Daily Bookshot: Evangelising Joseph Mitchell

Evangelising Joseph Mitchell, originally uploaded by Robert Burdock.

Now anyone who knows me, or reads RobAroundBooks on a regular basis, would know I have absolute reverence for John Steinbeck (I even named my dog after him for God sakes ). He is probably THE writer for me when it comes to character creation and definition, or at least he was, until now. I feel somewhat embarrassed to say this because my esteem for John Steinbeck really does know no limits, but I’ve just discovered a man whose pen can ‘paint’ a character infinitely better than John Steinbeck, and that man is Joseph Mitchell.

Born in 1908, and sadly passing in 1996, Mitchell was nothing more than a journalist, writing primarily for The New Yorker in the 40s and 50s. That makes it sound as though I’m belittling the man, but far from it. Joe Mitchell is one of the most incredible writers I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading, and it’s all down to his profound ability to bring characters alive on the page.

Mitchell didn’t write about the rich and famous too often, his preference was for the down-and-outs, the lowest-of-the-low, the vibrant and colourful characters who shuffled the streets of New York City in the earlier half of the twentieth-century. Old John McSorley, Joe Gould, Mazie P. Gordon and Mr. Flood (who isn’t actually one man but a combination of many), are names you’ve probably have never heard of. But once Mitchell tells you about them I guarantee you will never forget them, ever; such is the power and vibrancy of his literary reportage.

I first stumbled across Joseph Michell a couple of weeks, when I discovered the book pictured on the left, Up in the Old Hotel (Vintage Books). It was a book recommended as one of the top non-fictional titles about New York, by Time Out New York. I’d already added the tome-like Encyclopedia of New York City (Yale University Press) to my shelves based on this list’s recommendation (more on that another time), and the line about the pieces in Mitchell’s book being ‘a perfect balance between elegance and eccentricity’, REALLY piqued my interest too, so I just had to add that one as well.

Little did I really know though, what I was letting myself in for when I opened Up in the Old Hotel; effectively a profoundness of reading experience that has seldom revealed itself to me in my 42 years of life on this planet. The first piece I read was Mazie, the story about Mazie P. Gordon, the incredibly down-to-earth and benevolent owner of the Venice Theatre on the old Bowery. The way Mitchell paints Mazie. The way he describes her benevolent acts, her quirky idiosyncrasies, is nothing short of startling. And he does so without any hint of pretension or judgement.

Up in the Old Hotel is actually the creme de la creme of Mitchell’s writings. It contains all of his collated works from the four collections he published earlier in his life – McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon (1943), Old Mr Flood (1948), The Bottom of the Harbour (1960) and Joe Gould’s Secret (1965) ; all of which are previous articles from The New Yorker. And what makes Up in the Old Hotel all the more precious it that it was compiled by the man himself in 1992, four years before his death.

The other title you see in this shot, My Ears are Bent (also Vintage Books), contains many of Mitchell’s published articles from his earlier days as a journalist, before he joined The New Yorker. Beginning with the titular piece in which Mitchell recounts his early days as a journalist, the book goes on to present a myriad of features penned by Mitchell, including ones in which he interviewed some of more prestigious members of New Yorkian society, and the city’s esteemed visitors, such as George Bernard Shaw. This collection was not put together by Mitchell. He purposely chose not to include any of his earlier pre-New Yorker pieces stating that ‘it was a different kind of writing’ (as noted by editors Sheila McGrath and Dan Frank in the foreword to the book). A different kind of writing it may well be, but from the pieces I’ve read so far, there exists that same incredible depth of literary composition that exists in Mitchell’s later works.

So contained within the covers of these two books is the majority of Joseph Mitchell’s published reportage, and it’s a real thrill to have them in my possession. I’ve not read all of the pieces yet – mainly because I’m scared of my reading of them coming to an end – but I’m savouring each and every one of them, in a state of complete and utter bliss. Maybe I shouldn’t be so scared of coming to the end of all of Mitchell’s articles though, because I’m already doing something I never do. I’m going back and rereading the articles I’ve consumed already, and I’m finding them to be as fresh and invigorating as they were the first time around. That’s a profound experience for me, and one an amateur writer such as me could never put into words. I bet you Mitchell could though!