Death of A Pig by E B White

EB White will always be known as the author of Charlotte's Web. He was many other things however. He was the step father of the great New Yorker editor and sportswriter Roger Angell. He had a great connection with our very own state of Maine and often wrote about the farm in the Blue Hill area that his family maintained.

White wrote and edited for The New Yorker himself for many years and his collection of short stories and essays called One Man's Meat is a classic that I have sampled but will soon be reading in full.

Like singers who could sing the phone-book White could write about any subject of your choosing and turn a phrase to make your head spin. Today I happened upon this short story of White's called Death of A Pig. The mark of a great writer is you can see that title and think " How on Earth can I be interested in a story with a title like that?" In the case of an E B White story you would be wrong. White can make you interested, can make you feel as if you are there on the farm in Maine witnessing the very death of his very pig.

It all starts out simply enough. White would like to join many of his year round neighbors and buy a pig in the spring, fatten it all summer and then with a planned execution enjoy bacon and ham all winter. Things do not go according to plan as one summer morning White travels to his converted ice house/pigpen and finds his pig in gastrointestinal distress. Over the course of the story we learn about exactly when White feels his experiment in pig raising going over the cliff, how his dog Fred enjoys playing bad cop to his good, the joy of party lines, and how one helps a constipated pig.

As I said only White can write about a pig who can't poop and make it entertaining enough to be grandest story you will read this month.

To have a gift to write, like EB White, me thinks I would not sleep at night. As you can tell E B White I am not.