Oranges

Oranges by John McPhee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I always tell my students -- and anyone else who might listen -- that reading is the key to good writing. As I read Oranges, I realized that reading the work of John McPhee is an especially good way to improve one's writing. He is often credited as the forebear of the entire genre of creative nonfiction, and this early work (his third book, published in 1967) puts his gift for clarity on display.

Another of his books (Encounters with the Archdruid) was assigned in the first geography course I ever took, and another (Rising from the Plains) was the first book given to me as a gift by a professor. I thoroughly enjoyed those and a half-dozen more, but I always felt I was missing something important when I would see him described as the author of just one book: Oranges.

During a sabbatical that is ostensibly about a lot of other things, I decided that I should give myself the gift of taking the time to read this book that has been lurking at the edges of my attention for three decades. In 150 short pages, McPhee shows that behind the seemingly ordinary -- a piece of fruit or a glass of juice -- is a story much broader than most people know. The geography, agronomy, and economy of oranges is fascinating and complex; in his straightforward narrative style, McPhee answers questions about oranges that we did not know we had.

A half-century after publication, some details certainly have changed, but I recommend beginning the story of oranges with this book. The book does fail the test of time in one noticeable way: McPhee describes an industry entirely devoid of women, except as customers, and makes no comment about that imbalance. That he did not notice this in 1966 is not surprising, but some of the examples should have been mentioned in his 2000 preface.

All of the other McPhee books I have read are told from the point of view of biography. He writes about environmental ethics by introducing us to an environmentalist; he begins a geology story with the biography of a woman whose grandson would become a geologist; the world's shipping industry is seen from the point of view of an ordinary sailor. He does tell parts of the story of Oranges through the biographies of orange growers, scientists and marketers. The overall story, however, is told as autobiography. That is, he describes his own journey of exploration in an engaging, first-person narrative so that the reader is learning as he learns, as if peering over his shoulder. In this way, he teaches us not only good writing but also good research.

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