devil in the White City:

“So good, you find yourself asking how you could not know this already.” –Esquire

“Another successful exploration of American history…Larson skillfully balances the grisly details with the far-reaching implications of the World’s Fair.” –USA Today

“Paints a dazzling picture of the Gilded Age and prefigures the American century to come.” –Entertainment Weekly

“A wonderfully unexpected book…Larson is a historian…with a novelist’s soul.” –Chicago Sun-Times.

Dorian Gray Syndrome: A Post-modern Tragedy

For fans of classic literature the name Dorian Gray is intrinsically linked to Oscar Wilde and his fascinating novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. The story tells the tale of a painter named Basil Hallward, who becomes obsessed with a beautiful young man named Dorian Gray. Hallward believes that Gray’s immaculate looks have inspired him to create a new movement in art. One day while sitting for a painting in the painter’s garden, Gray meets a good friend of Hallward’s, Lord Hentry Wotton, who introduces him to all the guilty pleasures of life. Wotton proposes that the only things worth pursuing in life are beauty and fulfillment of the senses. Gray’s eye light up as he imagines this new life where rules and boundaries do not apply, and then makes a statement that will forever change his destiny. He declares his wish for aging and sinful behavior to never taint his physical body, but to only mar the portrait of him, which Hallward had been working so diligently on.

Gray gets his wish, and discovers later in life that the painting- which had been hidden away in an old nursery- has been severely marred from his life of immorality, which leaves him distraught. Gray blames his downfall on Hallward and murders him after showing him the severely distorted painting. In the climactic end to the saga, Gray ,in a fit of rate, plunges the knife he had used to kill Hallward into the painting of himself. From outside of the locked room, Gray’s servants hear a hideous shriek and call for the police. When the police enter the room, they find a dead old man, bloated and wrinkled, with a knife in his chest, and a portrait of a beautiful 18 year old man, as perfect as the day Basil Hallward completed it.

Oscar Wilde is known to have lived a life of debauchery. Hard drinking and womanizing, Wilde relied on his own set of moral codes to guide his life, and it eventually led to his early demise. The Picture of Dorian Gray is an ironic mirror of Wilde’s life, and saddens the soul to know the book is not entirely fiction. The story is an astute character study on the typical human who rebels against morality and creates his/her own definition of what is right. Eventually our hearts become blackened and our minds warped, completely desensitized from all of the wrong we have done. Sometimes there are no obvious implications of our wrong doing, much like Dorian Gray wished to have happen. What if, on the other hand, our faces were physically marred each time we did an immoral act. Would we think twice about the way we lived?

This brings to mind an Alfred Hitchcock episode about a dying millionaire and his greedy children, all who have gathered at his residence to claim his fortune after he dies. The man produces 4 masks, each of a grotesque and disfigured human face. He tells the children that they will indeed inherit his fortune, but under one stipulation – they must wear the masks until the clock strikes midnight. He distributes the mask, one for each of his children, and they reluctantly wear them. Finally, the clock strikes midnight and the millionaire dies sitting in his armchair. Elated, the children comment on how glad they are that the old man is finally dead, and that they can finally claim what is rightfully theirs. In a moment of truth and sheer terror, they attempt to remove their masks. To the bewilderment of the children and viewer alike, the faces of the 4 children have become deformed to mirror the ugliness of their masks. The moral of the story – the children got their wish, but were forced to wear there interior ugliness on the exterior for the rest of their lives.

So many beautiful people are ugly on the inside, and believe that they can hide their true selves from the world. If you had to wear the mask of your heart, what would it look like? Is your interior beautiful, grotesque or maybe slightly disfigured? Rid yourself of Dorian Gray syndrome, and start thinking about how attractive you are, on the inside.