Rhetoric Review Sep 1994

Giving good reasons: Environmental appeals in the nonfiction of John McPhee

Brian Turner

Abstract

Within his substantial body of nonfiction, there is, I think, no single metaphor that better describes John McPhee's relationship with his readers and his subjects than does the title of his third collection of essays. 1 Giving Good Weight, the lead essay in the collection of the same name, is an account of greenmarkets in New York in the 1970s. As one of McPhee's subjects tells us, the markets were planned mainly as 'a natural answer to a twofold problem': loss of farmland in the metropolitan area and a lack of 'fresh, decent food' in the city, but it was hoped that, with the right attitude and a little luck, they would also start conversations, help resuscitate neighborhoods, brighten the aesthetic of the troubled town (34). It is characteristic of McPhee and crucial to our reading of the essay that the perspective we are given on the interaction between buyers and sellers is both McPhee's own and, to a large extent, that of his principal subjects. Characteristic, because McPhee consistently takes the side of those about whom he writes in his nonfiction; and in this case, he has done so quite literally: as the essay opens, the author is standing on the greenmarketers' side of the table, selling vegetables, discovering first-hand how it feels to face the urban hordes, who slit the tomatoes with [their] fingernails, excavate the cheese with their thumbs, pulp the nectarines and rape the sweet corn (3). Crucial, because in taking the greenmarketers' perspective, McPhee establishes an identification that has important consequences for our reading of the entire essay. They are good people, these greenmarketers honest, hardworking, and committed to what they do-and McPhee's ethos benefits from his respectful and respected association with them. The governing metaphor captures the essence of the piece and of McPhee's ethos in almost all of his nonfiction. Giving good weight: apart from its prominent post as title of the title essay, it is a phrase used only three times, yet it reverberates throughout one's reading; or more accurately, it galvanizes all the unspoken responses one has to the varied themes that play across the essay. To good weight means, literally, to be generous when selling produce, to give three-and-a-quarter pounds of tomatoes for the price of three. But it also means, not only metaphorically but actually, the fostering of human fellowship and trust-the forging of an almost palpable bond through an act of commercial generosity. When customers find out that a young teacher selling

Journal
Rhetoric Review
Published
1994-09-01
DOI
10.1080/07350199409359180
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Topics
modern rhetorical theory teacher development argument
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