Changing the Conversation

Critics of nonfiction need to stop making the same bad choice, the same wrong presumptions. In the New York Times, Morris Dickstein (a new playground taunt I’m eager to try out) :

The personal essay has always been a stepchild of serious literature, seemingly formless, hard to classify. Lacking the tight construction of a short story or the narrative arc of a novel or memoir, such essays have given readers pleasure without winning cultural respect. Written in a minor key, they could be slight and superficial, but their drawbacks could also be strengths. The style of the first-person essay tends to be conversational, tentative — in tune with our postmodern skepticism about absolutes, the trust we place in multiple perspectives. Few writers have pursued this more resourcefully than Phillip Lopate, who started out as a novelist and poet but gained traction when he began writing lively first-person essays in the late 1970s, later editing a landmark anthology, “The Art of the Personal Essay” (1994).

In this blog, I consider the essay:

The personal essay is among our oldest forms of literature, freely individualistic, resistant to simple classification. Eschewing the lockstep construction of a short story or the length of a novel or memoir, such essays have given readers pleasure while also landing in our major anthologies. Written in a minor key, they are taught in virtually every English or writing classroom, but—like with every genre—the essay’s strengths come with some limitations. The style of the first-person essay, as written by its long-standing practitioners, tends to lead to absolutes and blowhardiness. Few writers have pursued this more careeristically than Phillip Lopate, who started out as a novelist and poet but gained traction when he began writing lively first-person essays in the late 1970s, later editing a landmark anthology, “The Art of the Personal Essay” (1994).

Any arguments against the latter I’m happy to turn against the former. But regardless of where you stand vis-a-vis Lopate (he’s not all bad, I’m only trying to make a point), critics should no longer be taken seriously after insisting that the essay—personal or otherwise, always older than newspapers themselves—is some kind of denigrated form.