I Say, Essays, Old Chap

I spent most of this day tethered to a keyboard while humping over a long essay due this Wednesday, yearning to read the essays in today’s Times recommended in an essay on Beatrice, which is, since you asked, the best literary reading around. I did take a moment during my morning cuppa to read Frank Rich, who nearly made me blubber with joy, he was so good today. (Brian Williams “is eager to hunt down an audience, not a story”–pow, Alice, right in the kisser!)

So I was surprised to learn that Michael McGrorty thinks no one reads or writes essays. It’s a colorful argument, but ultimately unconvincing; I can’t walk two feet without tripping over a good essay. Literally, because I’ve been scattering this semester’s readings around the house while I concentrate on my final class assignment. My house is three feet deep in the stuff; I am daunted, cowed, humiliated, and ultimately challenged by the presence of all these great essays. (For that matter, does anyone drink castor oil any more?)

Sure, in my classes we’ve read many older essays, such as E.B. White’s “Death of a Pig,” which I let myself re-read when I’ve been especially good, but we’ve also read very recent essays such as “The Debacle,” a strapping piece by Francine du Plessix Gray that originally appeared in The American Scholar. “The Debacle” is about World War II, France, a small child, and her mother, and it’s really, really good. It was republished in Best American Essays 2003, which I would tell you more about except right now it’s under a sleeping cat on my bed, and it too is very, very good (the book, not the cat; although the cat is pretty good too, as cats go, when she’s not scratching the couch).

After you finish BAE, as we call it in The Program, you can pick up BAE 2004, or even go back and read earlier compilations. I see them lined up on the shelves at the Palo Alto library, taunting me to check them out. Four more days, and I will. And I’ll give you more recommendations for good essays, if you’re interested, and recommend mainstream magazines that carry essays, and if you’re realio trulio interested, I’ll even more about the state of the state of the essay. Who knows but you might decide to make a collection of essays a book club choice one month, and start by having members take a straw poll about which essays most resonated with them. Or maybe you will declare it Annual Essay Day in your library, and make an enticing display of your yummiest essay resources. Or you will even write an essay. It could happen.

I say, we say, we all hail, the essay!