The Best American Essays 2010
In 1571, Frenchman Michel de Montaigne retired from public life, retreated to his library, and began a series of writings in which he mused in the first person on everything from dinner to death, fashion to philosophy, literature to the human thumb. That鈥檚 how the personal essay was born, as Jane Kramer reminds readers in her own essay on Montaigne published in The New Yorker.
It鈥檚 one of 21 essays reprinted in The Best American Essays 2010, an annual anthology of the finest essays written for American periodicals. Each selection, in its own way, aspires to the standard that Kramer credits Montaigne with setting centuries ago, offering readers 鈥渢he autobiography of a mind.鈥�
Veteran fans of 鈥淭he Best American Essays鈥� series, which has been going a quarter of a century, already know the format. This year鈥檚 guest editor is Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens, like many readers, mentions that he first encountered the essay in its most boring of forms 鈥� as one of those dreary compositions assigned in grade school. But Hitchens quickly adds that the very word 鈥渆ssay鈥� has the power to thrill, suggesting as it does a trial or experiment.
The essays in this year鈥檚 anthology answer that call to intellectual daring, and they also capitalize on the essay鈥檚 chief virtue: variety.
Elif Batuman retraces the ground where a great Russian writer spent his last days in 鈥淭he Murder of Leo Tolstoy.鈥� Brian Doyle offers a wry look at the reasons people divorce in 鈥淚rreconcilable Dissonance.鈥� Phillip Lopate, both a great essayist and a scholar of the form, reflects on his neighborhood in 鈥�Brooklyn the Unknowable.鈥� Steven Pinker follows Montaigne鈥檚 tradition of inspired navel-gazing by considering his own genetics in 鈥淢y Genome, My Self.鈥�
鈥淭he Best American Essays鈥� also includes a long list of runners-up who didn鈥檛 make the final cut, a helpful guide to further reading.
Any anthology, however large, naturally inspires the reader to notice what鈥檚 left out. This year鈥檚 selections sprouted mostly from urban landscapes, it seems, and curiously absent are pieces from America鈥檚 great nature writers, such as Edward Hoagland, Scott Russell Sanders, and Kathleen Dean Moore.
A fair number of the essays in this year鈥檚 鈥淏est American Essays鈥� are about other essayists. Besides Montaigne and George Orwell, the late William F. Buckley Jr. is remembered in a moving reminiscence by Garry Wills. Ian McEwan鈥檚 clear-eyed appraisal of John Updike seems like the kind of prose that Updike, an exemplar of clarity in his own essays, would have admired.
All of this shoptalk in 鈥淏est American Essays 2010鈥� can seem a little self-referential, like one of those closed literary communities in which modern poets spend so much of their time writing about other poets.
But the evocations of Updike, Buckley, and company in 鈥淏est American Essays鈥� are a useful reminder that today鈥檚 practicing essayists hail from a genre with a long and distinguished tradition.
Beyond its hallowed past, is there a future for the personal essay?
In his introduction, Hitchens notes with regret that many of the magazines that publish great essays are now under economic stress. In his foreword, series editor Robert Atwan also acknowledges the changing publishing climate, but finds the prospects for the essay 鈥渧ery encouraging.鈥�
Atwan has reason to be hopeful. In the 1950s, Clifton Fadiman predicted with regret that the personal essay was on the way out. In the 1980s, Lopate expressed similar worries over his genre of choice in a New York Times piece that queried, 鈥淲hat Happened to the Personal Essay?鈥�
Lopate鈥檚 presence in this year鈥檚 anthology is a nice reminder that despite such chronic anxieties about its health, the essay seems just fine. Collectively, Lopate and his fellow contributors to 鈥淭he Best American Essays 2010鈥� seem to affirm Virginia Woolf鈥檚 wise admonition: 鈥淭he essay is alive; There is no reason to despair.鈥�
Danny Heitman is a columnist for The Baton Rouge Advocate and the author of 鈥淎 Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House.鈥�
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