The Californiacs

by Inez Haynes Gillmore

In an altogether delightful little essay, Ms. Irwin sketches some of the charms of the country on the Pacific Slope, and especially of San Francisco. In a spirit of clever satire she pokes fun at the people out there who are conversationally enthusiastic to the exclusion of all topics but that of local charm.

The Californiac is unable to talk about anything but California, except when he interrupts himself to knock every other place on the face of the earth. He looks with pity on anybody born outside of California and he believes that no one who has ever seen California willingly lives elsewhere. He himself often lives elsewhere, but he never admits that it is from choice.

48 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1919

Reviews

[Hans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have way too many unread books on my shelf, so I limited my purchases when I went to the Oakland White Elephant Sale this year. The copy of Inez Haynes Irwin's essay The Californiacs that I picked up was the 1916 hardback edition that was formerly housed at (and officially discarded from) the Berkeley Public Library. Part of the joy was reading a well-crafted small book with the marks from the journey of this specific physical copy (the punch through marking it as property of BPL, the library discard stamp, Dewey decimals on the spine, etc.). A second part of the joy was in reading a well-crafted essay, which is equally of-its-time and timeless. Finally, it makes me stop and think about the flotsam and jetsam and random luck of time. I read the 1916 copy of this work, but it was reprinted as recently as 2010 (perhaps even more recently...that's from 2 minutes with Google). This is a fun essay, but there are probably many equally interesting pieces that have been shattered on the rocks of library culls and scuttled in the out-of-print reef, rather than washing up safely on this reader's beach.

[Seda Bitter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unique view of an outsider's perspective on Californians. Not much has changed!