Class 14 - More on the literary essay

Reflections on Ellen Wayland-Smith

We’re going to start by going straight into groups. Discuss the following:

1. What did you enjoy about the Ellen-Wayland Smith piece (think about both form and content)
2. What are the big themes she is exploring?
3. What are the stories she is telling?
4. To what extent does the essay depart from the “rules” we talked about last time?
5. How does Wayland-Smith structure her essay?

We’ll feed back after the break.

A Little History of the Literary Essay

We did some exorcism last time to try and shake off the idea that essays are necessarily the same as academic essays.

But to get past this idea of the scholarly or academic essay, let’s look at a bit of history. The term ‘essay’ in English comes from the French, Essais. And the great originator of the essay form in French was the philosopher and writer Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592).

Montaigne’s collected essays fill a substantial volume. And you might think that a bunch of essays written in the sixteenth century would be a bit of a slog to read through, but nothing could be further from the truth. Montaigne was one of those writers who was interested in everything. He wrote about prognostication and death and cowardice. He wrote about the new world, and took a sceptical view of French culture as it might be seen by the indigenous peoples of America. He wrote about friendship and idleness. He wrote about sleep and dreams. He wrote about the sense of smell, and the nature of prayer, and inequality, and malingering, and the art of conversation. And in all these topics, he managed to blend his wide reading, his awareness of the world around him, and his own personal experience. And these essays are marked by all kinds of sudden shifts of perspective, or flashes of insight (famously, Montaigne asked “When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her?”).

Montaigne chose the name “Essays” (Essais, in French) for this collection of writings. The term comes from a root in Latin meaning “to weigh” or “to test.” So Montaigne was weighing up or testing ideas. These were not writings where he was setting out his final views on things. They were experimental forms of writing. They were ways of trying out ideas. In English, the idea of writing Essays was taken up by the philosopher Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626), himself an admirer of Montaigne.

But if we see an essay as a piece of writing that tries out or tests ideas, that is inherently experimental, then we can see that as a form of writing, it doesn’t just go back to Montaigne. Instead, writing like this has existed in many different literary cultures - from Rome to China, Korea and 10th century Japan, where Sei Shonagon wrote her famous collection of essays, The Pillow Book.

An essay is simply a piece of writing where the writer is trying out ideas, and paying attention to the world, in an attempt to make sense of life, or of one aspect of their life. An essay is a laboratory for testing out new possibilities.

The Host’s Eye, The Guest’s Eye

We talked last time about the essay as a bridging form, in that it moves between subjective and objective poles. Let’s use a metaphor to make sense of this. In Chinese the word for “subjective” is zhuguan, which means “the view of the host” (this term originally entered Chinese from Japanese, where it was coined as a way of translating terms from Western philosophical traditions). Conversely, the word for “objective” is keguan, which means “the view of the guest.”

This is an interesting way to think about objectivity and subjectivity. When it comes to writing about our own subjective experience, it is as if we are showing the reader around the place where we live. We are hosting them, inviting them in, asking them to make themselves at home. And there’s an element of being in control here, but the host’s-eye view has disadvantages. The sheer familiarity of your own life can make you overlook things. Being constantly in control can mean that you are never surprised by anything.

The opposite is true of the guest’s-eye view. As a guest, you don’t have quite the same control that you have as a host: the world you find yourself in is not fully your own world. For this reason, as a guest you may find yourself to be more alert, more vigilant, paying closer attention to things. There’s a Kazakh proverb that says ‘A guest sits briefly, but notices a lot.’ As a guest somewhere, you need to be on your guard, more fully attentive to the world you find yourself in. Who has the most complete or accurate view? Host or guest? The answer is neither. The complete story is found by putting together both the subjective and the objective views, the view of the host and the view of the guest.

So what does all this have to do with writing creative nonfiction? This metaphor is useful, because it can help us navigate our way to more interesting writing. When are we playing the host in our writing, taking charge of things, showing the reader around? And when are we playing the guest, sitting attentively and noticing a lot? Later in this pathway, we’ll be exploring the essay as an art that moves between these two perspectives, but for now, try this short exercise about hosts and guests. In this exercise, you will be making what is familiar unfamiliar, imagining yourself as a guest somewhere that is familiar to you.

In the Streets of Sofia

Here’s an example from a class that I was teaching in the city of Sofia in Bulgaria. I asked students to make notes about things that annoyed them: because where there is irritation there is energy, and where there is energy, then you can write. One student from Italy had an idea, but was worried it was too trivial to write about. What annoyed her about Sofia, she said, was that the pavements were so uneven it was hard to navigate the streets: there were always potholes, and weird bits of street furniture in the way. So she walked around town staring at her feet all day. So that was the objective, external pole of her essay.

Then we asked her why this was so annoying, and she said, ‘Well, my grandmother always told me that a woman should walk down the street with pride. She should have her back straight, and look straight ahead.’ In this way, she made a connection between walking the streets of Sofia, and her memories of her grandmother. And here she had the seeds of a beautiful essay: about walking down a street in Sofia; about her memories of her grandmother; but also about gender and pride and self worth, about differences between cultures and generations. Here there was a rich cauldron of themes to explore. And how better to explore them than by writing an essay?

Subjectively, the writer was inviting us into her world, the world of her grandmother, her experience in the streets of Sofia. But objectively, she was talking about everything from urban architecture to gender and how gender expectations are learned as a part of how we hold our body, how we present ourselves in everyday life.

Sketching out an essay

Let’s try to put together some ideas for a possible essay. We can start with the subjective pole. This could be:

• Something you experience daily
• Something that annoys you
• A recurrent memory
• Something you can’t stop thinking about
• Something you are always puzzled by
• Something your mind always catches on.

Write this thing down. This is what you want to explore through your essay. Make a few notes about this thing and why it preoccupies you. Take about five minutes.

Now pair up with a writer friend, and talk about:

• What this concern or preoccupation is (this is the ‘objective’ pole of your essay).
• Why it matters to you (this is the ‘subjective’ pole)

When you have all done this, it is time to start thinking about how to you could start to think . As you write, keep the sense of personal communication. Remember how easily in speech, you moved between telling stories, making arguments, pointing things out, adding asides and afterthoughts. Keep this fluidity in the writing. If you get struck, recall the energy of the discussion: think about how you talked with your fellow-writer about your subject.

Remember—the best essays are rooted in a distinctive voice, and in the liveliness and creativity of face-to-face speech. Remember that creative nonfiction is TRUE STORIES, WELL-TOLD. So stories should be at the heart of creative nonfiction writing. But one thing to remember at creative nonfiction essays is that you don’t have to just tell stories. You can cross between storytelling, discussion, digression, and many other forms of communication.

Keep your notes for next time. They may form the seed of an idea for your final piece.

Homework - Pathologies

For your homework, I’m going to get you to read Kathleen Jamie’s Pathologies. It’s a long piece, but also beautiful. When you have read the essay, upload some brief reflections to Canvas. Next time, we’re going to talk about structure!