THOUGHTS ABOUT THE PERSONAL ESSAY
The personal essay demands that we jump in with both feet, yelling for all we’re worth. It doesn’t reward authorial discretion, self-effacement, the arts that conceal art. Nor does it reward any of the civic virtues: tact; polish; reasonableness; noble, throat-catching sentiment; correct posture. There are, to be sure, many such writers, and they do very well for themselves, but I have to say they make me see red. I want to reach in and shake them by the jowls until their wisdom and smoothness and certainty crack wide open. All this parading on the high road has nothing to do with the real possibility of the personal essay, which is to catch oneself in the act of being human. That means a willingness to surrender for a time our pose of unshakable rectitude, and to admit that we are, despite our best intentions, subject to all manner of doubt and weakness and foolish wanting. It requires self-awareness without self-importance, moral rigor without priggishness, and the courage to hang it all on the line. It’s a hard thing to do. By Tobias Wolff
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