So I quit that stuff.
Instead I went back to my research project and looked into what David Sedaris had to say about his personal writing process, ruminations about writing, quips about 'the essay' (although not formally stated as such), etc.
Below are links to two interviews that I found. Perhaps if you want to respond to a little something in one or both of the interviews. Or respond with some startling genius of your own or from one of your favorite writers.
Either way...let's discuss. Something.
David Sedaris Interviews:
While I was knee-deep in my research project, I came across a Phillip Lopate interview with Poets & Writers Magazine in which he divulges what he deems to be the essence of the personal essay and what he delights in reading:
ReplyDelete"I am more interested in the display of consciousness on the page. The reason I read nonfiction is to follow an interesting mind. I’ll read an essayist, like E. B. White, who may write about the death of a pig one time, and racial segregation another time. Virginia Woolf may write about going on a walk to find a pencil, which seems like a very trivial subject, or about World War I, or a woman’s need for a room of her own. She has such a fascinating mind that I’m going to follow her, whatever she wants to write about. One of the ploys of the great personal essayists is to take a seemingly trivial or everyday subject and then bring interest to it."
I think this points to a pivotal element of the personal essay - the readers' following of the writer's mind where ever it may lead them. A topic could be an everyday occurrence, something that seems so melded in with the routines and fabric of our lives, but nonetheless can be written about in a new way, from the perspective of the author. That's the point. Everyone has a different perspective and when you give some serious thought to a subject, like frying eggs for instance, there are subtleties that, if you do a little digging, can bear some insight. As long as your serious about walking down that path, the reader will follow.
In response to a question about whether memoirs and essays show writers "going against" or questioning themselves, Phillip Lopate has this to say:
ReplyDelete"Yes, many of the best memoirs do. How? You play back what you just wrote, and say, “Do I really think that? What is the argument against that?” When you’re writing an essay, you as the essayist are both moving forward and circling back to what you said and arguing with yourself, or at least asking yourself if this is what you really think. That’s part of the scrupulousness of this kind of writing. It’s not, is this what others think I should think? but, is this what I actually think?"
Revision can be misinterpreted when it comes to writing anything with a lot of personal reflection and inward thinking, like the personal essay. How can you go back and revise what you wrote? Doesn't that make the writing untruthful or a bit fabricated? No, quite the contrary I would argue. Most of us would find, on a closer look at things, that we are relatively uncommitted to a lot of what's happening around us; and you can't really decipher the code on first glance. In this way, I think the personal essay or memoir takes a good deal of hard thought and second guessing. You'll only be more sure of what you think after turning your mind on it again, not less. The more thought you give to something, the more you should come to terms with how you truly feel about it, on a deeply retrospective level. This may result in changing a few things or, preferably, adding to what you wrote; the personal essay seeks to follow the doubts AND revelations of the mind.
I think it was Kerouac, who was somewhat of a memoir-ist in a sense, who said, "First thought, best thought." I have to say that while this may have worked for him, in the form of writing that he undertook, I don't think that it really works in the short space and meaningful reflection of the personal essay form. I think this is because we want to see as readers that the author has struggled to understand the subject or to come to terms with it. Also writing personal essays one sees how much richer and complex an idea or situation can become the more it is analyzed and picked apart. I think the real skill as an essayist is to be able to look at what one has turned over hundreds of times and picked apart, and find some semblance of meaning, conclusion, or cohesiveness in the pieces or varying views, even if this is simply that the author/persona is left in shambles and confusion. Close and continual inspection is, I think, what allows essayist to write about something as trivial as, say a moth, but I can't help but feel that it is essential at some point that the essay-ist pull back the lens, at least somewhat, in order to reflect on a more universal and relateable level. But maybe I'm wrong and this isn't necessary. Maybe the tread of reflection, of turning it over again and again reveals something relateable in and of itself.
ReplyDeleteBrian, I think sometimes that continual process of inspection and turning over a work leads to writerly anxiety. I have to admit, that there is something kind of great about being surrounded by the shambles of your words; only to suddenly have that, as we say "AHA" moment. I particularly appreciate essayists who let me accompany them on such a journey of discovery.
ReplyDeleteCory, you bring up an interesting notion of the personal essayist following "doubts and revelations" of the mind. But I think before the personal essayist can come to realize either, it is important that the author has achieved a certain distance from the subject at hand. I suppose this is implicit in the revision process, but I find that sometimes I cannot force some form of revelation. The words simply sit on the page no matter how much I look to turning over to reveal something. I think in this same manner, personal essayists exploit their doubts and follow the mind in that direction.
Natalia Ginzburg offers a markedly different stance that may be useful in thinking about writers' doubt and revelation:
"When I write something I usually think it is very important and that I am a very fine writer. I think this happens to everyone. But there is one corner of my mind in which I know very well what I am, which is a small, a very small writer. I swear I know it. But that doesn't matter much to me. Only, I don't want to think about names: I can see that if I am asked "a small writer like who?" it would sadden me to think of the names of other small writers. I prefer to think that no one has ever been like me, however small, however much a mosquito or a flea of a writer I may be. The important thing is to be convinced that this really is your vocation, your profession, something you will do all your life."
Even though I dare not formally adopt the title of "writer" just yet, I do think that this quote is particularly insightful. I think it serves as a helpful reminder that despite all of the plaguing doubts each of us may have experienced in this class - what we have to say is legitimate. Of course, Natalia Ginzburg can make this claim, because by Italian standards she belongs to a group of writers called the "Untouchables". Thus, her works are sacred, above negative criticism, especially by literary critics. A few other members of this "Untouchable" caste includes Thomas Mann, Kafka, Joyce, and Proust.
So what then are we left with? I'll say doubt. I think I should keep doubting until I get it right.
I find it interesting Ginzburg quote interesting because here we see the writer as creating a persona not to function within the story but instead outside it. A persona as author that is created only for the writer alone and that the reader doesn't see. I think this reveals something about the implementation of a persona, that it functions to serve some intended purpose to arrive at some end or at least to facilitate movement. But I don't think that a persona necessarily is fixed beforehand but more likely develops as the direction of the essay progresses and becomes more clear to the author.
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