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"Geyer found Holmes to be smooth and glib, a social chameleon" (340)

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"Geyer found Holmes to be smooth and glib, a social chameleon" (340)

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Glib - adj. fluent and voluble but insincere and shallow

Despite his outward charm, an astute observer would notice his true glib nature.

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"Eighteen ribs from the torso of a child. Several vertebrae. A bone from a foot. One shoulder blade. One hip socket" (364).

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"Eighteen ribs from the torso of a child. Several vertebrae. A bone from a foot. One shoulder blade. One hip socket" (364).

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Larson gives each sentence in this list its own separate line, creating an almost surgical description of Holmes's crimes. This seems analogous to In Cold Blood, where the entire book is a narrative on the journey of Smith and Hickock, and stark contrast to the novel-like, even fictitious, tone that Larson uses throughout the majority of the book. This surgical description adds to the impact on Holmes's cruel actions because the act of killing someone should be unthinkable, something crazy, yet the surgical description of the crimes parallels the despicable surgical precision and remorseless manner in which Holmes conducted his crimes.

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"That night the exposition illuminated the fairground one last time" (333).

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"That night the exposition illuminated the fairground one last time" (333).

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It is ironic how the death of Harrison coincided with the death of the fair and the end of an age. No doubt the grandiose scale and beautifully designed architecture contribute to the almost fantastical nature of the event, but fact that the fair came into fruition so hurriedly yet left so suddenly give an unreal quality to the fair. It like a faint image of a ghost that becomes visible for a second and then disappears. The fair is also like a mystical figure, that gives when it is present (income, prestige, and job opportunities for the city), yet also takes when it leaves (leaving many jobless, empty hotel rooms and train cars).

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"The sled plummeted fifteen feet to the ground. One passenger was killed; another, a woman, suffered fractures of her jaw and both wrists. Four other men, including two of the Algerians, sustained contusions" (273).

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"The sled plummeted fifteen feet to the ground. One passenger was killed; another, a woman, suffered fractures of her jaw and both wrists. Four other men, including two of the Algerians, sustained contusions" (273).

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Why was life so inconsequential back then? No one cared about mysterious disappearances of women in the Black City of Chicago, no one seemed to care about the many construction workers that died erecting the buildings, and now no one seems to care about the lives of workers and even visitors at the fair. This makes me think of what would happen today if a visitor died at a fair, and somehow implicated the fair as responsible for the death. Would the fair even continue? The past was truly the Wild West, and Larson does an accurate job of depicting this sentiment.

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"Would the thin rods be sufficient to sustain not only the enormous weight of the structure and that of 2,000 passengers who might chance to be in the cars, but the pressure of the wind as well? In three weeks that question would find an answer" (281).

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"Would the thin rods be sufficient to sustain not only the enormous weight of the structure and that of 2,000 passengers who might chance to be in the cars, but the pressure of the wind as well? In three weeks that question would find an answer" (281).

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Similar to what our group talked about during our discussions, we agreed that Larson's overuse of cliffhangers detracts from the appeal of the novel. He drags on about the inner workings and events that occurred during the carnival in excruciating detail that one eventually wants to just figure out whatever the widely anticipated Ferris Wheel worked or not, yet the reader is made to sit through multiple cliffhangers to arrive at that part.

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"To him, Hunt was the janissary of a dead vernacular"

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"To him, Hunt was the janissary of a dead vernacular"

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Janissary - n. a devoted follower or supporter.

Ex. K-pop has hoards of foreign janissaries when it comes to their popular music genre.

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"Later, no doubt, he wished he had been more candid and had listened more closely to the whisper in his head about the wrongness of that building" (166).

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"Later, no doubt, he wished he had been more candid and had listened more closely to the whisper in his head about the wrongness of that building" (166).

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This quote reminds me of my favorite book The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker as one may know if they've ever had a "I knew it! I had a feeling it was this but I didn't trust myself!" moment, de Becker talks about how it is dangerous to repress intuition and one's gut feeling. He deems that this gut feeling is life's greatest gift, and this talent of making snap judgments has kept us alive since the dawn of history. However, due to fears of being perceived as rude, many people essentially stare danger right in the face while trying to pretend is normal. This is exemplified when a person they meet throws them off but on the outside appears nice. Therefore, the person distrusts their intuition, instead referring to their outward "kindness", and consequently leading to tragedy in the end, such as what happened in this quote.

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April 12, 2018

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"...but still worse during wet weather, the newly filled ground, which was still undrained, becoming soaked with water. Horses sank to their bellies" (132).

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"...but still worse during wet weather, the newly filled ground, which was still undrained, becoming soaked with water. Horses sank to their bellies" (132).

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Larson's use of short and punctual sentences when going into detail about the major obstacles that the designers faced during the construction of the fair adds to the effect. The fact that he gives the sentence "horses sank to their bellies" its own paragraph draws attention to the line, and the matter-of-fact syntax of the sentence furthers the impact due to the fact that a problem as daunting as this would normally warrant a lengthy description, but it emphasizes that this only seemed like a small problem when in comparison to the hundreds of other problems the designers had to deal with.

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"...when a young man with a mildly haughty air and an odd strut--not ego, here, but a congenital fault..."(21).

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"...when a young man with a mildly haughty air and an odd strut--not ego, here, but a congenital fault..."(21).

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Congenital: (especially of a disease or physical abnormality) present from birth.

Albinism is a congenital disorder that prevents the production of skin pigments, making one's skin look pale or even white.

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"What he was proposing, in effect, was a stratum of artificial bedrock that would also serve as the floor of the basement. Brooks liked it" (25).

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"What he was proposing, in effect, was a stratum of artificial bedrock that would also serve as the floor of the basement. Brooks liked it" (25).

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I was amazed when I read this because one often forgets that ordinary ideas that we take for granted have to be invented. It is crazy to think that the invention of reinforced concrete, simply concrete reinforced by a lattice of steel at reoccurring intervals, was something that had to be invented and was novel and revolutionary at the time. It removed the sole obstacle that prevented Chicago architects from building higher and higher. This is similar to something I learned in world history the other day, that something as simple as nationalism, love for your country, did not exist until relatively recently after the revolutions in France and America in the 17th and 18th century.

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"Only later did the furnace man recognize that the kiln's peculiar shape and extreme heat made it ideal for another, very different application" (92).

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"Only later did the furnace man recognize that the kiln's peculiar shape and extreme heat made it ideal for another, very different application" (92).

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I am astounded at how tragically oblivious the people who worked for Holmes were. There were so many people that were thrown off by him and found him suspicious, yet no one did anything. This is a testament to the intelligence of Holmes in that he ensured that the laborers working on his building were isolated to only their portion of the building to avoid discovery of his true intentions. Similar to how companies with trade secret recipes separate and isolate the recipe to different places of manufacture so that one would know how to make only a very specific part of the product, but lack the information to make the whole, Holmes ensured the safety of his construction via this method, as well as his stunning wit and charisma. In hindsight, it seems so obvious for a person working close to Holmes to realize that he was up to something, but no one had a clue. Truly a stunning man.

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"General Electric Company...proposed to install a direct current system to light the fair" (131).

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"General Electric Company...proposed to install a direct current system to light the fair" (131).

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It is so fascinating to read about how all of the inventions were conceived in part or entirely due to events occurring in this book. I enjoy these tidbits of real-life information that are interwoven in this text, as it adds ethos to the work by adding to the realism, but also adds wonder. The way that Larson presents this information contributes to the wondrous effect, as the reader does not realize the magnitude of what Larson talks about until the very end. In this quote, he talks about illumination rights between two companies, but only in the end does it reveal the magnitude of the event, that "the exposition went with Westinghouse, and helped change the history of electricity".

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"Why were they so unenthusiastic? How would they react to his attempts at persuasion? And if they declined and word of their refusal became public, what then?" (78).

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"Why were they so unenthusiastic? How would they react to his attempts at persuasion? And if they declined and word of their refusal became public, what then?" (78).

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Larson does a great job of setting the scene and conveying to the reader the true magnitude of the difficulty of planning the World's fair. From committee members arguing over where the ground of the fair would be located, to the chosen venue at Jackson Park described to be "one square mile of desolation", to the aforementioned quote about how the designers that the chief of construction Daniel Burnham appointed were the opposite of the enthusiastic self that Burnham was, instead they were unmotivated and unenthusiastic. These enormous obstacles in planning the World Fair characterizes the first one hundred pages of the book, yet the reader knows that the fair turned out to be a runaway success. Therefore, setting the stage with all of the obstacles makes the reader even more curious about how they pulled it off in the end.

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April 5, 2018

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Short Bio of yourself - 60-100 words; why did you choose this particular book?

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Short Bio of yourself - 60-100 words; why did you choose this particular book?

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We all seem to have  morbid fascination with the evils of mankind, demonstrated by the popularity of murder mystery shows and novels such as In Cold Blood. When I was little, I always used to be fascinated by engineering TV shows such as How Its Made and Modern Marvels. An already existing interest in these two subjects, combined with glowing reviews from Ms. Fitzgerald led me to pick up this book.