As challenging as it often is, being a writer (not a Writer)
is a rewarding calling. Professionally, much of a lawyer’s work
consists of writing. This sometimes creates mountains of god-awful legal prose, but it can be done better—much better. Demand letters and briefs are especially fun
challenges, and I enjoyed refining my skills as a legal writer. In addition,
from my days as a Young Republican essayist (we’re talking junior high-- gimme a break!)
writing about the value of the two-party system (good for second place among three
contenders), I've felt compelled to say things on paper. After years of journals
(C: “Why do you keep these? What are you going to do with them?” A: “Don’t
know, except keep them”) and letters to congressional representatives and
newspaper editors, I came upon blogging.
I wish that I could say something profound and insightful
about why I blog, but the plain truth is I sincerely believe that everyone should
experience the value and pleasure of knowing my opinions about this or that. It’s
just another form of narcissism, I fear, but to keep my head from getting too
big, I occasionally look at the number of persons who read my posts and then
rest my worry that the circle of those who know of my ranting hasn’t much
expanded beyond those on whom I would have inflicted it anyway.
So why did I just read two books on the essay and Virginia
Woolf’s classic essay “A Room of One’s Own”? Well, with more time on my hands
than in the past, with a new position that involves teaching how to write well,
and with thoughts of future ventures, refining my writing seems the thing to do
as a practical matter. Then, too, there is this pretension that maybe some blog
post might prove worthy of the shadow of those who made the essay an intriguing
and vital part of our literature.
Phillip Lopate and Carl Klaus are two of the best-known
scholars of the essay, and both practice the art that they teach, which makes
reading their works a double-treat. Lopate’s book, To Show and To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction, which I read
first, had me with the title. Well, I love to tell people things: how else will
they receive the benefit of my knowledge and wisdom? Further, just “showing”
can hide the forest for the trees. But the book does more than puncture a hole
in the current wisdom. Instead, Lopate reviews the art of the essay from the
time of its founding Aeneas, Montaigne, to the best of those writing today,
including himself and this very book. In writing about various issues that
essayists have addressed from the time of Montaigne to the present, Lopate—in essay
chapters—discusses the many variations and challenges that have been raised and
addressed by the essay and “literary nonfiction” in general. 
Klaus’s book, The
Made-Up Self: Impersonation in the Personal Essay addresses one of the
ongoing challenges presented by the essay from Montaigne down to his own
efforts. Quoting Virginia Woolf’s aphorism: “Never to be yourself, and yet
always”, Klaus, starting from the fountainhead (Montaigne, of course), explores
the different ways that the self is presented and sometimes hidden by the
essayist. By concentrating on the personal essay, one that drags you in because
it’s written in the first-person and because you have a sense of the someone
who’s written this—of someone having
lived this—you have the challenges of wondering what has been left in and what
left out. It’s an opportunity to look into the life and experiences and
observations of another, and when well written, it proves delightful, or at
least intriguing.
In fact, while I greatly appreciated Klaus’s knowledgeable
and insightful consideration of Montaigne, Lamb, Woolf, E.B. White, and Orwell,
among others, it’s his own personal reflections in the final chapter that
provided me with the most pleasure and insight. Klaus reports that in the
mid-1990s he decided to write an entry each day for the weather, about 500
words. And a very important fact: he lives in Iowa City, where he taught at the
University since the 1960s. * Now, such an idea might fall flat here in
Rajasthan (typical entries: hot and dry, very hot and dry, extremely hot and
dry), but in Iowa, he has subject-matter that changes, sometimes violently. He set
out to describe “what it looked like and felt like each day on my hillside lot
in Iowa City—a place where I'd spent twenty-five years witnessing the flow (and
sometimes the clash) of arctic- and gulf-born weather systems.” This seemingly
mundane task (discouraged by some colleagues) becomes a larger meditation
on change and life, as concerns for the health of his wife and his pets, among
other things, impinge upon a simple weather report. He finds himself, like Iowa
weather, changing at times unexpectedly and uncertainly. So with the self and
its concerns.
Finally, between these two works, I read Virginia Woolf’s “A
Room of One’s Own”, and I greatly enjoyed my time with it. In addressing women
and fiction as a given theme, Wolf meanders through the centuries to address the
topic, weaving her way through history as if providing a leisurely pointed tour
of the past, and in particular, the burdens and challenges endured by women who wanted to write . Careful
phrasing, an authoritative but friendly voice, and a careful choice of topics
made this a very enjoyable read. A tract of feminism, and a fine one, yes; but its
pleasure proves much greater than that of a political tract or polemic. It’s a
tour, and one to savor, as if in the company of a gifted docent.
* I don’t believe that I’ve ever met Mr. Klaus. I know that
I didn’t take a class from him (if only I knew), but he gives a shout out to
Jackie Blank, our friend and realtor at the beginning of the book, so that
provided some extra fun in reading this.
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