Phillip Lopate, the essayist, has made his name by taking on sacred cows. He says there's something thrilling about picking a well-loved thing--such as "love" or "joie de vivre"--and going on the attack. He says the value of a good personal essay is the way the essayist swerves suddenly--the unexpected, idiosyncratic territory the essay takes us toward. Here are some of my favorite contrarian observations from Lopate's writing manual, "To Show and To Tell":
(1) E.B. White is a little insufferable. Lopate says one of White's famous essays is "perfect," and "I hold that against White." Lopate suggests that maybe perfection is not something to strive for. He prefers the big, baggy monsters of James Baldwin's late career; he says these essays are "a mess" (and that's certainly a contrarian viewpoint)--and he says the reason he loves them is *precisely* their messiness. (I tried to write about "Charlotte's Web" over winter break, and I really did find myself growing irritated with the cute perfection of each individual chapter.)
(2) It's maybe OK to be not-nice. Lopate steels himself for tense interactions by telling himself, "I am not a nice person." Then, when the person who loathes him confirms this information for him, he is not-so-surprised. There's no unpleasant shock. Lopate really sees himself warts-and-all. It's disarming. He also suggests that there maybe isn't so much wisdom in the imperative to "stretch yourself"; he says the stuff that "settles in your brain pan" is, emphatically, the stuff "that will always settle in your brain pan." So he rejects the revered Henry James platitude, i.e. a writer should be "a person on whom nothing is lost."
(3) It's fine to "tell." Why this stricture against "telling"? Why must a writer always show, show, show? Lopate thinks it's nonsense. He says: Just make your summaries, your "telling," as concise and stylish as you can.
(4) There's actually no way to avoid offending people when you write personal essays. Lopate rejects the Janet Malcolm stridency: "What a writer does is obviously, blatantly, always indefensible." And he rejects Joan Didion's pronouncement: "A writer is a stealth-bully." But he does say that you're going to piss people off, and the people you piss off will often be the people you do not at all anticipate pissing off. (In other words, weirdly, you might piss off the people whom you describe in a clearly flattering light. People are people. People are strange.) Lopate observes this, and then he shrugs. There's something wonderfully bracing about this common sense.
(5) You actually shouldn't write about your obsessions. Lopate says that obsessions appear far more often in fiction than in non-fiction. (Think of Brian de Palma and Hitchcock.) Lopate says that a bona fide obsession, in actual life, is often sort of a boring thing to dramatize. He says: Don't write about your obsessions. Write about what makes you curious. It's a valuable distinction.
(6) Personal essays are not inferior to novels or poems. There's a stigma having to do with the personal essay, but it's a genre that has nurtured Montaigne, Emerson, Baldwin, Didion, Hazlitt, Joyce Carol Oates, George Orwell, David Foster Wallace, and so many others. Lopate says often novelists who dabble in personal essays are better, freer, in the personal essay than they are in the novel. He says this about Orwell and Baldwin--emphatically. It's delightful to come across someone so well-read and willing to make provocative statements!
(7) You don't need to wait five years to turn an event from your life into writing. Lopate says sometimes you're ready after a day. Sometimes you're ready after an hour....
(1) E.B. White is a little insufferable. Lopate says one of White's famous essays is "perfect," and "I hold that against White." Lopate suggests that maybe perfection is not something to strive for. He prefers the big, baggy monsters of James Baldwin's late career; he says these essays are "a mess" (and that's certainly a contrarian viewpoint)--and he says the reason he loves them is *precisely* their messiness. (I tried to write about "Charlotte's Web" over winter break, and I really did find myself growing irritated with the cute perfection of each individual chapter.)
(2) It's maybe OK to be not-nice. Lopate steels himself for tense interactions by telling himself, "I am not a nice person." Then, when the person who loathes him confirms this information for him, he is not-so-surprised. There's no unpleasant shock. Lopate really sees himself warts-and-all. It's disarming. He also suggests that there maybe isn't so much wisdom in the imperative to "stretch yourself"; he says the stuff that "settles in your brain pan" is, emphatically, the stuff "that will always settle in your brain pan." So he rejects the revered Henry James platitude, i.e. a writer should be "a person on whom nothing is lost."
(3) It's fine to "tell." Why this stricture against "telling"? Why must a writer always show, show, show? Lopate thinks it's nonsense. He says: Just make your summaries, your "telling," as concise and stylish as you can.
(4) There's actually no way to avoid offending people when you write personal essays. Lopate rejects the Janet Malcolm stridency: "What a writer does is obviously, blatantly, always indefensible." And he rejects Joan Didion's pronouncement: "A writer is a stealth-bully." But he does say that you're going to piss people off, and the people you piss off will often be the people you do not at all anticipate pissing off. (In other words, weirdly, you might piss off the people whom you describe in a clearly flattering light. People are people. People are strange.) Lopate observes this, and then he shrugs. There's something wonderfully bracing about this common sense.
(5) You actually shouldn't write about your obsessions. Lopate says that obsessions appear far more often in fiction than in non-fiction. (Think of Brian de Palma and Hitchcock.) Lopate says that a bona fide obsession, in actual life, is often sort of a boring thing to dramatize. He says: Don't write about your obsessions. Write about what makes you curious. It's a valuable distinction.
(6) Personal essays are not inferior to novels or poems. There's a stigma having to do with the personal essay, but it's a genre that has nurtured Montaigne, Emerson, Baldwin, Didion, Hazlitt, Joyce Carol Oates, George Orwell, David Foster Wallace, and so many others. Lopate says often novelists who dabble in personal essays are better, freer, in the personal essay than they are in the novel. He says this about Orwell and Baldwin--emphatically. It's delightful to come across someone so well-read and willing to make provocative statements!
(7) You don't need to wait five years to turn an event from your life into writing. Lopate says sometimes you're ready after a day. Sometimes you're ready after an hour....
Comments
Post a Comment